Ultimate Guide to Link Building alternatives: where else links are covered

Quick answer

If you want links covered as part of a wider reference, look at The Art of SEO. If you need SEO basics before a specialist book, start with the Ahrefs SEO Book for Beginners. If you are trying to earn coverage and mentions through PR, Ross Hudgens’ Generative Engine Optimization has a full chapter on digital and performance PR.

Why readers look for an alternative

Garrett French and Eric Ward’s Ultimate Guide to Link Building is a specialist book on link prospecting. Entrepreneur Press lists the second edition for January 2020. Publisher catalogue, page 31. Its authorized excerpt starts with terms that define a market and uses them to find expert interviews, resource curators and sites accepting relevant contributions. Second-edition excerpt.

Readers look elsewhere for a few reasons:

• Published in 2020. Individual tactics need checking against Google’s current link spam policy.
• Narrow by design. It focuses on prospecting and outreach, not the rest of SEO.
• Not a first book. It is aimed at readers who already know SEO basics.
• No AI search. It predates current AI search and does not address how links and mentions relate to AI answers.

Alternatives by reason

You want links inside a broad reference

The Art of SEO by Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer and Jessie Stricchiola (O’Reilly, 4th edition, September 2023) is a 773-page reference. Links are one of its disciplines, alongside intent, keyword research, technical SEO, structured data, analytics, auditing and local search. Publisher contents.

You need SEO basics first

The Ahrefs SEO Book for Beginners is a January 2023 hardcover by Tim Soulo, Joshua Hardwick and Patrick Stox. Ahrefs lists link building among its subjects, alongside how search engines work and keyword research. Peter Kent’s SEO For Dummies (7th edition, 2020) also includes a chapter on links within a broad introduction.

You want links placed inside a site process

The SEO Blueprint by Ryan Stewart and David Krevitt (self-published, 2020) is an agency-derived process. Its retailer description includes deciding which pages not to build links to, alongside keyword selection, auditing and page prioritization. No public table of contents was found, so judge it on the description and its fit with your site.

You are earning coverage through PR

Ross Hudgens’ Generative Engine Optimization (Wiley, 2026) is about getting brands mentioned and cited in AI answer engines. Its chapter on digital and performance PR covers where each has the highest impact and how to create effective digital PR content, and its strategy chapter includes digital PR and data journalism. Official contents. It is written for practitioners and marketing leaders, and Chapter 3 is by Josh Blyskal of Profound, an AI-visibility software company.

You want plain-language outreach basics

Matthew Capala’s SEO Like I’m 5 (self-published, 2014, with a 2016 Kindle update) lists earning backlinks and blogger and influencer outreach among its beginner topics. Its tools and platforms date from 2014 to 2016, so treat it as an introduction to the ideas rather than current tactics.

For more specialist titles, see the advanced SEO reading guide or the full book library.

Keep Ultimate Guide to Link Building if

Keep it if you understand basic SEO but struggle to work out who might have a reason to reference your material. Its prospecting process, discovering the people and publications in a market and then considering what useful material could belong there, does not depend on a specific tool, and the public excerpt lets you test the method before buying. Buy the second edition (ISBN 9781599186481) and pair it with Google’s current link guidance.