How to Create Backlinks for YouTube Video

By Sabahat Ali – Link building expert since 2009 – 668+ clients served

Learn the different ways to create relevant links to your YouTube videos and channel.

I promise to keep this blog post straightforward. Equally, knowing why you need backlinks for your YouTube videos is crucial.

Let’s discuss that first.

Why Should You Add Backlinks to Your YouTube Videos?

1. Boost your ranking
2. Improve your backlink profile
3. Generate more leads and sales
4. Improve your brand awareness and credibility
5. Increase your website’s traffic
6. Diversify your marketing
7. Gain more referral traffic

Boost Your Ranking

As you may already know, high domain authority contributes to increased website ranking.

But that’s not limited to Google search results. It also applies to YouTube. How?

When you receive backlinks from a high-authority website to your YouTube video, your page’s authority rating increases. Ultimately, your ranking on search engine result pages will also increase.

This may influence search engines to index your page and rank it over your competitor’s pages because of its value.

Additionally, since YouTube itself is a search engine, the more backlinks you get for your YouTube video, the more your chances of getting ranked first.

This is because YouTube will see these quality backlinks as a vote of confidence for your content.

Increase Your Views and Engagement

Adding backlinks to your YouTube video does much more than boost your search engine ranking chances.

It, in fact, enhances the views and engagement that your video gets.

This means that the more backlinks you add to your YouTube video content, the higher your page’s visibility to your target audience and, ultimately, the number of engagements you will gain.

This is because:

• There’s a higher chance of engagement.
• They can like, comment, or share your content for further visibility and engagement.
• Finally, even if they all will not click on your link, there is still plenty to gain. The exposure will still be crucial.

Generate More Leads and Sales

Check this fact:

According to a Google survey, 68% of buyers make purchasing decisions using YouTube videos as a guide.

Wonder why this is so?

It’s simple – People trust the video content on YouTube.

Plus, YouTube is the third largest search engine aside from Google search and Google image search.

And as a result, there’s a high possibility for conversion.

Furthermore, you will boost trustworthiness and authority by including quality backlinks to your video content.

Then, customers can perform what they want on your YouTube channel, such as purchasing or subscribing to it, thereby raising your conversion rate.

Therefore, adding quality backlinks to your YouTube video can help you enhance your search visibility, drive more people to your page, and ultimately boost your revenue.

Improve Your Brand Awareness and Credibility

By directing viewers, both old and new, to your page, YouTube backlinks contribute to your brand awareness.

This happens through backlinks, expanding your reach by exposing your brand to a larger audience and leading people to your YouTube video content.

Additionally, linking your website to your YouTube channel through backlinks can help search engines know they are the same brand. This can increase your online discoverability and position you to rank higher on search engine results pages.

In addition, adding quality backlinks to your YouTube video can increase the value and trustworthiness of your page.

Once people know your brand, they return because they have confidence in your content.

Increase Your Website’s Traffic

As explained earlier, adding backlinks to your YouTube video will allow a new audience to discover your brand. And it gets better.

When your YouTube videos have more quality backlinks, they appear more authoritative to search engines, leading to higher search ranks and more organic visitors.

Also, YouTube video links are shown more prominently than other content. Hence, you have greater odds of drawing a viewer’s interest.

Your page visitors can be converted to a return audience. And the wider your audience becomes, the higher your website’s traffic.

Diversify Your Marketing

Let’s picture it this way:

When you add backlinks to your YouTube video, probably from your website. You attract the same audience from your website to your YouTube video content.

As a result, you can build a cross-platform audience for your brand.

That is, you can create a unified customer experience across your pages.

With this approach, you can easily connect your audience from your video page to your product or sales page, which may directly influence your conversation, traffic, or general website growth.

Furthermore, your website may continue to receive a lot of higher organic search traffic if it links to your YouTube video, keeping your online influence intact.

Gain More Referral Traffic

Besides the importance of adding backlinks to your video, YouTube backlinks will also increase your referral traffic.

In addition to helping your SEO (Search Engine Optimization), adding backlinks to your YouTube video can bring in valuable referral traffic and prospective buyers by directing them to your content, where they can be encouraged to watch and engage with it.

Credible websites that link to your YouTube video act as a vote of confidence for viewers that your content contains valuable information. Interested users can then click on your backlink, directing them to your site.

Referral traffic will increase depending on the quantity of your backlinks, and you will have a better chance of attracting relevant visitors who are more likely to convert to leads or sales.

That said, let’s dive into the real reason you’re here.

10 Different Ways to Add Backlinks to Your YouTube Video

1. Embed YouTube videos to your content
2. Web 2.0 sites
3. Pinterest video pins
4. YouTube info cards
5. Guest vlog for your YouTube channel
6. Guest features on webinars
7. Broken link building
8. Competitor analysis
9. Targeted outreach
10. Share on social media

Embed YouTube Videos to Your Content

This strategy is one of my favorites for building links to YouTube videos. And I’ve seen other popular brands use it — Ahrefs is an example.

You’ll often see short how-to videos embedded on Ahrefs posts like this:

Why? What is the big deal about embeds?

Video embeds are practical, straightforward, and flexible. Here is the breakdown:

• Adding videos to your articles enriches them. This way, you’ll satisfy the needs of different information seekers.

Ultimately, you’ll retain your users’ attention and increase conversion and sales.

• Quality videos are typically heavy files that will dent your page speed. On the other hand, embeds are links and won’t slow your pages.
• You can embed into your content [published on your website], guest blogs, and new or old articles.

That said, let’s see how embeds are a link building strategy.

📌 How does this strategy build backlinks?

Though invisible to readers [or visitors], embeds are backlinks. And like all backlinks, they [embeds] send traffic [and ranking juice] from your content to your videos and channel.

Web 2.0 Sites

This strategy still works around embeds. In fact, it is like guest posting but with zero restrictions or pitching. How so?

• Web 2.0s are sites like Medium and Tumblr where you get to share content for free — without pitching
• Often, these sites have incredible traffic. Some even curate the best pieces and send them as emails to users like this:

• Ultimately, your content will get more views

But how does all that help your YouTube videos?

• First, create content around less-discussed angles to a famous/hot topic
• Let it rank
• Then, create a complementary YouTube video to the content
• The last phase is to embed the video on the content

And boom, you have a backlink from ranking content [from a high-traffic site] pointing to your YouTube video.

Pinterest Video Pins

This strategy is similar to posting on Web 2.0 sites. However, you won’t be embedding your YouTube videos here.

So, how does this work?

Before I answer that question, I’ll answer this: why Pinterest?

Like Google and YouTube, Pinterest is also a popular search engine. That aside, it is home to inspiration seekers [people who are patient and will click links as long as they are helpful].

📌 Now, how does link building for YouTube work using Pinterest?

• A typical Pinterest search result has a short description [similar to meta descriptions] that will tell searchers what to expect from a link.

• You can exploit the video descriptions by adding a link to your YouTube video.

Pro tip: don’t stop at adding links to your Pinterest pins. Build your account. Here is why:

The more followers and engagement on your account, the higher the chances of your video link being clicked.

YouTube Info Cards

This strategy is one of the several ways to build links with YouTube. IMO, it is the best method [compared with the likes of video end screens].

So, what YouTube cards?

If you recall, you’ll note that there are pop-ups when watching a YouTube video. Those things [interactive pop-ups] are called info cards.

That said, how do YouTube info cards help your backlink building process?

📌 how to Use YouTube info Cards to create backlinks

• For starters, know that info cards can link to an external website [restricted to members of the YouTube Partner Program], playlist, channel, and videos.
• I wouldn’t recommend linking to other creators’ videos — unless it is a link exchange. And I won’t advise you to do that.
• In other words, the best way [IMO] to use info cards is to send links from your high-traffic videos to less-watched videos.
• Also, use the cards to suggest playlists. And while you’re at it, consider creating videos to build topical authority.

In other words, create complementary videos and make them subsets of a parent topic.

Guest Vlog for Your YouTube Channel

Guest vlogging is a video alternative to guest posting/blogging. In other words, it means creating content [videos] on other people’s spaces [channels].

And like in guest posting, the idea here is to leverage the authority and popularity of others’ channels [through backlinks] to boost your assets.

📌 So, how does this strategy work?

• First, find influencers in your niche who are open to partnership. You can do that by joining communities and doing personal outreach.

You can also pay for specialized outreach services.

• Then, offer to create videos for the influencers in exchange for an info card pointing to your channel. The good news is that the traffic to your channel will benefit all your videos.
• In the end, you’ll get a backlink. If you did a stellar job, other influencers will likely seek you out for partnerships.

Wait, why not ask for a link to your video?

Influencers will hardly link back to a competing video on YouTube, but they might do so to a channel.

Guest Features on Webinars

This strategy works if you have already amassed a following in your niche. At that level, you’ll get pitches for partnerships — unlike when you’re the one pitching [in guest vlogging].

The best part is that you get to cherry-pick which influencers to partner with.

📌 So, how does this strategy lead to backlinks for your YouTube video?

• Guest features mean there will be questions for you. And often, the time is limited. Because of this, you can answer briefly and direct people to your YouTube videos.

The organizers will drop a link to the said videos live.

• Also, your channel link will be posted in the comments at the beginning and end of the webinars.
• Either way, you’ll contribute to a good cause and build backlinks to your YouTube channel and videos.

Broken Link Building

Broken link building is the same for YouTube [videos] or web [written content]. The only difference is the broken/dead link you’re targeting. How so?

Unlike “web,” broken link building for YouTube targets links to dead/missing videos.

How about the steps involved? How can you use broken link building to build backlinks for your YouTube videos?

Short answer: replicate the steps of regular broken link building.

Further reading: How to Do Broken Link Building

Competitor Analysis

Without competitor analysis, no link building [whether for YouTube or written content] is complete. It is a strategy that reveals competitors’ tactics. And so?

With knowledge of what works, you’ll save time and money chasing flashy tricks. Plus, you can use competitor analysis to steal your competitor links— provided your content is better.

So, how does this work?

• First, copy the URL of your competitor’s YouTube page/channel
• Go to Ahrefs > Site Explorer > input the channel URL
• Check the left tab for “backlinks” under “backlink profile.”
• Now, inspect the referring pages and find loops you can exploit for your videos and channel.

Related article: How to Find Competitors’ Backlinks

Targeted Outreach

This strategy is similar to blogger outreach. The only difference is that you will be reaching out specifically to YouTube influencers.

So, how does this help you build links to your YouTube videos?

• Like the name, targeted outreach means looking out for top voices [rising and established] in your niche. But it doesn’t stop there.
• You must study the influencers with the highest tendency to partner with others.
• Then, pitch your ideas and the benefits of collaboration.

Share on Social Media

The ultimate way to get backlinks to your YouTube videos is to share them on social media platforms — groups, personal stories, and communities. While at it, use relevant and viral hashtags to increase your chances of being discovered.

The best part: social shares work with all other strategies.

FAQs

What Are YouTube Backlinks?

In simple terms, YouTube backlinks are the links you get from YouTube. And there are 4 different forms.

Here are 4 types of youtube backlinks:

• Comment links
• End-screen links
• Info card links
• Profile backlinks
• Video description backlinks

Note that you can use any YouTube backlinks to boost your channel. How?

You can add links to your channel or video on another’s video. But ensure it is allowed.

End-screen, info card, and video description links can point to other videos in your channel or playlist.

The same thing applies to video description backlinks.

How Many Backlinks Can You Add to Your YouTube Video?

There is no limit, really. Add as many links to your backlinks as naturally and feasibly possible.

You may not need to build these links manually after your channel grows. They will come by themselves.

What Is the Best Way to Create YouTube Backlinks?

There is no one best strategy. But if you seek one that is easy to use, start with embeds like this:

Or this:

YouTube SEO: What Research Shows

Backlinko Study — 1.3 Million YouTube Results: Brian Dean analyzed 1.3 million YouTube search results and found that engagement metrics (comments, likes, shares) correlate strongly with higher rankings. Top-ranking videos had a median of 4x more comments than lower-ranking videos [Backlinko, 2025].

Thumbnail A/B Testing — 30% Higher CTR: Vireo Video ran 187 split tests on thumbnails and found an average 30% CTR increase after implementing winning variants. One test showed a 37% higher click-through rate with emotionally charged phrasing [Keyword Tool Dominator, 2026].

Key insight: Unlike Google search where backlinks are a top ranking factor, YouTube prioritizes watch time, CTR, and engagement. Backlinks help your YouTube videos rank in Google search, but on YouTube itself, viewer satisfaction is the primary signal. Build backlinks to get your video discovered in Google — then let engagement metrics do the ranking work on YouTube.

Summary

You can add backlinks to videos in several ways, from video embeds, info cards, guest vlogging, competitor analysis, and even guest features in webinars.

However, the means and link will only be sustainable if you prioritize value. This way, you’ll build relationships with other influencers in your niche, and creating backlinks to your YouTube videos will be a breeze.

For website SEO link building, see our 20-point checklist, pricing guide, and niche edits guide.