Understanding it
Serious link building starts from the pages you want to move up, then looks for sites where a link would make sense: industry media and blogs, partners, suppliers, trade associations, professional directories. Topical relevance matters more than link count.
Anchor text needs care. Practitioners recommend varying link text (brand name, URL, natural phrasing) and keeping exact-match anchors for a few strong links. An over-optimized profile looks artificial.
With answer engines, the logic broadens. A brand that is named on recognized sites in its field, even without a link, feeds what AI engines retain about it. This is where a mention, where the brand is named, differs from a citation, where it is named with a link to its source.
A concrete example
Illustrative example: a heat pump installer
A regional installer wants to rank for “heat pump installation” in its area. Rather than buying links on general sites, it publishes a guide to local subsidies, backed by official figures.
The guide is picked up by 2 regional news sites and by a building trade federation, which cite it with a link. The site earns on-topic links, and the brand is now associated with the subject on sources that AI engines consult.
The common mistake
Pointing every link at the sales page
Dozens of exact-match links to a single sales page form an artificial profile. Point links at your useful content and your homepage too, then pass that authority on to your commercial pages through internal linking.