How to Get Backlinks With Claude AI (the System I Use)
6 Nov 2026 · 5 min read
Based on our video from 6 November 2026
14 Backlinks in Two Weeks Without Ads, Agencies or Cold Email
In two weeks, 14 new websites linked to ours. I didn't run ads, I didn't hire an SEO agency, and I didn't send a single cold email campaign. I used Claude and my inbox.
Here are the numbers. The system found 193 potential contacts, pitched 98 of them, got 31 positive replies and landed 14 backlinks. It's early, so the full SEO impact hasn't shown up yet, but the impressions curve is already heading the right way.
I built this for myself and now I'm giving it away. It's five Claude skills, a tracker and a setup checklist, and you can grab the free backlink system here.
Why Your Inbox Is the Best Place to Start
Most backlink advice tells you to cold email strangers. That's a slog. Your inbox is already full of people who know you: clients, suppliers, partners and agencies you've worked with. They all have websites, and a warm relationship beats a cold pitch every time.
That's why this works best for agency owners and established businesses. If you've been around a while, you already have the contacts. The system just finds them.
What the System Does
There are five skills, and each one handles a stage. This is the flow:
Find leads. It pulls every contact you've ever emailed, filters out the noise (no-reply addresses, newsletters, free webmail, your own team and anyone on your exclude list), checks you haven't already pitched them and adds each new contact to the tracker.
Research each site. It opens each lead's real website, checks whether their readers overlap with your ideal customer, flags paid sites, link farms and sponsored post sellers, and scores each lead yes, maybe or no with a priority.
Suggest an angle. It proposes an article idea that helps their readers, not an ad for you.
Pitch and follow up. It pitches three new people a day, mentions how you know them, then follows up after 4, 5 and 7 days and stops.
Write, send and check. It writes the article, sends it when the review is done and checks it actually went live with followed links.
What You Need Before You Start
Claude on a paid plan, connected to Gmail
Google Sheets for the tracker, and Google Docs or Drive for the articles
Web search and page fetching turned on in Claude
Recommended: Google Search Console, Google Analytics, the Claude Chrome extension (or the desktop app's browser) and scheduled tasks, so the pitches and live checks run without you
Optional: Asana, Trello or Notion to track articles, and Ahrefs if you want to get granular on SEO
I really recommend the project management tool. You need somewhere to see which article is with the copywriter and which one is waiting to be sent.
Answer the Setup Questions First
When you upload the first skill, Claude asks you a handful of questions. Have the answers ready:
Your business name and website
One line on what you sell
Your ideal customer
The byline the articles go out under
Who reviews the articles (your copywriter)
Anyone to exclude, like people you're on bad terms with
Pages you never want to link to, and any page you want to push on purpose
These aren't busywork. Your answers shape the copy, and they decide which leads count as worthy of hosting an article on their site.
How the Daily Run Works
Once it's set up, you only say three things: find backlink leads in my inbox, research my backlinks, and run backlink pitches and follow-ups. After that, it works through your tracker every day. It pitches three new people, follows up with three others, and reads your inbox first so it never chases someone who has already replied.
When a host says yes, read the whole thread before you answer. They might want a call, want to be paid or have rules on length and links. Then tell Claude to write the guest article for them by name.
How the Article Gets Written
Claude reads the host's rules from the email thread, then reads two or three of their posts to match the style and spelling. It picks link targets from Google Search Console and Analytics, focusing on pages ranking 5 to 20 that bring in leads. Then it writes 1,200 to 1,800 words with an SEO block at the top (meta title, slug and so on), saves it as a Google Doc and assigns a review task to your copywriter, due in two business days.
AI writes the first draft. A human makes it sound like a person. Don't skip that step.
If Claude can't reach Search Console through a connector, it signs in through your browser. No browser connected? Export the data from Search Console manually and hand it over.
My Link Rules
Your homepage gets linked once per article, with your brand name as the clickable text.
Every other link goes to something genuinely useful: a guide, an article, a case study or a template.
Never link to sales pages, pricing pages or contact pages. Hosts hate them and they look spammy.
If a host has limits, like one article only, those win.
We never pay for links and never accept sponsored posts.
Nothing goes live until the copywriter has signed it off.
You also want followed links, not nofollow ones. A followed link passes authority in Google's eyes. A nofollow link doesn't.
Checking the Link Went Live
Every week, the delivery check scans your inbox, finds each article you sent and looks for the host's reply. When it finds one, it clicks through, confirms the article is published and checks the links are followed. If it isn't up yet, it nudges the host, up to three times, then thanks them once it's live.
Every lead moves through the same statuses: new, fit, pitched, following up, writing and review, sent and live. Leads can exit at any stage if they aren't a fit, decline, never reply, have no contact or ask you to stop.
Two Things That Will Trip You Up
First, redirect links. Sometimes Claude emails links that come through as a google.com URL with a redirect on the end instead of your real address. It happened to me right after we moved our domain, and it's not a good look. Ask Claude to email you a link after step one and open it. If it's wrong, fix it before anything goes out.
Second, document sharing. Share a test Google Doc with an outside address. Some company accounts block sharing outside the organisation, and if yours does, Claude will paste the article into the email or attach a Word file instead.
Backlinks come from relationships, and you already have more of them than you think. This system takes the grind out of finding and pitching people, but you still have to read the replies and edit the articles. That part is yours.
