6 Linkable Assets That Will Actually Get You High-Quality Backlinks
Quality backlinks require a ton of manual work. Or a big budget.
But what if there was a way to get them with ease? And sometimes, on autopilot.
Well, there is.
Brandmark created a free business name generator and it got them close to 40,000 backlinks.
That’s the power of a linkable asset.
While not all linkable assets are such a success, you probably want to learn more about them.
If you do, just keep reading.
What Is a Linkable Asset?
A linkable asset is a piece of content created to generate high-quality backlinks from other websites. It can take various formats, such as tools, unique studies, templates, checklists, etc.
Let’s look at a linkable asset example from HypeAuditor, an influencer marketing platform.
They published a table with the top 1,000 influencers in the world. You can add filters by country or industry. A click on “Free Report” takes you to a detailed breakdown of each influencer’s audience demographics, engagement metrics, and more.
The table is interesting and practical. And that’s why it has links from over 100 unique domains.
But it doesn’t stop there—this topic is so popular that you can find similar linkable assets on other sites, many of them having hundreds of valuable backlinks.
Since the data is dynamic, you can keep this linkable asset updated and get new links year after year.
Good Linkable Asset vs a Bad Linkable Asset: What’s the Difference?
What makes or breaks a linkable asset is quality.
A quality linkable asset is an asset to your audience by:
- Covering a relevant and timely topic
- Adding value to readers with well-researched and clear information
- Providing a unique perspective—say, through original data, a more convenient format, or interesting graphics.
Benefits of Creating Linkable Assets
So, what’s the value of creating linkable assets:
Get more backlinks: Linkable assets help you scale your link building efforts while using fewer resources. Once you create an asset and promote it, it has the potential to naturally generate links. Also, linkable assets simplify link acquisition for niches where it’s difficult to get backlinks.
Increase site authority: A site’s authority reflects its ability to rank well in organic search for topics in its niche. Receiving links from diverse domains helps build your site’s authority. Even better if these links are coming from websites in the same niche.
Improve search engine rankings: Backlinks carry link juice that helps pages rank higher in search. Use internal links to distribute the link juice from your linkable assets to your priority pages.
Drive more traffic: Getting higher positions in search results means your content will be exposed to more readers, usually leading to higher organic traffic.
Receive more referral traffic: The more links you’ve got from other websites, the higher the potential for referral traffic.
Expand brand awareness: Great linkable assets can get featured on prominent websites or receive multiple social shares, helping you promote your brand.
Build authority and trust: When other websites reference your content, it positions your brand as an authority on a topic. This helps you build trust with your audience.
6 Types Of Linkable Assets That Actually Work
Let’s explore the most popular types of linkable assets and understand how and why they work great for link acquisition.
Here’s what we’ll be looking at:
- Free tools and calculators
- Listicles of people, software, or companies
- Unique studies or research
- Statistics and trends
- Infographics and map graphics
- Templates and checklists
1. Free Tools and Calculators
Free tools and calculators are some of the most successful types of linkable assets because they’re useful and typically provide a quick solution to a common problem in your niche.
Andy Crestodina, co-founder of award-winning digital marketing agency Orbit Media, says, “Tools are the best linkable assets, and new original research is the second best. This campaign URL builder tool is a good example. Just through basic promotion, it's attracted 100+ links from dozens of domains.”
Here’s another tool example—an Etsy fee calculator.
Simply enter a few details (such as your selling price and cost to produce the product) and see your profit along with a breakdown of all fees. You can also play around with the calculator to find out how changing the price affects your earnings.
Practical, right?
It comes as no surprise that this calculator has backlinks from over 30 unique domains.
But there are caveats.
To get one of these tools up and running, you’d need some developer help or experience.
And just because you’ve created a great tool, that doesn’t mean it will magically attract links. You need to “introduce” it to the right audience by:
- Reaching out to sites that are already covering the problem your tool solves
- Pitching your tool to be added to relevant tool roundups
- Promoting it through paid and organic social media posts.
2. Listicles of People, Software, or Companies
See, listicles work. I’ve seen so many examples of it.
Here’s a list of 160+ AI tools compiled by Synthesia. It has over 300 backlinks.
