Currently, there are around 1.2 billion websites on the internet. As a business owner, the tools you use to increase engagement and sales are crucial to maximizing your success. It's not enough to have a great product and a great website; visitors need to be directed to your site. One of the most effective ways to do that, regardless of the size of your company, is to increase the number of quality backlinks that you have to your website.
Improving your digital marketing increases brand recognition and sales, so we will discuss the 14 best link building tools to maximize your SEO efforts.
Getting more visitors to your website is just one aspect of growing your business. To turn visitors into customers, you have to provide quality content and value that enriches their lives. Link building tools are vital to companies, freelancers, and small businesses alike due to their ability in:
Google ranks websites based on the number of quality backlinks. A website with more backlinks from well-established sources gains a higher standing above its competitors. While you can do a portion of this work manually, it's incredibly inefficient. Your time is sacred as a business owner. A link building and data analytics program will allow you to scale your business and make the most of your hours.
There are hundreds of link building tools available for websites. For this list, we'll focus on the tools that provide insight to website administrators, offer affordable plans or free demos, and have a successful track record. All of the link building tools on the list below will help you achieve one or more of the following:
Don't worry if you're still scratching your head and wondering what you're reading. We'll explain as we go along to make sure you get the most out of your SEO. Here are the 14 best link-building tools to maximize SEO efforts for your business.
MozBar provides a host of options for website administrators. All you have to do is install the extension in your browser via MozBar's website. Then, you can enter a keyword, and the extension analyzes how competitive the keyword is. The more people search for this particular word, the more competitive it is.
MozBar has even developed its own metrics like Page Authority and Domain Authority.
Both of these metrics use a 0 to 100 scale. Like grades in school, you want your website to be as close to 100.
Other features included in the MozBar tool are the Link Explorer and backlink analysis features. Link Explorer allows website administrators to analyze how competitors are doing. Using Link Explorer, users can see how and why other websites rank above them. This can allow businesses to see where they're lacking and make some improvements. Backlink analysis can also help you understand what it will take to get your website to the next level and even make the first page of Google results.
Establishing your domain authority is crucial, and MozBar can help maximize your SEO efforts. The program offers a free trial to explore all of these features and decide if this is something you want to continue implementing. Even though a free version of MozBar is available, many of the features listed above aren't included. Consider a trial to determine if MozBar is a worthwhile investment for you and your business.
Business owners and website administrators know how important it is to create a buzz around their brand. With Buzzstream's link building tool, you can monitor the number of clicks on your website, email conversations, mentions on Facebook, comments online, and more.
The user interface is customer-friendly due to the automated reply features. Automatic responses allow you to:
Buzzstream can also help you find other businesses in your industry and let you know what's buzzing or working well for them. Buzzstream also features digital marketing tools like content promotion and customer relationship management programs for the ultimate complete package.
Buzzstream is available for a free trial to determine if you think the tool is worth it. Get people buzzing about your company’s website by checking out the Buzzstream link-building tool.
Majestic SEO is another link-building tool with a stellar reputation. They do offer a free version, which is useful. However, there are more features with the paid version, and it can be even more valuable to a website administrator.
Majestic SEO uses two basic indexes:
Majestic SEO considers an important metric called Trust Flow. Trust Flow indicates the quality of links sending visitors to your website. A higher score would indicate that links to your website are being shared in reputable areas. A lower score may indicate that links to your website are shared on less reliable websites. Either way, this is important information to know.
A second metric Majestic SEO uses is Citation Flow. While Trust Flow measures the quality of the places where your link is shared, Citation Flow instead simply tracks how many places your link is shared. Majestic SEO specializes in analyzing your links. One of the best features is the Site Explorer Summary, which gives you an in-depth look at how a backlink performs. The Site Explorer Summary offers a whole host of metrics, including:
As mentioned earlier, there is a free version of Majestic SEO. The free version does include both Citation Flow and Trust Flow. Majestic SEO has been around for more than ten years and has a solid reputation in the SEO industry.
