Scholarship Link Building 101 (Based on Our Own Experience)

What Is Scholarship Link Building?

Scholarship link building refers to creating scholarships and submitting them to universities in order to obtain backlinks — especially highly sought-after .edu backlinks.

In short, scholarships can open previously sealed doors — i.e., help you get backlinks from educational institutions that rarely link to other sites or engage in link schemes.

Pros of Scholarship Link Building

Why should you build scholarship links in the first place? For these 5 main reasons:

1. Get High-Authority Edu Links

Edu links are links placed on .edu domains, such as princeton.edu or uchicago.edu. 

Such links typically have high authority, mainly because they’re reserved exclusively for U.S.-based postsecondary academic institutions — i.e., known and credible entities. 

That’s why getting .edu backlinks can do wonders for your SEO, including increasing your site’s domain authority, boosting your search engine rankings, and improving your backlink profile. 

2. Get Long-Term Backlinks

Unlike backlinks on many sites, those placed on .edu domains are not likely to ever go down. 

• Firstly, .edu sites are highly unlikely to get removed or taken down, ever. 
• Secondly, university websites are more dependable than most sites. For example, they aren’t likely to take your links down due to changes in ownership or content policies.

On top of that, if you offer scholarships regularly or on an ongoing basis, it’s almost guaranteed that your links will stay live for at least the duration of your program.

3. Boost Your Credibility

On top of SEO benefits, scholarship link building can also boost your reputation—both online and offline. This is so because people, like search engines, trust educational websites.

4. Get Free, Ready-to-Publish Content

If you set up your scholarship the right way, you can also get ready-to-use content out of it, such as essays or videos. We’ll talk more about this below.

5. Boost Your Local SEO

The chances are that you’ll be reaching out to universities in your area, whether it’s The University of Chicago, NYU, or the one in your city. 

Getting backlinks from locally relevant sites can boost your local SEO, especially when they come from universities. This can be especially important if you’re trying to rank higher for local searches—like “marketing agency nyc” or “best ai companies in miami.”

Cons of Scholarship Link Building

With that said, scholarship link building also has some cons to consider:

1. Requires Significant Time Investments

Scholarship link building is one of the more time consuming link building strategies. 

Sure, setting up a scholarship may not take that much time, but everything that follows it does:

• Reaching out to universities 
• Answering questions from potential applicants
• Evaluating submissions
• Announcing the winner(s)
• Distributing the award
• Coordinating the award presentation
• Documenting the award process
• Responding to potential complaints 

With that in mind, ask yourself: is the time investment worth it? 

For example, wouldn’t it be easier to just outsource these link building efforts?

2. Can be Expensive

Scholarship link building requires monetary investments, too. 

You’ll need to offer something tangible to winners—whether it’s literal money, job positions, or prizes.

Running the contest may require additional investments, too.

For example, you may need to hire VAs to provide support to applicants or hire additional help to evaluate submissions. 

Buying backlinks directly may prove to be less expensive, alongside being less time-consuming.  

3. May Be Outdated 

Scholarship link building is also a somewhat outdated link building tactic, which means it also comes with certain risks: 

• It is ethically questionable. Scholarship link building can sometimes be seen as exploitative. If your primary motivation is to gain backlinks rather than genuinely support students, you may be crossing ethical boundaries.
• It is less sustainable than most contemporary strategies. Modern link-building strategies, like content marketing or partnerships, often yield more sustainable and long-term results. 
• It can lead to possible penalties. Too many scholarship links suddenly linking to your site can raise red flags. At this point, search engines are well aware of this tactic, and may punish you for using it.

With this in mind, it’s natural to question if scholarship link building is even worth it anymore. So, here’s our take on this:

Is Scholarship Link Building Dead?

In our opinion, scholarship link building is not dead. 

We’ve gotten clients many high-quality backlinks and a ton of positive exposure out of it. 

With that said, it no longer works as well as it used to.

Now, building scholarship links takes significantly more time and is riskier than before.

You should tailor your scholarship link building strategy according to these new changes and developments. Here’s what to consider:

A Brief History of Scholarship Link Building

In its prime, scholarship link building was a fairly easy game.

When it was a comparatively new tactic, universities would gladly accept any website offering even the most ridiculous scholarship.

However, once one too many marketers and SEOs jumped on the bandwagon, universities started taking note. They became much more picky about who they linked to and what scholarships they featured. 

Another problem was that this method often left footprints that Google’s newer algorithms were capable of picking up. 

As a result, building scholarship links is now much more difficult than it used to be. Plus, it can expose you to penalties and tank your rankings if go about it the wrong way.

Google’s Stance on Scholarship Links 🔍

Google punishes websites engaging in link schemes. So, the question is—is building links by offering scholarships a link scheme?

Technically, soliciting any backlink can be a grey area, but low-quality scholarship links are an obvious red flag because they have an easily detectable footprint.

In that sense, scholarship links can be considered risky if done incorrectly.

• Genuine scholarships are not likely to ever be an issue. As long as you’re not offering one just for the sake of a backlink (or at least you’re not obvious about it), you should be fine. 
• Low-quality scholarships and low-quality scholarship links, on the other hand, can get you into trouble.

So, to minimize any risks, make sure your scholarships look and are legit.

How Answer Engines Treat Scholarship Links 🔍

Thanks to the boom of Generative AI, appearing on answer engines is slowly becoming just as important as ranking well on search engines. 

Answer engines are advanced, AI-powered search tools that directly answer user queries instead of providing a list of potential sources. Such tools, like Perplexity and now SearchGPT, are becoming increasingly popular. 

They can also drive traffic to your website. 

Alongside answers, these tools display a list of sources users can click on for more information. So, your goal should be that your content is used for answers, as this means it will also get linked to.

Scholarship links make that likelier. 

Just like search engines, answer engines prefer high-authority sites—-and scholarship links will boost your authority. 

Beyond that, even if answer engines don’t use your site as a source, they may still pull information from sites featuring your scholarships and present them to users.

An additional advantage is that answer engines have no guidelines against link schemes, at least at this point. 

So, you get all the benefits without any risks.

How to Conduct a Scholarship Link Building Campaign

To conduct a successful scholarship link building campaign, follow this blueprint:

1. Create a Realistic Budget

First, consider how much money you can spend on your campaign. 

Besides deciding how much money you’ll offer to winners—or how much you’re willing to invest into prizes—you should also consider other associated expenses:

• How much can you invest in outreach? 
• Are you willing to pay for links? If so, how much?
• Will you also have additional expenses, such as paying VAs to help you evaluate submissions? 

Put all of these expenses on paper before moving further.

2. Decide Which Scholarship to Offer 

Now, decide what type of scholarship opportunity aligns best with your goals and budget. 

This means considering the focus area, like marketing or engineering, as well as the frequency.

The choice usually comes down to annual and more frequent scholarships.

• Annual scholarships: A single, larger scholarship offered once a year can generate significant attention and appeal to a broader audience.
• Multiple smaller scholarships throughout the year: Offering several smaller scholarships can help you reach more students and create ongoing opportunities for outreach and link-building

Next, decide which requirements applicants will have to meet to win the scholarship. 

Start with the basics, such as:

• Do they need to fit a particular age group or education level?
• Do they need to be in specific academic programs or career tracks?
• Are there GPA or academic performance requirements?
• Do applicants need to demonstrate financial need?
• Is the scholarship open only to students in certain geographic locations?

You can then decide how applicants will apply. Common choices include:

• Writing industry-relevant essays 
• Submitting video presentations or creative projects
• Completing small, practical projects related to your industry (e.g., designing a marketing strategy or building a prototype)

Our pro tip here is to request submissions you’ll be able to reuse for other purposes, such as driving additional traffic to your site. For example, if you run an AI business, you could for videos about AI transforming education and publish them on your site later.

Make sure you also create clear guidelines for choosing the winner. 

It’s best that you make them publicly available to avoid any confusion down the road.

Finally, make the application process clear.

Where and how should applicants apply? For example, should they just send their submissions to relevant email addresses? If so, which ones?

Major college sites aren't likely to feature your scholarship if this process is unclear or wonky.

To sum up, make sure to decide on and outline the following:

• Scholarship type (focus area, frequency)
• Applicant requirements
• Selection criteria
• Application process

3. Ensure It Passes the ‘Sniff’ Test

Ask yourself: would your scholarship pass the sniff test? 

In other words, does it feel like you’re genuinely trying to help the community, or just gain backlinks?

If your scholarship passes the sniff test, you can proceed. If it doesn’t, try  changing your strategy to avoid penalties and a low response from universities.

4. Choose Your Targets Wisely 

Choosing suitable targets is key to a successful scholarship campaign. 

The targets should align with your niche. For example, if you run a local plumbing business, it makes more sense to offer scholarships to students going to trade schools than to marketing students.

Also, you could decide to target a specific group of schools. For example, you may only offer your scholarship to students attending community colleges or Ivy League schools.

Our pro tip here is to build a spreadsheet for your targets. It should include:

• the college name, 
• the URL of their website, 
• the name of the financial aid official, 
• their contact details. 
• the project status.

This will ensure you can track your outreach efforts and ensure you’ve contacted all your targets—as well as ensure that you’re not contacting them multiple times with the same information.

To find relevant websites, try using Google search operators like:

• site:.edu +"external scholarships"

This will pull up all .edu domains with content about external scholarships: 

You can also use the following operator to find contact information, like relevant email addresses, more quickly: 

• site:.edu +"financial aid offices"

5. Personalize Your Pitches 

Personalize your pitches to make them stand out.

Here’s an example of a personalized pitch:

—

Subject: $2000 in financial aid for electrical engineering students

Dear [name],

My name is [Name Surname] and I represent [Company Name].

As [School Name] is so well renowned for its Electrical Engineering program [replace with actual program name], we’re offering a $2000 scholarship to current and prospective students.

The world needs more electrical engineers [replace with career path] and we’d like to do our small part!

Details of the scholarship can be found here: [your scholarship URL].

If you can feature this scholarship on your financial aid page [URL], it would go a long way towards getting the word out.

Thank you.

Sincerely,[Name]

— 

This template includes URLs and program details specific to the school you’re contacting.

Pro tip: Learn from each email, as well as any rejections you get. Ask for feedback if necessary, then use it to improve your future emails.

6. Follow Up

Once you’ve sent out your emails, follow up with the folks who have not replied.

Allow at least 5 days before you do so. You can even send a second follow up after another week or so. We don’t recommend sending more if you don’t hear back at this point.

Follow-ups are key in bagging conversions: even with typical link building campaigns, you’ll mainly get replies to your follow-up emails rather than the initial outreach.

You can also automate follow-ups using tools like Hunter or Mailshake.

7. Spread the Word

Tons of sites publish information on applying to colleges and getting financial aid. Most have articles on scholarships and where and how to find them.

So, it’s a good idea to contact them and ask for a feature on their website. 

For example, many sites publish listicles with dozens of scholarships. It’s just a matter of finding them and asking to be included.

Here are some sites that may want to feature your scholarship:

• Scholarships.com: Unusual Scholarships
• Going Merry: Weird Scholarships
• Top Weird Scholarships in 2021
• Nitro College: Weird and Unusual Scholarships

8. Actually Go Through With the Scholarship

If you want to preserve your reputation—and, you know, be a decent human being—make sure you actually go through with the scholarship. 

Enough said. (Hopefully.) 

9. Feature Winners Online

After you evaluate the submissions, it’s time to choose the winner (or multiple winners, depending on your scholarship type). Once you do that, feature them on your website and social media channels.

This will help you get positive PR and is likely to attract more backlinks or at least reposts on social media. 

To add even more legitimacy to your scholarship, consider showcasing previous winners, too, if this isn’t your first time offering a scholarship. 

 

This is the best way to show that you’re the real deal and you’re not just doing it for the links (even if you are). Plus, depending on your location, the law may even require you to publicize the winners.

10. Get Media Coverage

Now that you’ve gone through with the scholarship, it’s time to go the extra mile and get some press.

If you know any local reporters, get in touch with them and see if they’d like to report on your scholarship.

If the winner agrees, you can even feature some background information on them and how this money will help them.

You can also simply draft a press release and get it syndicated: the goal here is not getting backlinks, but building trust and legitimacy.

Get Premium Scholarship Link Building Services

If scholarship link building sounds like too much work for too little in return, consider ordering backlinks from our agency. Our turnaround time is just 10 days. 

Plus, we can help you get featured on many .edu sites without having to offer a scholarship. 

Sounds good? Order your backlinks today or contact us for more details.

FAQs

What are scholarship links?

Scholarship links are links gained through offering scholarships to students. Such links often come from universities, but also sites that publish scholarship round-ups and news. They can be highly valuable in terms of SEO, especially if placed on .edu sites.

How long will I have to wait on ROI from scholarship links?

Link building ROI is always somewhat unpredictable. However, high-quality links typically yield first results in ~4 weeks, and scholarship links are typically high-quality. So, on average, you’ll have to wait about a month to see ROI from scholarship links.