Articles that list different people, tools, or companies are relatively easy to create and have the potential to receive links and social shares.
To make your list, you can use different tools and sources:
- Social media platforms: LinkedIn, X, YouTube
- Review websites: G2, Capterra, Trustpilot
- AI tools: ChatGPT, Perplexity AI, Gemini
Here I’ll show you how to get a list of ideas in ChatGPT.
Use a variation of this prompt: “What are the [modifier] [category] in [location] in [time period]?”
It can give you a question such as “What are the best wholesale clothing suppliers in Europe in 2024?”
If you want to create a large list, you can ask ChatGPT for more ideas.
Next, cross-check the information. For example, if you’re making a list of software tools, you can check the ratings on software review sites. Or, if you’re making a list of people, you can review their social media profiles.
To promote the list, reach out to the people or companies you’ve featured and suggest they share the article with their audience. This approach can help you get backlinks, social shares, newsletter mentions, and more.
4. Unique Studies or Research
Unique studies and research provide readers with fresh insights they wouldn’t have otherwise. Findings are usually unexpected or thought-provoking, which means many people will discuss or reference them.
Content creators often use studies and research to support claims and build trust with their audience.
For instance, in an article about the fast-fashion company Shein, The Atlantic references a report on the state of fashion in 2024.
That’s only one of over 5,000 backlinks citing this report.
Management consulting firm McKinsey & Company publishes similar yearly reports for various industries. These reports compare an industry’s growth to previous years and outline the biggest trends that will define the next year.
But beware, collecting unique data takes a lot of time, effort (and sometimes budget).
So, how do you go about creating a unique study?
First, you need to choose a topic your audience cares about.
A great way to do this is to conduct 1:1 customer interviews. These will help you understand what your audience wants to learn and what information they’re lacking but would love to have.
Alternatively, you can get insights by digging into relevant threads on Reddit. Find out what your potential customers or people in your industry are talking about.
Note that you don’t necessarily need a topic no one has covered before. You can also collect fresh data to replace an existing outdated report. This approach is easier because:
- You can set realistic expectations about the backlinks you can get from every topic and prioritize the ones that have higher potential.
- You can “steal” the backlinks leading to the old study by reaching out to the same websites and offering them recent data.
Next, use one of these methods to collect unique data:
- Conduct a survey by asking questions to a targeted audience (recommended approach).
- Anonymize and analyze existing customer data you’re collecting as a business.
- Create a case study based on your business experience or a client story.
- Analyze publicly available data on Google Trends, Google Maps reviews, etc.
Finally, find ranking articles on topics related to your study and send emails to editors sharing your findings.
For example, if you had to promote the state of fashion report above, you can search for articles ranking for keywords such as:
- fast fashion facts
- sustainable fashion facts
- fashion market research
- problems in the fashion industry
- create fashion brand
And then send content managers an email like this:
Another promotion idea is to contact journalists and tell them about your study. The state of fashion report will surely interest journalists who’re writing about style and fashion.
4. Statistics and Trends
Similar to unique research, statistics and trends content is great at attracting links. But it doesn’t necessarily need to be unique. You can create a statistics or trends piece based on existing third-party data just by reframing, organizing, and showcasing it differently.
That’s why this is one of the easiest and most cost-effective linkable assets you can create.
Great, right?
Not always. Because statistical articles are so easy to put together (you can literally do them with ChatGPT), they’re often low-quality. A lot of 2025 statistical articles cite outdated numbers and fail to credit the original data sources. Try to avoid that with in-depth research and strict quality control.
Start by choosing a topic that’s relevant to your customers.
From my work at Opinion Stage, a quiz and poll creation tool, I know that contests are one of our product's main use cases. You can create a list of songs, images, or videos and ask your audience to vote for the contest winner.
So, I created a contest statistics article combining some existing data with our own research. I also used graphs and charts to make the data easier to understand.
The result?
Over 20 backlinks from media and other business websites.
Image source: https://www.opinionstage.com/blog/contest-giveaway-statistics/
Here’s another example from wedding venue finder Breezit: it shows the trends in the Orange County pricing of different wedding halls by month. They’ve created an interactive graph where users can choose filters and compare data at a glance.
