Increasing the ranking of your site depends on many factors, both locally and externally. And if you like the SEO game, you probably know that off-page SEO is as important as an optimization on the page.
I have written a lot about blogging tools and SEO tools. In this post, I will focus more on the best link-building tools available online that will help you create scalable links to your site.
Among the more than 200 SEO factors that involve ranking a page, creating backlinks is probably the most popular. The importance of creating backlinks can be demonstrated from this research result (conducted by Moz), which shows that backlinks constitute almost 23% of all ranking factors because it tells search engines How is your site. It is noticed by other websites.
Link Building clearly shows how valuable the content is and the more the number of backlinks (incoming and outgoing) pointed to your site, the greater your trust and authority. (Also, Check SEO Trends)
In this Best Link Building Tools, I will show you:
- The best free (and premium) linking tools
- The pros and cons (if any) of these tools
- How to use these tools to create backlinks
The best list of free and paid link-building tools:
#1. SEMrush: the all-in-one SEO tool:
One of the best tools to develop SEO links is SEMrush. I have been using SEMrush for a while and it has been the favorite white hat SEO tool of many professional bloggers.
SEMrush allows you to verify your competitor’s backlink profile and then develop strategies for your link survey steps to obtain similar links.
This is very useful for bloggers who don’t know where to start and how to create links that work. You just need to enter your competitor’s domain and click on the backlink option in the left panel.
To show the power of SEMrush as an example, I took the BloggingWizard.com blog and connected SEMrush. You have the option to verify the backlinks of any blog, any subdomain, or a specific URL (useful if you are viewing a very popular page on a competitor’s site).
SEMrush will bring you a detailed report of the backlink of the competition site, along with the demographics of the link sites, the anchor text used for the backlinks, and even the format of the links (also known as text, images, or floating frames).
After that, you get the complete database of backlinks that your competitor’s blog has. You know what kind of sites point to it, what publications get the most links, and even the anchor texts they use. You can further filter backlinks based on the type of tracking, reference domains, reference IPs, if you have them, etc.
Now I know that I have to get in front of sites like NeilPatel.com or similar sites if I want to get backlinks or mentions.
You can also get reference domain details so you can use the data to reach these bloggers. SEMrush helps you track and compare the results of link building with your competitors, so you know what works and what doesn’t.
Pros of SEMrush:
- SEMrush provides detailed data on backlinks, their indexing times, anchor text used, etc.
- You also get multiple site audits, keyword research functions and more to boost the content strategy that can provide you with more organic links.
Cons of SEMrush:
- SEMrush is a paid tool that may not favor many novice bloggers.
- SEMrush does not yet have advanced broken link analysis techniques, such as Ahrefs.
#2. Serpstat
Serpstat is an all-in-one SEO toolkit that helps you improve your search rankings by providing a ton of useful tools such as site auditing, keyword research, competition analysis, ranking tracking, etc.
If you are looking for an “affordable SEO toolkit” that helps you achieve everything from finding excellent keywords, analyzing backlinks to finding competition, you should consider using Serpstat.
Let’s take a look at the Serpstat domain analysis function, as it provides a large amount of data to analyze any website or domain on the web. It includes;
- Visibility index (this is a score based on the performance of the site in search engines such as Google, the higher the visibility score, the better your chances of obtaining better rankings)
- Search engine traffic (gives you an idea about the number of visitors a site receives per month, including its competitors)
- Organic keywords (provides a list of all the keywords in which Google ranks a site in the top 100)
- This is how it is;
As you can see above, you can easily find the following in the domain analysis.
- Total number of organic keywords
- SE traffic
- Organic keywords
- Keyword Positions
- Volume (the traffic generated by the keywords)
- CPC keywords
In summary, Serpstat is a great SEO tool that you can use to perform almost any type of SEO-related task.
Advantages of using Serpstat:
- One of the biggest professionals who use Serpstat is the price. It is cheaper than other competitors in the SEO industry, including Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz tools, etc. Your pricing plans start at just $ 19 a month!
- Find tons of highly profitable and uncompetitive keywords in any niche
- Easily spy on your competitors
- Analyze the backlinks of your own website with the competition
- Track keyword rankings
Cons of Serpstat:
- You will rarely find free trials
#3. Majestic SEO
Majestic SEO is the largest backlink index database in the world, which means that you know all the links better than any other online link software. It has 875 billion links in its backlinks link database (called historical index).
Majestic has a game-changer function where it analyzes the links to websites daily. This backlink data is called the Fresh Index. You can get daily reports on the new backlink earnings for your site and those of your competitors.
The free version of Majestic is good enough to help you track and audit the backlink profile of your site. This is very essential, as it helps you know how people see your site outside and what content works best. You can further develop relationships with your linked sites to grow and get more links.
Here is how you can use it to compare two different sites and their authority.
You can even get reports on negative SEO or artificial backlink growth for some time to stay cautious. Majestic allows you to get details about the shared neighborhood, which means you can search for domains with more backlinks on any IP or domain name and view other sites using the same hosting and backlink structure.
This is what I did when verifying a random IP address and Majestic gave me the number of websites hosted along with the link data.
Majestic SEO Pros:
- Using Majestic as a link analysis tool helps you get information from the largest backlink link data resource you need.
- The fight for the link profile (essentially link comparison model) helps to compare two different sites and obtain a graphic illustration of the result that most appeals to me personally.
- The Majestic browser extension simplifies things further and provides site metrics on any site we visit.
Cons of Majestic SEO:
- Majestic works well in what you do, analyze and compare backlinks. I can find hundreds of demerits if this were a publication in the list of SEO tools, but according to our criteria now majestic is perfect.
- Majestic does not provide data on the top pages for keywords or social shares that may be useful for a more detailed analysis.
#4. Ahrefs
Ahrefs is by far the best SEO tool for general optimization. Ahrefs works well in generating keyword ideas, competition analysis, website auditing, and more.
As for the process of generating links that we are talking about, Ahrefs allows you to see the main pages of your competitors by links, the main pages for link growth (the pages that get the most backlinks for your competitor), analysis of broken links, etc.
You can also see the outbound links of a site, the anchor text they used, and the broken links of the entire site. Going one step further, you can see websites that point to these broken pages.
This is what I got after reviewing the backlinks of a web design company OrbitMedia.com. I quickly found some broken links on the site that were linked by authority websites.
I use this function to find new ideas for publications on popular publications (from my competitors) that now show a 404 page. After that, I write detailed publications on these topics using the skyscraper technique. Then, contact the people who linked to these broken pages and ask them to replace 404 pages with my article.
This has a high success rate in obtaining backlinks by the broken link method.
Ahref’s best link growth option is another excellent feature that makes it a desirable backlink authoring software. This option shows the main pages that obtained the most backlinks in the last 30 days. An amazing way to gather ideas from later trends!
Pros of Ahrefs:
- Ahrefs is very useful and offers everything you want to know about your competitor’s backlink profile.
- It shows how well your blog has worked over the years, the best performing content for backlinks and social sharing.
- Easy to use interface
Cons of Ahrefs:
- Ahrefs is a bit expensive (the basic plan starts at $ 99), which is not accessible to most bloggers.
#5. Moz Link Explorer
Moz Link Explorer is another popular and most used tool. LE is quite simple in terms of link analysis capabilities. It helps search backlinks (competitors and their websites), searches for backlink opportunities, and identifies any manual or automatic link spam that may invoke a Google penalty.
You can also check the spam score (a metric developed by Link Explorer people) that shows the type of link that points to a site. Here is a screenshot of how I use it to collect information from links to blogs on the move. As it is a freemium SEO tool, I recommend that you use it to the fullest.
One feature that I like about Moz is that it provides clear information about the title of the page that links to you, along with the URL and anchor text used.
This is not a very important feature, but it can help you identify the type and theme of the page that links it. This is a free link tool and can be upgraded to premium if necessary.
Pros of Moz Link Explorer:
- It is very easy to use and perfectly handles link analysis.
- It provides domain authority metrics, which is a good way to classify sites according to their authority.
- Free users (just need to enable it) can easily use it to get simple backlink data.
Cons of Moz Link Explorer:
- Moz is a great concept and was once the undisputed king in the block. Majestic SEO now has almost 8 times the backlink data that Moz has, so the latter is more precise and ingenious.
- Moz does not track sites on a daily basis, as does Majestic, which means it may lose new data metrics until another crawl next month.
#6. SEO Raven Tools
Raven tools are another amazing link-building set, which specializes in competitor research and reach management. It has a broad competitive analysis that will help you know what keywords your competitors are ranked for.
Raven’s SEO tools also have other marketing tools that are beyond the scope of this publication. Ontolo is another link-building automation tool and is a perfect alternative to Raven tools.
Raven SEO tools pros:
- Easy tail link function that allows the scope of link building.
- It offers many more SEO tools that allow you to do different things on one platform.
Cons of Raven SEO Tools:
- Raven is based on OSE and Majestic link data. This means why pay for any other tool when you can use Majestic or OSE directly at your choice for a lower price.
- The user interface is too large for novice users.
#7. SEOquake
SEOquake is by far the best browser extension for all SEO analyzers. It gives you quick access to tons of valuable data from all the sites you visit, such as social signals from a page, difficulty of a keyword in a query, and full reports on internal and external links to a site.
The best thing is that every time you search for a topic on Google, the extension remains in the browser and gives you details about the ranking of the competition site.
SEOquake advantages:
- It is a useful browser extension that has just been configured and forgotten.
- It provides a lot of data on each page we visit.
Cons of SEOquake:
- The browser extension is sometimes annoying, as it appears on each page load.
- Provides basic site information but no detailed information about backlink data.
You can also use this to check valuable blogs when searching for guest post blogs.
Other Useful sites for links Building and browser extensions:
With that, we arrive at our next session of whitehat link-building tools and browser extensions that should remain in your SEO arsenal.
#1. Buzzstream: partially automated link creation software
Buzzstream is a powerful link generation tool that helps you investigate your prospects, send personalized messages to reach and track these projects. You can use Buzzstream to track your outreach campaigns, forward them to your teammates to facilitate collaboration.
It allows you to send personalized messages directly from the tool and allows you to set reminders to send, track and respond to outreach campaigns.
#2. Alexa.com
While Alexa.com is not actively used by bloggers and sellers, it is still a great free tool for free competitor reviews. Simply connect your site or the competition site and you will get interesting facts, such as audience demographics, as your site was in the past. What sites visitors visited before entering the site.
#3. SEO Spyglass:
This is part of the very popular link wizard toolkit. SEO Spyglass helps track backlinks from any site, audit the site, and even verify if there are harmful links that point to the site that could invoke a penalty.
Spyglass has its built-in bounce file generator that helps counteract spam backlinks. It is used by users such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Nestlé.
#4. Check my links:
Check my links is an excellent free Chrome extension for link building that allows you to verify all broken links on a page. This is the best way for a fast and free broken links campaign. Checking my links has also helped me get broken links to sites that no longer exist and is excellent for those looking for domain purchases that expired quickly.
#5. Link Miner:
It is a free tool from my fellow blogger and SEO expert Jon Cooper. Link Miner offers a good feature of Ahrefs (checking links that point to a broken link), which takes what Check My Links has taken a step further.
You can even check the number of outbound links a site has (directly from SERPs) so you can target your link analysis objectives to pages with many outbound links only.
How to use Seo Building tools to create backlinks?
While using each of these backlinks generation tools may require separate dedicated guides for you, I will briefly mention the steps I use as a guide to making the most of these tools.
- Almost all of these tools help you analyze the strength of your site (and that of your competitor); so use them to see how you behave with other sites and try to work on weaknesses.
- Get broken links from your competitors and try to create content around you, or send it directly to sites that link to the broken link to increase your link power. You can use the popular content of the site, looking for the best content for link growth (ahrefs has this feature) to create similar content, because what works for them will surely work for you as long as you have the same audience.
Conclusion
When I am considering a serious link-building process, I prefer a tool that gives me full access instead of just backlink data. Linking is not just about getting backlink data, it is about knowing the detailed strategy of your competitors so you can work better than them.
Having the best content, the most linked pages, the main keywords that rank and even meet the competitors of your competitors is an essential part of the same link-building campaign.
While Moz and Majestic’s similar tools provide you with the best and most complete backlink data of any site, I prefer tools such as Ahrefs or SEMrush to boost my link-building process.
If you want a multifunctional tool that analyzes the gold keywords that your competitor classifies, get backlink data, see your competitors and their strategies.
So what is your favorite link tool? If you use any of the tools mentioned above, would you like to know which functions you use most? And if I missed a tool you use, leave the details in the comments so that I give them a try!