Effective Reddit SEO: How to get permanent do-follow backlinks from Reddit

Reddit can prove to be an effective distribution channel for your business, if you implement the right strategy. Ranking as one of the largest and most frequented websites online, Reddit is an entirely different category when it comes to user behavior and community building, compared to more traditional social media channels. Further down, we’re going to take a look at how we can best utilize Reddit as part of our off-site SEO strategy.

If you post a link on Reddit, chances are that it will get deleted soon. Fighting spam on the platform is paramount for a flawless user experience; however there has been an increasing amount of advertisements and paid promotions in the form of organic posts lately. Reddit users tend to react negatively to plain promotional tactics, so simply posting your website in an irrelevant thread might backfire and hurt your brand. With that being said, let’s move on to how you can build an effective marketing strategy using Reddit as a distribution channel:

Strategy #1: Community Posts

• Find niche communities

Reddit works in clusters of communities, so the more you narrow down your niche, the more targeted your audience will become.

• Keep it relevant

You want to make sure that the link you’re posting is relevant to the thread’s content and will provide value to the discussion. 

• Respect the rules

Most communities have their own separate rules, on top of the sitewide enforced community guidelines. Make sure that you read those thoroughly (usually located on the right sidebar of each community), so you’re not infringing on the community’s rules.

• Be straightforward

Nothing wrong with promoting your website/business/startup when it’s relevant! Don’t try to “trick” users with fake stories or shady promotional tactics just to get more visibility or sales.Build reputation

Reddit has an inner points system called “karma”, which basically determines post/comment visibility and user trustworthiness. The more karma your post/comment gets = the higher it ranks = the more visibility you get. 

Strategy #2: Profile Posts

You simply go to your profile page and click on “New Post” on the right sidebar. You need to utilize the new Reddit interface to be able to access profile posts.

While Reddit might appear alien-looking (pun intended) and non-relevant for online businesses, it simply takes some time to get used to the clunky UI and community behavior, but once you get past the initial weirdness, it can prove to be an efficient marketing channel. So, while we discussed using Reddit as a marketing channel, what about the SEO benefits you obtain when posting your link on Reddit?

Sadly, it’s a no-follow link enforced sitewide on threads. And while at Outrank.Website we do acknowledge the benefits of no-follow backlinks, we wanted to see if it was possible to obtain a do-follow backlink from Reddit that will not go down. 

Spoiler alert: We did it, Reddit! 

Here’s how you can also create a do-follow backlink on Reddit that won’t get deleted, completely free of charge:

First, you need to create a new community (called “subreddit”) by navigating to the front page, scrolling down a bit, then you will see on the right side a button “Create a community”

Fill in the information for your new community. While there is no active moderation of private communities, it’s still a good idea to keep the community you’re creating relevant to your brand or industry.

Once you’ve completed the first step, you will get redirected to your new subreddit. If you’re using the new Reddit interface, you need to continue with the next few steps to add your link to your subreddit:

• Click on the “Customize Appearance” button on the right sidebar

• Click on “Sidebar Widgets”

• Click on “Add Widget”

• Enter the title of your section. In this case, I named the new sidebar widget “Resources” then added the link to my website in the content box. 

NOTE: Reddit uses special markdown formatting for displaying links. Please use the following format to display your link on the new widget:

As you can see, we successfully created a do-follow backlink to our website from Reddit.

And best of all, you can see the power of these links as rated by Moz, with a PA of 56 and DA of 91. 

-But wait, there’s more!

Yes, that’s right. Once we got the first do-follow backlink to our website from Reddit, there’s another equally powerful do-follow backlink that we can claim from the same property. 

• Navigate to old.reddit.com/r/YOURCOMMUNITY (obviously replace YOURCOMMUNITY with your subreddit’s name)

• On the right sidebar, under the “Moderation Tools” section, click on “subreddit settings”

• Fill in your information on the “sidebar” section (same as before, you will need to use Reddit’s native markdown to link to your website and choose the anchor)

And done. As you can see from Moz, the old.reddit.com dofollow link is rated as having a PA of 52 as well as a DA of 91. 

Congrats! Now your website has two powerful do-follow backlinks from Reddit that will not get deleted. 

Update: The do-follow link got indexed in less than a week.