Once you have the linkable asset, you can manually build some links to it to get it ranking.
From there, you’re very likely to start generating backlinks on autopilot.
Your target keyword will determine how easy it’s to rank on the first page and how many links you consistently get. Keywords with a high search volume are often more competitive but also have a higher potential to generate links.
Note that you'll need to update your statistical or trends page periodically to keep it relevant. In most cases, once a year is enough.
5. Infographics and Map Graphics
Infographics typically use images and charts to simplify complex data and make it more engaging for the reader. They’re also highly shareable, making them great linkable assets.
Here’s an example—an infographic on how to read food nutrition labels.
This infographic received around 250 links, including links from media, healthcare technology, and educational institutions’ websites.
But why did this infographic work so well?
It features useful information that conscious consumers want to know. The visual also works as a great reference point for articles about diet and lifestyle.
There’s also another variant of infographic assets—map graphics.
Maps work wonders as linkable content because they share unique findings about different locations. This means you can promote your map with targeted outreach to journalists working for local media websites.
Bromleys, an online store selling art supplies, created a series of maps showing the most searched-for artists in every country. The brand chose a topic that would resonate with its target audience of art professionals and enthusiasts.
They used Google Keyword Planner, a free tool, to gather data on searches by country. This shows that you can create successful linkable content even on a budget.
What was the impact of this campaign?
It received roughly 200 backlinks and over 2,500 social media shares.
I spoke to Joe Robison on how to generate ideas for infographics and map graphics. His agency, Green Flag Digital, has successfully landed mentions in the NY Times, Lonely Planet, and Yahoo through building linkable assets for clients.
He recommends “following the top 5-10 most popular accounts in your space on social media and paying attention to new ideas and trends they speak of that start to get a strong reaction from their base. Then, you have an opportunity to dig into that idea, plot where it’s at in the trend lifecycle, and see where you can add value and commentary to this thread.
Big accounts like Elon Musk’s are obvious, but also look at niche accounts that seem to be on the cutting edge of trends and ideas. There’s more noise than ever, but for those who know how to filter through it, there’s more opportunity than ever before.”
6. Templates and Checklists
Templates and checklists are great linkable assets because they’re useful and save time.
They can come in several formats, such as downloadable PDFs, CSVs, or Word documents.
Because templates and checklists are so helpful, they work great as linkable assets.
For example, graphic design software Canva has over 400,000 customizable templates. And, their templates page has over 7,000 backlinks.
Impressive, right?
They’ve got templates for different social media post formats, presentations, resumes, newsletters, websites, and everything in between. These templates help anyone feel like a designer while speeding up the process.
Now, let’s look at a few checklist examples.
WooRank have published several checklists:
Each of these has received a few natural backlinks just by being a useful resource.
To come up with template and checklist ideas, think of common pain points in your niche. Then provide an easy solution for them.
As far as promotion goes, these linkable assets have the potential to go viral on social media.
Check this LinkedIn post from Lucas Perret, Growth Manager at Lemlist. He shared a template for scraping data from Google Maps, which got around 700 engagements (likes, comments, shares).
How to Create Linkable Assets With AI
This tip comes from Gabriela Covay, Founder and CEO of BrightValleyMarketing.com. She has over 10 years of experience creating digital PR campaigns to get clients featured on local and national media websites.
Gabriela recommends using AI to create the backbone of your linkable assets.
"A good linkable asset includes a catchy title, a brief intro, a visual element like an infographic or table, key findings, the broader implications (why your data matters on a larger scale), and a methodology section.
Once you've gathered all your data, you can plug it into ChatGPT (just be careful to keep sensitive info out) and ask it to draft a blog post with all these elements.”
Gabriela cautions that you still need to fact-check and build on AI’s output.
It’s Time to Create Your Linkable Asset
We’ve covered a lot of ground—from what a linkable asset is to how to create and promote different types of assets.
Which of these ideas sparked your interest?
Is your audience going to find this asset helpful or fun?
Hopefully, you already have a rough idea of a linkable asset you can work on.
And if you don’t, it just means you need to do a bit more research on your industry and competitors. Or, just pick ideas from completely unrelated industries and give them a spin.