Ahrefs is another well-known, established name in the SEO and link-building industry. Ahrefs is known for having an easy-to-use platform. One of their features is called Site Explorer. The Site Explorer tool immediately pulls out a lot of helpful information about your competitor’s keywords, backlinks, and content, among other things.
Ahrefs’ analysis of your competitors can show you:
However, this is just one small aspect of Ahrefs.
Ahrefs also provides a Link Intersect tool, which can show information about your competitors. For example, if a blog links to two or three of your competitors, this provides you an opportunity to discover more content.
However, what Ahrefs is best known for is checking broken links. Using the broken backlink checker tool, you can easily (and quickly) ascertain if you have any links that are not working on your website, including internal and external links. If you have ever used a website and a link does not work, you know that this is a bad look for a business.
Avoid looking unprofessional and having broken links on your website using an Ahrefs tool. Different versions of Ahrefs contain many other specialized tools that make it one of the best link-building tools to maximize your search engine optimization efforts. According to their website, some of the tools that are unique to Ahrefs include:
Semrush has a number of different tools that can provide reliable and helpful research when working to improve your SEO. While Semrush is well known, it is also one of the most expensive tools on our list. Using their website starts at $119.95/month. Despite the relatively high price tag, many businesses use Semrush.
Some of the services included with Semrush include:
Semrush allows you to see how your SEO strategies are working compared with your competitors. Within Semrush, there is a section dedicated specifically to Link Building. This section contains many specific tools that you can use for your business's identified needs. Some of these tools include:
One of the things that Semrush is known for in the SEO industry is a Toxic Score. This score measures the quality of backlinks to your site. Poorly constructed or untrustworthy spam sites that link to your website can lower your score. If too many websites like these are linking to you, you may have a serious problem on your hands. Google may even remove you from their rankings if things are bad enough. Understanding your Toxic Score can help you monitor all backlinks and make sure that your business is represented in the way you want it to be.
Hunter.io helps website administrators improve outreach. As you likely know, it is important to expand your reach as a business in order to grow. Some of this work involves contacting other site administrators and requesting that they share links to your website. However, this is not always easy. Hunter.io streamlines the process of getting the correct contact information for a website.
Hunter.io allows users to easily and quickly find any email addresses that are associated with a website or URL. Furthermore, not only does Hunter.io provide these email addresses, it also verifies that the emails are active and used. This can save you a ton of time as you continue to reach out to expand your business.
One of the great things about Hunter.io is the price. Users can search the website up to 25 times a month with a free account. Paid plans allow users to have up to thousands of searches a month. The paid plans also include:
Hunter.io is well-respected within the SEO industry because it helps users get important contact information. The fact that many features are available for free does not hurt, either.
While we have already talked through many awesome tools on this list, NinjaOutreach is a bit unique from all others. They make their tool do it all. NinjaOutreach contains and combines the following tools all within one platform:
If you are the type of person who prefers all of their data to come from one source, NinjaOutreach may be a good fit for you and your business. You can boost your website rankings in a number of different ways, such as:
NinjaOutreach has another feature, an automated link building feature. It enables users to schedule outreach email campaigns and maintain relevant data based on previous conversations. If you are looking to maximize all of your SEO efforts with one platform, NinjaOutreach may be your choice.
Pitchbox is designed to help business owners identify the most important contacts in their specific industry. Then, the tool allows users to contact and maintain communication with these key figures.
Pitchbox differentiates from other link-building tools by specializing in automation. If you are trying to conduct large-scale outreach campaigns, Pitchbox can help. Pitchbox identifies key businesses, websites, and individuals (influencers) who may be relevant to growing your business.
Some of the things that Pitchbox offers include:
As mentioned, Pitchbox helps users identify essential individuals within your industry to help you grow. Throughout the process, Pitchbox can track your approach and what is working. This way, all of your decisions regarding your SEO efforts are based on clear, objective data.
Pitchbox can:
To get pricing information on Pitchbox, schedule through their website for a demonstration. While Pitchbox is generally very well-liked, it can be difficult to customize messaging within the tool.
