Whether you’re an SEO agency or a business owner looking for more search engine traffic, there’s one think you can’t possibly get enough of: backlinks. Unfortunately, finding link targets that are authoritative, relevant, and willing to link is a time-consuming chore.

That’s why most SEOs fire up Google search and enter the same “keyword” + “write for us” search string that their competitors use.

But it doesn’t have to be that way…

Today I’m going to show you 7 places where you can find reams of authoritative sites in your niche that you can get links from.

DMOZ

If only there was a place that hand-curated quality sites…and put them into categories that you could easily find.

Oh wait, there is!

Most SEOs dream of getting a link from this top web directory with near-impossible quality standards.

While a link from DMOZ is a nice thing to have, you can leverage DMOZ’s list of quality sites for pre-qualified link prospects.

The best part of using DMOZ (or similar high-quality directories like Yahoo! and BOTW) is that you can pretty much throw traditional link prospecting out the window: The DMOZ editors have done the hard work for you.

Just head over to the DMOZ homepage and search for a keyword related to your niche (if you’re in a smaller niche you may have to go broader with your searches):

In the example below you have over 3000 potential targets:

You can use a Chrome addon called Link Clump to open several URLs at once and grab your links.

Power tip: Because DMOZ sites tend to be old, they’re ripe for broken link building.

Google Plus for Guest Posting Opportunities

In my experience the best guest posting opportunities come from sites that don’t openly accept guest posts.

Which means that the standard “guest post” search strings are out….

If you know hot to leverage Google Plus you can often find some killer guest posting targets that you’d otherwise miss. How? People love to share their own content on Google Plus: including guest posts they’ve published.

Just head over to Google Plus and use these search strings to find recently-published guest posts in your niche:

keyword + guest post

keyword + guest author

And you’ll often come across some awesome niche-relevant sites that you can contact for a guest post placement:

Blogrolls

Like with DMOZ, blogrolls are curated list of quality sites handed to you on a silver platter.

Any site that’s worthy of a blogroll mention must be quality (and likely authoritative).

The best part?

They’re VERY easy to find.

Just use these search strings to find them:

“keyword” + blogroll

“keyword” + “my favorite sites”

And you’ll find lists of quality sites in your niche:

Bonus Tip: Run a broken link check using a program like Check My Links. If you find a broken link, let the site owner know and offer yours as a replacement to get some awesome backlinks!

AllTop

AllTop is similar to DMOZ in that it lists the best sites in a given niche.

But what makes AllTop special is that they only list blogs.

DMOZ and other web directories tend to list a lot of corporate sites. In my experience bloggers are significantly more “link happy” than corporate sites.

Another feature that makes AllTop great for link prospecting is their search function. When you type in a keyword it automatically displays related keywords:

In our baking example, AllTop shows you the keyword “Recipe”…which is another great list of niche-relevant sites:

Similar Sites

Although this site doesn’t screen for quality, it can reveal some hidden, niche-relevant gems. If you have a client in a “weird chey niche”, like insurance or machine parts, you need to find every link target you can get your hands on.

Just take one of the sites you found in DMOZ or AllTop and enter it into the SimilarSites.com search:

And the site will show you a list of similar sites:

Bonus tip: To find even more potential targets, you can take some of the sites you find in this list and enter them into Similar Sites.