Forex, CFD and crypto sites live in one of the hardest corners of search. Google treats money topics as “Your Money or Your Life” content, big brokers and publishers own most of the first page, and a new affiliate site with good articles but no links rarely gets past page three. Links are still one of the clearest signals that other people trust your site. The question is not whether to build them, but how to do it without putting the site at risk.
This guide covers what still works for trading and crypto affiliates, what to stop doing, and how to check a link partner before you agree to anything.
Why links matter more in finance than in most niches
In a recipe niche, a well-written page can rank on content alone. In finance, search engines are more careful, because bad advice costs people money. They look for signs that a site is known and referenced by others in the same field. A mention on a respected trading education site, a broker comparison portal or a finance news outlet tells search engines that real people in the industry consider your content useful.
The flip side: finance is also where search engines look hardest for manipulation. Many tactics that still squeak through in other niches get trading sites demoted quickly.
What no longer works (and can hurt you)
- Private blog networks. Expired domains rebuilt as “finance blogs” that only exist to link out. They are easy to spot by their footprints and are a common reason for manual actions.
- Paid links without a label. Paying for a link is not forbidden, but a paid link must carry
rel="sponsored"orrel="nofollow". Paid links that pretend to be editorial are link spam under Google’s spam policies. - Mass guest posting. Fifty near-identical articles on “write for us” sites with a keyword-rich link in the author bio. The sites that accept anything pass very little value and often get devalued as a whole.
- Exact-match anchor text everywhere. If every link says “best forex broker”, the pattern looks bought. Natural links mostly use your brand name, the page title or plain words like “this guide”.
- Link swap networks. Google names “excessive link exchanges” and partner pages built only for cross-linking as link spam. A few exchanges between sites that genuinely fit together are normal; a ring of sites swapping links in bulk is not.
What works for trading and crypto affiliates
1. Build something worth linking to
Nobody links to the 400th “what is a pip” article. People do link to things they cannot easily make themselves:
- Calculators: position size, pip value, margin, swap or crypto fee calculators.
- Data you collected: spread snapshots across brokers, withdrawal time tests, fee comparisons with a date and a method.
- Clear reference pages: a regulator lookup guide, a glossary that is actually maintained, a timeline of rule changes in your market.
One solid linkable asset makes every other tactic on this list easier, because you have something to point to that is not a sales page.
2. Digital PR with your own data
Journalists and bloggers covering markets need numbers. If you test ten brokers’ withdrawal times or track how spreads widen around central bank decisions, that is a story. Send a short summary with one chart to writers who cover the topic, and offer the raw data. One pickup by a finance publication is often worth more than dozens of small links.
3. Guest contributions that are actually good
Guest articles still work when they are written for the host site’s readers, not for your link. Pick sites that rank for topics close to yours, pitch an idea that fills a gap on their site, and accept that the link might go to a resource page rather than your money page. Editors notice the difference, and so do search engines.
4. Partnerships and link exchanges, done carefully
Sites in the same niche reference each other all the time: a trading education site links to a tool, a crypto news site links to a tax guide, a broker review site links to a regulator explainer. That is how the web is supposed to work. A partnership is healthy when:
- both sites cover related topics and the link helps the reader on that specific page,
- the link sits in the body of a relevant article, not on a “partners” page full of unrelated sites,
- you do a handful of these with sites you would recommend anyway, not hundreds,
- neither side asks for a specific money keyword as anchor text.
Three-way swaps (site A links to B, B’s partner C links to A) do not make an exchange invisible; they mainly make it harder to judge whether the link is relevant. Relevance is the part that matters.
5. Claim the mentions you already have
Search for your brand name, your tools and your authors. Forums, newsletters and other sites may already mention you without a link. A short, friendly note asking them to add one has a high success rate because the editorial decision is already made.
6. Video, podcasts and communities
Trading audiences live on YouTube, in podcasts, on Telegram and in Discord. Appearing as a guest, or sponsoring a show with a clearly labelled link, builds brand searches and referral traffic even where the links themselves are nofollow. Brand searches and real visits are signals too.
How to check a link partner in five minutes
- Topic fit. Would a reader of their page benefit from clicking through to yours? If you have to explain the connection, skip it.
- Real traffic. Use any SEO tool’s traffic estimate and check that it comes from relevant keywords, not from one viral page or from a foreign market you do not serve.
- Indexation. Search
site:theirdomain.com. A site with thousands of pages but very few indexed is a warning sign. - Outbound link pattern. Look at a few recent articles. If every post links to casinos, CBD shops and loan sites, the site sells links to anyone.
- Who is behind it. A real author, an imprint or about page and a contact address are basic trust signals, especially in finance.
A note on compliance
Links in finance are not only an SEO question. If you are paid for a placement, label it. If you link to a broker, make sure it is regulated in the markets your readers are in, and keep any required risk warnings intact. Partners in regulated markets will check this about you as well, so a clean link profile also makes it easier to get good partners.
Where to start
If you only do three things this quarter: build one genuinely useful tool or data page, pitch it to ten relevant sites, and set up a small number of partnerships with sites you respect. That combination grows authority steadily without putting your rankings at risk.
We work with publishers, educators and affiliates across forex, crypto and investing, and we are always open to talking about relevant collaborations, guest articles and link partnerships. If your site fits, let’s talk. You can also see all our services.
