As a marketer who frequently writes SEO-optimized content, I can confidently say that link-building is an essential aspect of SEO.

I‘ve found that it’s a cost-effective marketing principle that allows me to advertise on other reputable websites for free while gaining high-quality referral traffic.

If you’re unsure what link building is, it means creating links on other websites to increase search engine rankings and drive referral traffic to your site.

I typically embed links to my site via forms of content, including blog posts, infographics, articles, press releases, and images.

The process may sound time-consuming, but there are plenty of link building tools available to help you along quickly and efficiently. Let’s explore some link building tools you should check out.

Best Link Building Tools for SEO

1. Mailshake
2. Ahrefs
3. Check My Links
4. Screaming Frog
5. Scrapebox
6. Hunter
7. Semrush
8. Respona
9. BuzzSumo
10. Pitchbox
11. HARO
12. MOZ Link Explorer
13. Majestic
14. Help a B2B Writer

Best Practices

Best Link Building Tools for SEO

1. Mailshake

Mailshake is a simple-to-use software that sends email requests for link building, guest posting, and networking opportunities. The software allows you to choose from a collection of message templates, personalize your favorite, and send.

This strategy improves your email campaign‘s effectiveness and your business’s overall efficiency.

In addition to saving you time, Mailshake allows you to monitor replies, clicks, and more. The tool costs $29 per month, making it an affordable link-building software solution for marketers starting with their cold email outreach.

2. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is a powerful, well-rounded SEO software that provides several link building treats. With Ahrefs, you can analyze backlinks and referring domains, narrow them down with filters, and even secure your profile against suspicious links.

The full suite of options lets you do anything you need your SEO link building software to do.

Ahrefs also features a speedy crawler that crawls over four million pages without delay. Find link prospects by viewing your competitors’ data — including their top linked pages, new links, broken links, and more.

To access Ahrefs, sign up for a seven-day trial and choose the best plan that fits your needs and budget after the trial expires.

3. Check My Links

Check My Links is a free Google Chrome extension that crawls through any web page to check for broken links.

It’s one of the fastest link checkers you can use, and it registers and reports all of the broken links on a website within 20 to 30 seconds.

This gives you a significant advantage when contacting websites to promote links.

After checking a site with Check My Links, you can compile the broken links that are most relevant to your subject matter and propose replacing them with your functional links.

Hopefully, the site’s owner will appreciate you pointing out the broken links and offering a solution and will update the post with your replacement links ASAP.

4. Screaming Frog

Screaming Frog is another popular software among SEO experts. It’s able to monitor link building profiles and generate accurate reports automatically.

Screaming Frog‘s most notable value is that it enables you to thoroughly understand your backlink profile and the other factors that impact your website’s current search ranking.

As a link building software, it ensures all your links work correctly.

Screaming Frog has a free and paid version, highlighting broken links and generating reports. However, for $149 per year, you can enjoy all of the software’s features and unlimited website crawling.

5. ScrapeBox

ScrapeBox is a comprehensive link building software that pulls links from search engines that match your keywords. It‘s helpful to analyze your competitors’ link profiles to understand where you should target your link building efforts.

You can even scrape hundreds of proxies to be used in other link building SEO software.

ScrapeBox offers several significant advantages for your link building campaign, including the competitive edge of seeing into other brands’ link profiles.

It also allows you to add custom search engines and collect the usual URLs and their proxies.

6. Hunter

This comprehensive platform allows users to set up and manage link building outreach campaigns. I’m especially impressed by its features, such as:

• Domain Search: This feature helps users find a point of contact within a company by quickly providing publicly available email addresses associated with the website as well as confidence scores, department filters, and detailed sources.
• Email Finder: Just enter the website and name of the prospect you’re trying to contact, and Email Finder will give you the verified address you need.
• Email Verifier: This tool verifies the emails on your list to ensure you’re sending emails to the correct contacts.

7. Semrush

Semrush has a couple of features that are valuable for link building. One feature is the Link Building Tool, which helps users build backlinks at scale. It identifies link building opportunities by analyzing target keywords and competing websites.

You can then take that information and set up an email outreach campaign. The feature also includes built-in reports to monitor the campaign’s effectiveness.

Another feature is BackLink Gap, which analyzes your competitors’ backlink profiles so you can find untapped link-building opportunities. BackLink Gap shows what websites link to your competitors but not your website. You can then target those competitors in your campaign.

8. Respona

This link-building outreach platform comes with various pre-built campaigns to boost organic traffic. Some of my personal favorites are:

• Link-Insertion: Finds relevant, non-competing articles to link back to your site.
• Skyscraper Technique: Discovers backlinks to the the top search results for your keywords.
• Product Reviews: Gathers reviews for your product.
• Podcast Outreach: Finds interview opportunities on podcasts within your niche.

9. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is a brand monitoring and content discovery tool that offers many perks. For example, the tool allows you to discover and track domains that link to your competitors.

Even better, you can export those domains to a spreadsheet for reference in your next link building campaign.

You can also set up alerts for when a website links to your competitors. Finally, BuzzSumo also tracks your own backlinks and sends alerts when you get a new backlink.

10. Pitchbox

Pitchbox provides several ways to find prospects and build links. With Blogger Outreach, you can find and contact blogs within your niche to post about your products and services and link to your website.

You can also use Pitchbox’s many templates to execute link building strategies. And if you already have prospects, you can import them into a spreadsheet to be referenced in your campaign.

11. HARO

Help A Reporter Out (HARO) is mainly a resource for reporters looking to gather sources; however, it can be a useful link building tool if used correctly.

I use HARO to secure backlinks in different publications and both small and large media outlets. The New York Times and Mashable, for example, are reachable via HARO.

All you need to do to see the benefits is sign up to be a source on the platform.

You‘ll then receive email requests from journalists needing your expertise or information, which you can offer, and they’ll typically link to your website in their content.

12. Moz Link Explorer

This tool from Moz is an excellent way to stay competitive. All you have to do is enter the URL of the website or page you want link data for. Then, you can see all of their backlinks and receive metrics, like the site’s domain authority.

13. Majestic

Majestic offers information regarding the number of backlinks a website has, referring domains, and anchor text analysis.

But its standout feature is its Topical Trust Flow, which measures how many links a website has from trusted “seed” websites.

14. Help a B2B Writer

Help a B2B Writer works the same as HARO, but it’s a service for content marketers rather than journalists. As you would on HARO, you register as a source with Help a B2B writer and you get daily emails with source requests.

You can also select specific categories to get relevant emails that suit your niche.

Link Building Best Practices

The bare-bones definition of link building is strategically acquiring links pointing back to your website to increase organic rankings and drive referral traffic.

However, successful link building is more than that — it also means carefully considering where you place your links, the type and format of the links, the links’ anchor text, and how diversified the backlink portfolio is.

I’ve found these best practices to be practical parts of an overall link building strategy:

• Create excellent content: The more valuable and engaging your content is, the more likely you can earn coveted spots on popular websites. I always ensure my content is easy to read, with helpful information like stats, quotes, and other trustworthy data.
• Keep links relevant: The links should also lead back to high-quality and relevant information on your site. Search engines emphasize relevance, which is another reason targeting websites within your industry is important.

For example, if my site offers professional cleaning services, linking to a site offering cleaning equipment would be more relevant than linking to a sports equipment company.

• Less is more: I’ve realized that placing a few links on high-quality sites is much more effective than putting a more significant number of links on suspicious or spammy sites.

For instance, with the correct social media management tools, you can make the most of your link building software on the most visible online platforms. It’s all about quality over quantity.

I also recommend diversifying your link portfolio to have a mix of different kinds of links.

• Build relationships: Popular blogs are quickly becoming where we go for reliable, relevant news for almost any industry. Take advantage of the existing audiences on blogs in your industry by commenting on posts or even guest blogging. Blog comment links won‘t pass any clout, but they will grab the author’s attention.

If you are adding value, that will make it easier to partner up on content opportunities. Similarly, developing strong ties with industry influencers and reputable authors can help you add well-placed links to your arsenal.

• Aim for resource pages: One of the more proven link building strategies is to get links included on a popular resource page. Websites often list helpful links and resources for specific topics, such as a recipe page on a food blog centered on a particular restaurant.

If you have a recipe or related content to share, you can contact the website’s author to ask if they could include your links on the page. It can become a home run if it fits the page and your brand well.

Link building is essential for the success of any online business, which you can measure by the volume of targeted traffic to your website.

By following proven best practices and investing in the best SEO link building software, you can ensure that traffic and prosperity remain high.

The post 14 Link Building Tools to Drive Traffic and Boost SEO Rankings appeared first on ProdSens.live.

If you want to drive organic traffic to your website, you must understand two critical aspects of SEO strategy:

• Relevance
• Authority

With relevance, the key is knowing what your audience is searching for and providing the highest quality and most relevant content so it’s a no-brainer for Google to serve it up to them.

But this isn’t an exact science.

You could create the best content out there from your perspective, but it’s a competitive landscape, and Google takes myriad other factors into account when ranking pages on the SERPs.

One of those is how authoritative or trustworthy the provider of that content is.

You might think that “authority” is subjective, but Google has one critical way to measure it: backlinks.

Why are backlinks important?

While there are 200 known Google ranking factors, backlinks are key to Google search.

That’s because a link to another website is more than just a link — it’s a vote of confidence, a recommendation, a way for publishers to say to their readers: “Here’s a source I trust. Go check it out yourself.”

It’s incredibly difficult to get that kind of endorsement, especially for small businesses or startups.

But if you want to boost your SEO performance, you must ensure you consistently earn high-quality backlinks to your website, better and faster than your competition.

Additionally, Gabi Theard, former Director of Marketing at Trujay, says:

“A link-building strategy doesn’t just increase your SEO score and visibility on Google.

It also shows readers where your company falls in relation to other brands — and reminds readers that there is, in fact, a human behind the screen. Backlinks can demonstrate a relationship between two sites and how each works to help the other grow.”

“Plus, backlinks help readers get the highest degree of information that answers their questions.”

High-Quality Backlinks

Keep in mind, though, that not all backlinks are created equal. If you think of a backlink as a vote of confidence, it only makes sense to also evaluate the credibility of that vote.

In the past, tactics such as link farms, PBNs, and comment spam allowed black-hat SEOs to create vast backlink profiles and successfully game the system.

However, these black-hat link-building techniques no longer work because Google has gotten savvy to them. In fact, too many “unnatural” links may even earn your site a penalty.

In other words, quality matters just as much as quantity when it comes to backlinks.

Specialists at Editorial.Link, a high-end backlink-building agency, claims: It is not necessary to have hundreds of links pointing to your website.

In fact, even obtaining 20-30 high-quality links can significantly boost your website’s ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). Sheikh Shadi Shuvo, the founder of Desire Marketing, explains, “Building links is an art, and focusing on high-quality links over quantity helps to boost ranking on search engine results immediately and using niche edits/links insert technique is the fastest way to build quality links.”

Earning high-quality backlinks is probably the most challenging part of SEO. You’ll want links that are:

• Authoritative – The site has an authoritative backlink profile (many votes of confidence), generates a lot of traffic, and even ranks well in the SERPs itself. In addition, .gov and .edu sites tend to carry more weight, as do industry-leading sites.
• Relevant – The referring page tackles a similar topic or niche. e.g. If your technology company’s homepage gets a backlink from a blog post on “how to golf,” this would not be seen as a relevant or quality backlink.
• Unique – You will get an edge if the site refers to you but does not refer to your competitors. Otherwise, the backlink may be good to have, but it’s table stakes.
• Natural – The link is not sponsored, the anchor text is not branded or spammy, and the referring page has a natural number of links on it.

For a real-world example of a company that utilized these backlinking rules to rise to the top of the search pages, check out our video case study on Glassdoor.

As an SEO strategist specifically focusing on link building at HubSpot, I’m no stranger to the challenge of finding high-quality sources that will link back to your site.

To help you improve your company’s SEO ranking, I’ve cultivated this list of creative and unique ways to earn backlinks.

1. Reclaim Unlinked Mentions

Reclaiming unlinked brand mentions is probably the easiest, quickest way to build high-quality backlinks.

All you need to do is keep an eye on who is mentioning your brand, on blogs or in the news. You can do that using something as simple (and free) as Google Alerts.

If you want more insights into your mentions, like the number of shares or the domain authority of the website where the mention comes from, you can opt for tools like BuzzSumo, Ahrefs Content Explorer, or Mention.

Image Source

Oftentimes, you’ll notice the author hasn’t included a link back to your website when they mention your brand, product, or service. That’s when you can send them a quick note, asking for a proper link attribution.

This also allows the publisher to give their readers a better experience, letting them click through and learn more about the brand mentioned. It’s a win, win.

The creative part of this tactic is that you can use the same method to reclaim links for other mentions that are related to your brand — including events you organize, employees’ names, research reports, etc.

For example, you can keep a lookout for interviews that feature your company’s executives and ask for a link back to their profile page on your website.

Or, you can look for mentions of reports or statistics you’ve published and ask for a proper link attribution to the original source.

Stewart Dunlop, the founder of the link-building agency, LinkBuilder.io, explains why this method works so well:

“Nowadays, website owners and editors are bombarded by link builders using low-quality outreach strategies. Fortunately, for those willing to take the time to send polished and well-thought outreach emails, this presents a real opportunity.

The beautiful thing about unlinked mentions is that the website you’re reaching out to has already mentioned your brand, so there’s a real reason for your being in their inbox.

A polite and friendly email is often enough to do the trick, and our win rate for this type of campaign is considerably higher than any other type of link-building strategy.”

2. Get Contextual Links

Have you noticed how some articles feature additional resources, either recommended in text or inside a “Read more” section?

Here’s an example of a “read more” section from SEJ, where they link to a related piece:

These links embedded in the text of an article are called contextual links.

The key to getting contextual links is to find the right link prospect to reach out to. You can find them by researching articles that are related to the content you’re promoting and already have a “Read more” section.

For instance, let’s say you have a new study on email marketing. Try looking for articles that speak about marketing trends and recommend other articles.

Here’s how to find them using search engines like Google:

• marketing trends inurl:blog intext:”Read more”
• marketing trends inurl:blog intext:”Recommended articles”
• marketing trends inurl:blog intext:”Recommended reading”

When you reach out to the author to pitch your study, don’t forget to mention why your content is worth getting featured. A persuasive boilerplate and a personalized email will go a long way.

Additionally, Theard says: “Once you get into the habit of earning backlinks, you may start to notice that other publishers come to you directly. With the right relationship-building strategy, publishers come to you rather than you inquiring to them.”

She adds:

“Relationship-based backlinks are critical, as opposed to simple (and frequent) link exchanges. Google can, and will, pick up on backlink publications that are whimsy; a backlink for a backlink is not a good backlink.

A relationship-based backlink is accepted by Google through relevant keywords, the credibility of websites, and genuine effort to have website referrals be at the top of calibers.”

3. Get “Best X” List Mentions

Today’s consumers look for all available options before making a purchasing decision. They often use comparison websites or articles, like “The Best Free Email Marketing Software: An Honest Roundup,” to see what others recommend.

To understand how popular these Best X articles are in your industry, use a keyword research tool and check for monthly search volume.

For instance, there are more than 3,400 searches per month for the query “best CRM for small businesses” (according to data from Ahrefs).

Getting mentioned in articles that list the best products like the one you offer is a fantastic way to reinforce your brand, get more people to try out your product, and, of course, earn high-quality backlinks.

Alex Birkett, former Senior Growth Marketing Manager at HubSpot, explains why getting featured on these lists is so important for your business:

“If you look at these search results in terms of pure click-through rate, there’s an upper limit on how much traffic you can bring to your own product page by ranking on your own site’s listicle.”

Birkett continues to say:

“As Nick Eubanks has mentioned, if you can broaden your view from trying to rank #1 to trying to monopolize all of the sites on the first page of a search query, you can multiply the amount of click-throughs to your site, your website traffic, and, down the line, your sales volume.

And that’s not even factoring in the less trackable aspects, such as social proof and brand awareness.”

Birkett says, “In other words, this tactic goes beyond just link building and taps into acquisition and brand awareness potential, too.”

To get your product or service included in a list round-up, start with a simple Google search to find high-ranking blogs that write about your product or industry.

Here are some useful search terms to help you find relevant prospects:

• Best [X]
• Best [X] for [Y] e.g. Best CRM for entrepreneurs
• Top [X]
• Top [X] for [Y] e.g. Top 10 CRM for small businesses

Collect the most relevant prospects in a list and prioritize them based on domain authority (or Domain Rating if you’re using Ahrefs), backlink profile, ranking, and referral traffic potential.

Once your final list is ready, write a short pitch for the author to show them why your product or service deserves to be included in their list.

As per any outreach campaign, a short, persuasive pitch and a customized email will help you stand out.

4. Become a Source for Other Publishers

By using your expertise and unique data, you can become a source for other bloggers and journalists.

Every time someone quotes you, you’ll earn a backlink. But high-domain authority backlinks aren’t the only benefit of this tactic (although they are a huge benefit on their own).

By becoming a trusted source, you’ll increase your brand awareness and drive referral traffic to your website.

Best of all, it isn’t as difficult as you may think.

To start, simply subscribe to HARO (Help A Reporter Out). This is a free service that connects expert sources (like yourself) with bloggers and journalists who are looking for contributors.

Here’s how it works — every day, HARO will send you an email with queries from writers in your industry. You can pick the ones that resonate with your business and respond via email, including your credentials.

Speed is very important here, as most of these writers get many submissions. If you’re among the first to respond, you have a bigger chance to be seen and selected for the final piece.

If you’re selected, you’ll likely receive an email from a journalist or blogger letting you know the article is live.

For instance, here’s an email I got a few days after I submitted a quote on HARO:

From my experience with HARO, it takes about four weeks for an article to get published after you send your response.

Even if you don’t receive a follow-up email from the writer, keep an eye on the publication to see if your quote makes it into the piece.

I found that, on average, two out of 10 answers get picked up. That isn’t too bad, but if you’re like me, you don’t want to waste those eight other answers that don’t get to be published.

To ensure you still use those quotes elsewhere, I suggest you create a backlog of content and use it to answer similar questions on Quora, LinkedIn, or even your own blog or social channels.

5. Reach Out to Journalists

Bloggers and journalists are bombarded with emails pitching them information that is too promotional and doesn’t add value to their readers. That’s why many outreach emails don’t get any responses.

However, there are effective methods to make your pitch stand out. Paddy Moogan, Co-Founder of Aira, explains how his team uses this tactic successfully to earn high-quality backlinks for their clients:

“We take an individual from a client’s company, usually the founder, Managing Director, or CEO (although it can be anyone, really) and get them to provide us with their views and opinions on a set of topics.

These topics should be a sweet spot between what their company is credible to talk about, and general newsworthy topics.

Classic examples at the moment are things such as what Brexit means for the X industry or what the future of X industry is in the world of AI or automation.

These broader topics are being talked about a lot in the press, so tying it to a topic that your client can talk about allows you to approach journalists and offer their comments for any upcoming articles.

They often link to you because of this and will also often link to profile pages on your client’s website, as well.”

Jeff Previte, Content Manager at Bluleadz, also told me a tip on how their agency stands out when pitching journalists:

“When we conduct outreach for new link-building opportunities, we like to use HubSpot video in our emails. We record a short video introducing ourselves and our company.

After the introduction, we briefly explain how our content can deliver value to their audience and suggest what they can link to. This lends a human element. Most link-building outreach comes from cold email templates.

With a video, we give recipients a name, a face, and a voice they can associate with our company. That small touch helps us stand out.”

6. Update Old Content

If you find an article or a research report that hasn’t been updated in a while, check how many backlinks the piece has. If there are many publications referencing that content, then you find yourself a real gem.

You can simply go ahead and create a better, fresh piece with more relevant data.

Once the content is live, you can then reach out to bloggers or journalists who’ve linked to the old content to let them know about your updated version.

Oftentimes, you’ll see the results of your outreach in a matter of days or weeks in the form of backlinks or social media shares. But there are also other benefits that come out of building that relationship in the first place.

For instance, you might end up collaborating on other projects that can help you grow your brand and your traffic.

Ultimately, when building your email outreach list, have a long-term benefit in mind and try building a relationship — instead of just focusing on the backlink.

7. Build Free Tools

Creating free tools, like calculators or template generators, is an effective method for earning links and even generating new leads.

In a nutshell, here’s how to get started:

1. Start with keyword research and see what comes up for “templates”, “tools”, or “generator” in your industry.
2. Check out what tools appear in Top 10 search results for those keywords.
3. Try to figure out which tool or generator receives the most backlinks right now.
4. Build something similar but way better, e.g. better design, more customizable options, etc.

For example, take HubSpot’s Email Signature Generator. There are over 29,000 searches for “signature generator” on any given month on Google, and our tool offers a very simple, aesthetically pleasing solution.

Since we launched it, it’s been highly used and recommended, having earned over 5,520 backlinks from 1,168 referring domains.

8. Publish Ultimate Guides

An Ultimate Guide is a piece of content designed to be the best, most comprehensive resource on a given topic. It covers enough information that you don’t need to go elsewhere to learn more about that subject.

Here are two examples from our own blog:

• The Ultimate Guide to Video Marketing
• The Ultimate Guide to Content Marketing

The reason why these Ultimate Guides attract inbound backlinks is because they help bloggers and journalists reference a concept they mention.

For instance, if someone writes an article titled “How to get started with SEO”, they can focus on a few tips and tactics without explaining, in-depth, what SEO is — instead, they can simply link to an SEO Ultimate Guide if their readers have further questions.

Here’s an example:

Image Source

Alex Birkett, Senior Growth Marketing Manager at HubSpot, uses this approach with his personal blog, as well.

Here’s how he explains it: “An Ultimate Guide doesn’t have to explicitly tell you it is an Ultimate Guide. It must go above and beyond in its utility or perceived value.”

“For example,” Birkett continues, “I recently wrote a 6,500-word guide on A/B testing. It ranges from beginner issues all the way through advanced topics and fringe cases.

Basically, it’s a bookmarkable article for anyone who runs A/B tests. Not only did it get a really solid initial spike of traffic from social shares, but it consistently gains organic links month-by-month.”

9. Use Images to Earn Links & Mentions

Infographics are probably the most common visual asset used to earn backlinks. It’s always good to experiment with them, if you haven’t done it before.

However, if you feel infographics don’t work well for your brand, here are a few other visuals you might consider creating:

• Charts and graphs with original data
• Diagrams to visually explain complex concepts
• One-page templates
• Free photo galleries for others to use

To give you an idea of how other brands use free photo galleries, check out this creative campaign from LinkedIn: The Real Face of Sales. The brand has created a free downloadable library of photos that feature real, non-cliche salespeople.

The photos are also available on Unsplash and Pexels (where they got over 35 million views), which helped with distribution.

10. Use Directories (yes, Directories!)

Despite what you may have heard, directories aren’t dead. In fact, they are probably one of the best ways to improve your local SEO and help potential customers find your business.

Of course, I’m not talking about spammy directories that are there just for the sake of links. Those are more likely to harm your SEO performance than anything else.

The directories you need to be on are the ones people actually use — like Google My Business, Yelp, and TripAdvisor. Beyond these famous ones, there are many other general and niche directories that can help your rankings and traffic.

Here are a few resources to help you find relevant directories:

• 21 Web Directories That Still Have Value (Search Engine Journal)
• Top Local Citations by Business Category (BrightLocal)
• The Ultimate List: 57 Online Local Business Directories (HubSpot)
• 600+ Directory Sites and How To Do Directory Link Building (Linkio)

11. Use the Broken Link Building Method

This tactic involves reaching out to a website that has a broken outbound link (a link to an external source) and suggesting they update it with a link to one of your pages.

Of course, your page has to be a good resource on the topic to which they were originally linking, so it makes sense to swap the broken link with yours.

The reason this tactic works so well is because it adds a ton of value to the webmasters — it helps them fix an error on their website, and it improves the experience for their readers.

The challenge with this tactic is, of course, finding these broken links.

You have a couple of options here:

1. You can look for websites with broken links and find relevant resources on your website that you might suggest in its place.
2. You can look for one dead page (404) that used to get many links, recreate that article or offer better, more relevant content, and then reach out to those who linked to the initial piece.

Either way, you’ll need a good SEO tool to help you identify broken links.

You can try Siteliner, which is free if you have under 250 pages to review, or Ahrefs, which also published a guide on how to use the broken link-building method using their tool.

Once you identify the target websites and have your content ready, you can start working on your outreach. Make sure to keep your email short and sweet and focus on being helpful rather than just getting a backlink.

Make Sure You Have The Right Backlink Checkers in Your SEO Toolbox

Now that you have a list of tactics to try out in your next link building campaign, it’s time to ensure you also have the tools you need to succeed.

Because there are so many options out there, I thought I’d end this article with a list of my top free, tried-and-tested backlinks checkers.

To make it easier for you to pick the right tool for your next project, I went ahead and tested each tool to see how many backlinks they can find, as well as other unique features they each offer.

I used our domain (www.hubspot.com) to test the capabilities of each tool and here’s what I found:

1. Ahrefs Backlink Checker

With the second most active crawler besides Google, Ahrefs has the most comprehensive backlink database, giving you up-to-date data.

In the free version of the tool, Ahrefs shows you Top 100 backlinks, Top 5 anchors, and Top 5 pages. That’s enough to get a birds-eye view of your website’s backlinks.

If you’d like to get into more details, the paid version offers far more extensive data and access to other tools that might be useful in a link building campaign, like Content Explorer or Broken Outbound links, to name a few.

2. SE Ranking

SE Ranking is another software that stands out for its extensive backlink analysis features.

SE Ranking’s Backlink Checker provides essential data on any domain’s backlink profile, including the list of all referring domains and backlinks, anchor texts, and top-linked pages.

All of this comes with important metrics like Domain Trust score, target URL, toxicity score, etc.

If you’re looking for link-building opportunities, the Backlink Gap Analyzer a try will show you websites that are linking to your competitors but not to your website.

To track the performance of your backlinks and identify any status changes, you can use SE Ranking’s Link Monitoring feature.

Although it doesn’t offer a free version, there’s a 14-day free trial that allows you to check three domains and monitor 250 backlinks.

3. MonitorBacklinks

MonitorBacklinks picks up almost as many referring domains as Ahrefs. Additionally, what’s unique about MonitorBacklinks is that it offers details on the top backlinks that you can see based on Trust Flow or Citation Flow.

However, to access more of their database, you need to switch to their paid version.

4. OpenLinkProfiler

OpenLinkProfiler is a great tool for analyzing your backlink profile. The downside is that their database of links is fairly limited compared to Ahrefs or MonitorBacklinks.

Still, there are a lot of insights you can gain (for free) by filtering the available backlinks by categories such as industry, TLDs, anchors, or LIS (Link Influence Score). That’s something I haven’t seen in other free tools.

This tool also provides charts to show you which pages get the most links or which countries link most to your website.

5. RankWatch

RankWatch has a great Dashboard feature where you can visualize your backlink profile. Among other things, you can see your link acquisition trend for the past three months, referring to domains acquisition, and anchor distribution.

The overall summary charts are available for free. However, if you want to see the exact list of backlinks or referring domains you’ve earned, you need to switch to the paid version.

6. CognitiveSEO

CognitiveSEO is great for getting an overall view of the total backlinks and referring domains — and, most importantly, checking your link velocity.

You can see the link acquisition trend for the past 6 months for free, even without creating an account. Another interesting visual report is the Top 5 website pages, where you can see how your website performs by backlinks or referral domains.

All of the above tools provide valuable insights that can help you get started with link building. They all give a macro view on your backlink profile, but each comes with additional information. Try them out and see which one is best for you.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in September 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

The post 10 Creative (But 100% White Hat!) Ways to Earn Backlinks in 2023 appeared first on ProdSens.live.

Can we please come up with some better terminology for the concept of “link bait”? For me, it conjures up thoughts of those evil bait-and-switch advertising schemes.

But I’m going to say it loud and proud — “Not all link bait is bad!” There is a right and wrong way to use link bait, and, when done correctly, marketers can drive more traffic to their content without alienating their audience

Here, we’ll cover what link baiting entails, its benefits, and how to do it the right way. Let’s dive in.

Table of Contents

What is link bait?

The Benefits of Link Baiting

How to Do Link Bait Correctly

Whether link baiting is good or bad depends on how it’s executed, along with the intentions behind it. For instance, it can quickly go awry when marketers use deceptive tactics to drive clicks to content that lacks genuine value.

For Matt Cutts, former Engineer at Google, link bait is “something interesting enough to catch people’s attention, and that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”

Again, the key is to combine link baiting with high-quality, valuable, and credible content. You want people to click on your blog and read until the last sentence.

Brian Clark of Copyblogger believes that link bait is “just a sexy term for high-quality content that benefits the reader,” even if he does admit that the term is pretty “inelegant.” And I’m sure most experts would agree.

Let’s talk about why link bait is so effective, how it can benefit your marketing, and how you can approach creating top-notch link bait content that your readers love and value.

The Benefits of Link Baiting

Link bait content can be extremely beneficial to your marketing. Here are three powerful reasons why:

1. Increased search rankings.

Because link bait content is so interesting, it’s usually very effective for generating inbound links (remember, it’s called link bait for a reason). After all, people are way more likely to link back to something if they find it interesting.

As a result, link bait content is extremely powerful for boosting your website’s off-page SEO, which we know is the most influential way to increase your organic search rankings.

As you’re creating content you predict will make great link bait, be sure you’re optimizing it using the keywords you want to rank for in search. This will help you leverage your link bait content to boost your rankings for the keywords you want to get found for in search.

2. More traffic and conversion opportunities.

Because link bait content is interesting, there’s usually a level of virality to it. As a result, link bait content is also usually a major traffic driver.

The more traffic you generate to your blog or website, the more visitors you have the opportunity to convert into leads and customers. So, make sure your blog is optimized for conversion: use calls-to-action for your top marketing offers on every blog post as well as in your blog’s top/sidebar(s). 

As a bonus, because link bait content has the tendency to rank well in search, the traffic it generates is usually very sustainable. Searchers will continue to stumble upon your link bait content long after it was originally published. 

3. Exposure to new audiences.

Remember how we talked about how link-bait content is usually very sharable? Because this is so, link bait has a lot of potential to expose your business and your content to entirely new audiences you might not have reached otherwise. Thus, it helps you grow the top of your funnel, expanding your reach and attracting new blog readers.

How to Do Link Bait Correctly

As we mentioned earlier, what any given marketer considers to be link bait is going to vary from business to business, industry to industry, and audience to audience.

The key is to experiment with ideas you suspect will be successful for your particular blog, regularly conduct analyses like the one I did above, and learn from what tends to work as link bait for you.

And just like setting out to create something that will definitely absolutely “go viral” is unrealistic, setting out to create link bait is never a given. The best you can do is emulate the qualities of content that have typically led to tons of inbound links and traffic for you in the past.

Here are some ideas to get you going, each accompanied by successful link bait examples from the HubSpot blog:

1. Original, Striking Data

Publishing original data is not only a great tactic for earning media coverage – it can also make great link bait fodder.

If you’re a business that has access to original data that you can analyze to expose, add to, or refute an industry topic or trend, take advantage of it! If not, maybe there’s an opportunity to partner with a research firm instead.

HubSpot examples:

• When Is the Best Time to Post on Instagram in 2023? [Cheat Sheet]
• Top Shopping Trends of 2023 & How They’ve Changed [New Data]
• Research Finds Customer Loyalty Isn’t What It Used to Be [2023 Data]
• Email Signature Essentials: Key Statistics to Know for 2023
• Which Social Media Channels Are Gaining and Losing Steam? [New Consumer and Platform Data]

2. Controversial Content

Who doesn’t love a little heated debate? Controversial content usually garners a lot of attention, so if you have an opinion on a controversial issue, you might have some link bait fodder on your hands.

Your content doesn’t even have to be centered around a radical opinion to leverage the power of controversy, either; it could just present a bit of data that refutes a common assumption your audience might have.

Just don’t go overboard with the controversy (you do still want to be likeable, right?), and don’t be controversial just for the sake of being controversial. Make sure you’re passionate about the stance you’re taking, and always try to lean on data to back up your claims, like the post below does.

HubSpot examples:

• Is Instagram Dying?
• Why AI Isn’t Replacing Our Jobs — Or Search Engines — According to Jasper’s Head of Enterprise Marketing
• Should I (or My Business) Be on Threads?
• 5 Marketing Trends That Might Not Survive in 2023
• 63% of B2B Companies Don’t Generate Leads From Social Media [New Data]

3. Being the Most Comprehensive (Or First) Resource on a Popular Topic

Taking a topic you know performs well on your blog and publishing the most comprehensive post about it on the web (or at least attempting to) can make for a great link bait win.

Is there a popular topic in your industry that few have written about (or written about well) where you see an opportunity? Jump on it! Even better if you can be one of the first to produce comprehensive content on a trending topic.

HubSpot examples:

• How to Make an Ad: A 15-Step Guide [+Expert Tips]
• How to Run Facebook Ads: Step-by-Step Guide
• The Ultimate Guide to Mastering Pinterest for Marketing
• How to Use Instagram: A Beginner’s Guide
• Podcast SEO 101: How to Rank Higher

4. Visual Content

Visual content is all the rage in marketing these days, especially when it comes to social media marketing. It’s no wonder why it makes excellent link bait content.

Visual content doesn’t have to take the form of infographics to be link bait-friendly. Sometimes posts that compile a list of awesome visuals (like the example below) can work out just as well. Other types of visual link-bait content you can create include cartoons or content/concept visualizations .

HubSpot examples:

• 37 of the Best Website Designs to Inspire You in 2023
• 48 Call-to-Action Examples You Can’t Help But Click
• Landing Page Design Examples to Inspire Your Own in 2023
• 30 Brilliant Marketing Email Campaign Examples [+ Template]
• 17 Examples of Creative Facebook Page Cover Photos

5. Content That’s Creative, Entertaining, or Fun

This content goes far because it’s usually easy to consume, great fodder for sharing, quick to scan, requires little thought (on your readers’ end), and well … it’s FUN! Think music videos or just content that leverages pop culture references or emerging, mainstreamed trends, like our example below.

HubSpot examples:

• How Duolingo Struck Social Media Gold with Unhinged Content
• The Marketing Power of $17 Smoothies
• How Shopify, Canva, and HubSpot are Excelling on Threads, and How You Can, Too
• Why Your ChatGPT Prompts Aren’t Working (And How to Fix Them)
• Memejacking: The Complete Guide to Creating Memes for Marketing

6. A Title People Simply Can’t Help Themselves From Clicking (Accompanied by Awesome Content)

Don’t gloss over the text within those parentheses. The important thing to remember is that your content must live up to its title; otherwise, it won’t achieve link bait status. If your title is overly sensational and hyperbolic, yet the content it alludes to is barely average, you’ll undermine your credibility and lose readers’ interest in your content altogether.

HubSpot examples:

• 15 Things People Absolutely Hate About Your Website
• The Meme-ification of Barbie
• Why We Removed 3,000 Pieces of Outdated Content From the HubSpot Blog
• The Ridiculously Successful Way to Introduce Yourself Over Email
• How to Lose a Negotiation in 7 Easy Steps

Back to You

By now, you should be pretty convinced that link bait isn’t always some evil, black-hat marketing tactic you need to avoid like the plague. But that doesn’t mean all link bait is high quality, or that you can’t abuse it. After all, link bait had to get its bad rap from somewhere, right?

Before you set off to create a piece of content you think will make great link bait, make sure your answer to the question, “Will my audience still find this valuable?” is “Absolutely!” And remember, there is such a thing as ‘entertainment value,’ too.

Furthermore, think of your blog as a well-balanced diet. If you feed your blog readers the same diet of lean meat, hearty grains, and nutritious vegetables all the time and deny them any sort of dessert (or variety), they might also start looking for a new chef.

So go ahead — give your readers some candy every once in a while. Just don’t give them too much, or their teeth will rot.

The post The Marketer’s Ultimate Guide to Link Bait appeared first on ProdSens.live.