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Linkody helps you evaluate the authority of your website. Linkody also analyzes your backlink profile, which is generally what search engines, like Google, use to determine your website's authority. Linkody is offered for free. With the free tool:
If you are interested in the premium features, Linkody also offers its customers a free 30-day trial. The premium features include:
Using Linkody on your website can help you understand where visitors to your website are coming from. The free backlink tool will allow you to see the top 100 backlinks for your website. Furthermore, Linkody will rank your backlinks based on domain authority. This way, you can see where your best quality links lie.
Linkody is one of the best link building tools for staying organized. As you may know, keeping up with multiple SEO or link building campaigns can be a real headache. Linkody takes the stress out of the SEO equation with a simple platform that consolidates the data. While many of the great features are available for free (at least for now), a monthly subscription starts at $14.90.
LinkClump can help keep you from being overwhelmed with clicking and organizing many links. As a business owner, you know checking links is an important way to keep your website running and growing. However, this can be daunting and arduous.
LinkClump allows you to clump the links together using key tools. The tools that LinkClump is best known for are:
Another great feature about LinkClump is that it is free and can even be installed as a plug-in on some computers. Give it a shot; it may help you maximize your SEO efforts while keeping your cost low.
Ideally, your company will grow and become a national or even international company at some point. In the meantime, it is important to focus on your local area. Whitespark is a link building tool with this in mind. The tool helps business owners locate local directories. Business owners can reach out to these directories and make sure that they have links. This may include websites such as Yelp or Angi.com. It can increase your website ranking, and your business will show up more often when people are searching locally.
The free version of Whitespark allows its users to search up to three times a day and create a link-building campaign. This is great, of course, but it is also somewhat limited. Paying users receive more tools, such as:
There are many pricing options for Whitespark, but consider trying their free tool first. Then, check their website for more specific pricing information if you want more features to maximize your SEO.
Mailshake can help you in your outreach efforts. Business owners know how important it is to reach out and get new customers (and backlinks). Mailshake offers several features to their users to help maximize SEO, including templates you can customize for:
Mailshake is also easy to use and straightforward. If you struggle with what to say to prospective customers, Mailshake can help you with that. This link building tool offers many outreach features, such as:
At the end of the day, Mailshake is one of the best link building tools because of the time it can save you. Overall, Mailshake serves three basic link building functions.
With great features, such as automated follow-up emails and versatile templates, Mailshake may be the perfect link building tool that helps you to "shake" things up and get your business moving.
Check My Links is a free Google Extension that does exactly what it says. Once you have targeted a website that you would like to request a backlink from, use Check My Links. This tool will first help you identify whether the website contains any broken links. If it does, Check My Links will take it from there.
Then:
Website administrators may be more likely to include your link since you have just done them a favor. As diligent as these professionals are, there are so many websites. It is easy to allow a broken link to stay on your page for years at a time. Since you have helped them out, they may feel inclined to backlink your page to return the favor.
Check My Links is a free tool that is available as an extension. One of the things that makes Check My Links one of the best link building tools is the fact that everyone benefits. You are helping other website creators, and they can help you out by sharing a backlink.
The last link-building tool is the Link Prospector. It is automated and has many features. Overall, it is designed to help marketers and business owners find new outreach opportunities.
Some of the features included in this tool are:
Link Prospector can certainly help you build links and maximize your SEO efforts. However, it is not an inexpensive product. At $127 monthly, Link Prospector is an investment in your website and your business, long term.
Regardless of which great tools you choose to use, Smith.ai can help you expand your outreach, improve your website authority, and generally help you navigate the SEO world. While choosing to implement SEO strategies on your own is good, getting help from Smith.ai will benefit your business.
For a business of any size and scope, search engines must work for you. Without them, your customers cannot find you quickly, and if something is too difficult for a customer, they won't follow through with a sale. Smith.ai can aid you through these complex processes and help you get your link building to the next level.Â
Once your leads start rolling in, you will need all the help you can get to best serve potential clients. We offer:
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