Google’s John Mueller said in a discussion on Reddit that you shouldn’t overthink link building:
“We mostly differentiate between the primary content & boilerplate (things like header, sidebar, menu, etc), but for the most part, that’s with regards to the content on pages. Most people overthink this: if you’re linking within your own site, just link naturally, use clear navigation, use good cross-linking; if you’re ‘dropping’ links on other people’s sites, well, maybe just don’t.”
How to build good links
Use clear navigation on your website and cross-link your pages when it makes sense. It can also help to take a look at the click-depth. When it comes to links from other websites, don’t just ‘drop’ links in comments, forums, etc. That has stopped working a long time ago.
Concentrate on good links that will have a positive effect on your Google rankings. If you built bad links in the past, remove these links. The tools in SEOprofiler help you with that: