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12 Great Link Building Tools That Are Essential To Your Success

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12 Great Link Building Tools That Are Essential To Your Success

Link-building strategies, along with SEO tools, have certainly changed over the years.

Since the old automated link-building tools that automatically placed content like KontentMachine or GSA’s Search Engine Ranker, modern tools have moved to manual research and outreach platforms.

Tools that many of my link-building colleagues and I use today look more like ones used for public relations (PR) rather than link-building. However, there are still tools specific to link building that aren’t going anywhere.

These can be divided into four categories:

  • Link research.
  • Prospecting and outreach.
  • Reporting.
  • AI-powered tools.

Emerging technologies powered by AI can make the link-building process easier.

Link Research Prospecting And Outreach Reporting AI-Powered Tools
1. Majestic

Excellent for identifying the types of domains you should generate links from.

3. Pitchbox

Combines email outreach with SEO metrics.

8. Agency Analytics

Connects a variety of performance metrics.

10. Link Whisperer

Good for internal linking efforts.

2. Ahrefs

Provides useful reports to analyze trends.

4. BuzzSumo

Use to identify authors and sharers/backlinkers.

9. Cyfe

Customizable but automatic reporting.

11. Postaga

Find opportunities and initiate outreach.

5. Hunter.IO

A browser extension that helps you find contact information.

12. CTRify

WordPress plugin that generates content.

6. BrightLocal

Submit and manage citations.

7. HARO

Link Research Tools

Link research is vital to figuring out what type of sites you should be approaching. This includes establishing quality criteria, categories of sites, authority metrics, and others.

Majestic and Ahrefs are two research tools that provide large databases and robust reporting.

I’ve included both of these sites as I constantly see each having data that the other doesn’t.

You may find some links to your competitors’ sites in Majestic that aren’t listed in Ahrefs and vice versa.

These tools can be used together to build a comprehensive list of sites to analyze. As with many SEO tools, the pricing depends on how many features your team needs.

1. Majestic

  • Pricing: $49.99 per month with one user for the ‘Lite’ package. $99.99 per month for the “Pro” package, which they recommend for SEO agencies and consultants.
  • Payment options: Monthly or receive a discount for an annual subscription.
Screenshot from Majestic, January 2023

Here are some recommendations on using it and what reports should influence your link-building.

  • Topics: This data can be used to identify the types of sites you should be generating links from. Consider running this report on the link profiles for top-ranking sites, then finding sites that fit into similar categories.
  • Referring Domains: Use this to evaluate the number of unique domains you should focus on building for your site. This also offers a look into the trust/citation flow distribution (count of domains by trust/citation flow).

2. Ahrefs

  • Pricing: $99 per month with only one user for the ‘Lite’ plan. $199 per month for the “Standard” plan.
  • Payment options: Monthly or receive a discount for an annual subscription.
Ahrefs toolScreenshot from Ahrefs, January 2023

In contrast to Majestic, Ahrefs has some reports that are much easier to run inside the tool. It certainly costs more, but if you want more data, then Ahrefs is the right choice.

Here are reports to use in Ahrefs over Majestic:

  • Pages > Best by links: Two useful applications of this report are:
    • Identify competitors’ most linked content to influence your content strategies.
    • Identify the type of sites that link to the content you will produce.
  • Pages > Best by link growth: This is a “trend” report providing content that has been generating links over the last 30 days. Find content here that is receiving a rapid number of links and create more robust content.

Prospecting And Outreach Tools

Finding highly relevant sites that may link to your content is the most excruciating part of link building.

You can create a large list of sites and bulk outreach to save time, but when evaluating your link-building success on links gained per hour and the quality of those links, it’s best to handle prospecting manually or in a semi-automated approach.

I’ll go through five tools, Pitchbox, BuzzSumo, Hunter.io, BrightLocal, and HARO.

These tools can be used for the most popular link-building strategies.

3. Pitchbox

  • Pricing: Averages $500+ per month.
  • Payment options: Prices are dependent on an individual walkthrough with Pitchbox.

Pitchbox is one of the pricier tools on the market compared to email tools like MailChimp, but integrated prospecting helps reduce the time to qualify sites.

The prospecting sites list builder and SEO metrics integrated right into the opportunities report make the tool stand out.

PitchboxScreenshot from Pitchbox, January 2023

4. BuzzSumo

  • Pricing: $99 per month for the “Pro” package. $179 per month for the “Plus” package. There’s a pared-down free version with limited searches per month.
  • Payment options: There is also a free version with limited features.

This is an excellent tool for building lists of blogs, influencers, and authors. Out of all the prospecting tools on the list, BuzzSumo has the best filtering options.

You can use the tool for a lot of purposes, but for link building, these are two effective use cases:

  • Identifying authors: The content research and influencers sections provide lists of authors/influencers that are searchable by keywords in the content they shared or produced. One fantastic use for this is to search through the “most shared” report and find influencers that received more than 2,000 shares of their content, then outreach to them to share yours. This can yield a lot of natural links.
  • Identifying sharers/backlinks: The second use goes a layer deeper than the first, finding those that have shared the content. Pull a list of shares or backlinking websites by content, then create similar but better content.
Buzzsumo platformScreenshot from Buzzsumo, January 2023

5. Hunter.io

  • Pricing: Starts at free. The first two upgraded packages are $49 per month and $99 per month.
  • Payment options: Free for 25 monthly searches up to $399 per month for 30,000 searches.

This browser extension finds email addresses for easy contact options.

It helps cut down on time spent sifting through About pages. You can also take it a step further and use the tool for outreach.

Hunter.ioScreenshot from Hunter.io, January 2023

6. BrightLocal

  • Pricing: $29-$79 per month, depending on package size.
  • Payment options: You can also pay for the citation builder, reviews, or enterprise.

Citation building is important for local SEO and should be considered a link-building project.

One of the tools with the best value for submitting and managing citations is BrightLocal.

There are two components: citation monitoring and citation building. The tool also allows you to figure out how you’re ranking based on the local competition.

BrightLocalScreenshot from BightLocal, January 2023

7. HARO

  • Pricing: Starts at free. The first paid plan is $19 per month, which adds alerts and search functionality.
  • Payment options: The free options offer media options delivered to your email three times a day and up to $149/month for premium.

While this tool is traditionally used in the journalism world, it can also help link builders. It connects you with credible sources and allows you to build natural backlinks.

HAROScreenshot from HARO, January 2023

Reporting Tools

Although many of the tools in the previous section have reporting functionality built in, I’ve found them lacking in custom reporting or the ability to associate links to ranking performance.

These tools solve that issue; AgencyAnalytics and Cyfe.

8. Agency Analytics

  • Pricing: $12 per month, per campaign. $18 per month per campaign for custom reporting features.
  • Payment options: Pay annually to save money.

Agency Analytics automatically populates the dashboard with data from Moz and Majestic and connects that data to critical performance metrics, like ranking and organic traffic.

Qualified traffic that converts to leads or sales is the purpose of link-building and SEO efforts, so reporting needs to make a connection between them.

Agency AnalyticsScreenshot from Agency Analytics, January 2023

9. Cyfe

  • Pricing: $19 per month for one user, with higher tiers for more users.
  • Payment options: Unlimited users for $89/month.

This tool can be built out as a hybrid between Google Sheets and Agency Analytics, meaning it’s very customizable but can also automatically and easily aggregate data from multiple sources to create a meaningful report.

CyfeScreenshot from Cyfe, January 2023

AI-Powered Tools

AI-powered tools can significantly simplify otherwise complex and time-consuming tasks. Remember that some of your processes will require a human touch, so always evaluate how performance is impacted when integrating AI into your processes.

The following tools, Link Whisper, Postaga, and CTRify use AI to discover opportunities and automate processes.

10. Link Whisper

  • Pricing: $77 per month for one site, with additional plans for more sites.
  • Payment options: One to 50 site licenses.

Link Whisper is useful for internal link building.

AI technologies offer automatic link suggestions as content is produced. It can also help you recognize old content that needs more links directed to it.

The tools also automate links based on keywords and offer internal link reporting. It’s pretty all-inclusive and can help speed up internal link-building automatically.

Link WhispererScreenshot from Link Whisperer, January 2023

11. Postaga

  • Pricing: $84 per month for one account with five users. $250 per month for 30 accounts with unlimited users.
  • Payment options: Save by paying annually.

Postaga does everything from finding opportunities to initiating outreach.

AI comes into play with the outreach assistant, which finds relevant information from influencers to include in emails. You can also enter your domain into the tool to find relevant campaign ideas.

PostagaScreenshot from Postaga, January 2023

12. CTRify

  • Pricing: A free version. $197 or $497, depending on the plan.
  • Payment options: Single payment.

CTRify is a WordPress plugin that is great for content creation.

All it takes is a single keyword, and the AI creates the content you need for a specific campaign. You can then automatically publish the posts – it doesn’t get much simpler than that.

CTRifyScreenshot from CTRify, January 2023

Conclusion

I’ve curated this list with the intent to offer a tool for every reader, providing enterprise-level affordable solutions and highly technical tools.

There is diversity in the available tools, and you will need to select the right one for the job.

You don’t need to have a $1,000 monthly tool budget to be a link builder, but all of the tasks will take time. Allocating your time and budget in the right combination improves business outcomes.


Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal



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How Do You Clean Up Content Without Effecting Rankings?

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How Do You Clean Up Content Without Effecting Rankings?

Today’s Ask An SEO question comes from Neethu, who asks:

My website is almost 20 years old. There are lots of content. Many of them are not performing well. How do you effectively clean up those content without effecting rankings?

Contrary to what some SEO pros tell you, more content is not always better.

Deciding what content to keep, which content to modify, and which content to throw away is an important consideration, as content is the backbone of any website and is essential for driving traffic, engagement, and conversions.

However, not all content is created equal, and outdated, irrelevant, or underperforming content can hinder a website’s success.

Run A Content Audit

To effectively clean up your website’s content, the first step is to conduct a content audit.

This involves analyzing your site’s content and assessing its performance, relevance, and quality.

You can use various metrics such as traffic, bounce rate, and engagement to identify which pages are performing well and which ones are not.

Once you have identified the pages that are not performing well, it’s important to prioritize them based on their importance to your website.

Pages that are not driving traffic or conversions may need to be prioritized over pages that are not performing well but are still important for your site’s overall goals.

Distinguish Evergreen Vs. Time-Sensitive Content

Additionally, it’s important to consider whether a page is evergreen or time-sensitive.

You can update or repurpose evergreen content over time, while you may need to remove time-sensitive content.

After prioritizing your content, you can decide what action to take with each page.

For pages that are still relevant but not performing well, you may be able to update them with fresh information to improve their performance.

For pages that are outdated or no longer relevant, it may be best to remove them altogether.

When removing content, implement 301 redirects to relevant pages to ensure that any backlinks pointing to the old page are not lost.

Monitor Your Stuff

It’s important to monitor your search engine rankings after cleaning up your content to ensure your changes do not negatively impact your SEO.

But don’t just look at rankings.

Content optimization projects can affect traffic, conversions, navigation, and other items that impact your overall search engine optimization efforts.

Watch Google Analytics closely. If there are traffic declines, you may need to re-evaluate a few changes.

It’s important not to have a knee-jerk reaction, however.

Before you throw out your optimization efforts, be sure that the changes you made are actually what is causing a drop – and make sure those changes are stable within the search engines index.

Remember that it may take some time for your rankings to stabilize after a content cleanup, so it’s important to be patient and monitor your website’s performance over time.

To further optimize your content cleanup, consider using Google Search Console to identify pages with high impressions but low click-through rates.

These pages may benefit from content updates or optimization to improve their performance.

Additionally, consolidating pages that cover similar topics into one comprehensive page can improve user experience and help avoid keyword cannibalization.

In Summary

Cleaning up your website’s content is crucial for maintaining a high-quality site.

By conducting a content audit, prioritizing your content, and deciding whether to keep, update, or remove the content, you can effectively clean up your site without negatively impacting your rankings.

Remember to monitor your rankings and be patient as your site adjust.

More Resources: 


Featured Image: Song_about_summer/Shutterstock



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Optimize Your SEO Strategy For Maximum ROI With These 5 Tips

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Optimize Your SEO Strategy For Maximum ROI With These 5 Tips

Wondering what improvements can you make to boost organic search results and increase ROI?

If you want to be successful in SEO, even after large Google algorithm updates, be sure to:

  1. Keep the SEO fundamentals at the forefront of your strategy.
  2. Prioritize your SEO efforts for the most rewarding outcomes.
  3. Focus on uncovering and prioritizing commercial opportunities if you’re in ecommerce.
  4. Dive into seasonal trends and how to plan for them.
  5. Get tip 5 and all of the step-by-step how-tos by joining our upcoming webinar.

We’ll share five actionable ways you can discover the most impactful opportunities for your business and achieve maximum ROI.

You’ll learn how to:

  • Identify seasonal trends and plan for them.
  • Report on and optimize your online share of voice.
  • Maximize SERP feature opportunities, most notably Popular Products.

Join Jon Earnshaw, Chief Product Evangelist and Co-Founder of Pi Datametrics, and Sophie Moule, Head of Product and Marketing at Pi Datametrics, as they walk you through ways to drastically improve the ROI of your SEO strategy.

In this live session, we’ll uncover innovative ways you can step up your search strategy and outperform your competitors.

Ready to start maximizing your results and growing your business?

Sign up now and get the actionable insights you need for SEO success.

Can’t attend the live webinar? We’ve got you covered. Register anyway and you’ll get access to a recording, after the event.



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TikTok’s US Future Uncertain: CEO Faces Congress

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TikTok's US Future Uncertain: CEO Faces Congress

During a five-hour congressional hearing, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew faced intense scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers about the social media platform’s connections to its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.

Legislators from both sides demanded clear answers on whether TikTok spies on Americans for China.

The U.S. government has been pushing for the divestiture of TikTok and has even threatened to ban the app in the United States.

Chew found himself in a difficult position, attempting to portray TikTok as an independent company not influenced by China.

However, lawmakers remained skeptical, citing China’s opposition to the sale of TikTok as evidence of the country’s influence over the company.

The hearing was marked by a rare display of bipartisan unity, with the tone harsher than in previous congressional hearings featuring American social media executives.

The Future of TikTok In The US

With the U.S. and China at odds over TikTok’s sale, the app faces two possible outcomes in the United States.

Either TikTok gets banned, or it revisits negotiations for a technical fix to data security concerns.

Lindsay Gorman, head of technology and geopolitics at the German Marshall Fund, said, “The future of TikTok in the U.S. is definitely dimmer and more uncertain today than it was yesterday.”

TikTok has proposed measures to protect U.S. user data, but no security agreement has been reached.

Addressing Concerns About Societal Impact

Lawmakers at the hearing raised concerns about TikTok’s impact on young Americans, accusing the platform of invading privacy and harming mental health.

According to the Pew Research Center, the app is used by 67% of U.S. teenagers.

Critics argue that the app is too addictive and its algorithm can expose teens to dangerous or lethal situations.

Chew pointed to new screen time limits and content guidelines to address these concerns, but lawmakers remained unconvinced.

In Summary

The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s hearing on TikTok addressed concerns common to all social media platforms, like spreading harmful content and collecting massive user data.

Most committee members were critical of TikTok, but many avoided the typical grandstanding seen in high-profile hearings.

The hearing aimed to make a case for regulating social media and protecting children rather than focusing on the national security threat posed by the app’s connection to China.

If anything emerges from this hearing, it could be related to those regulations.

The hearing also allowed Congress to convince Americans that TikTok is a national security threat that warrants a ban.

This concern arises from the potential for the Chinese government to access the data of TikTok’s 150 million U.S. users or manipulate its recommendation algorithms to spread propaganda or disinformation.

However, limited public evidence supports these claims, making banning the app seem extreme and potentially unnecessary.

As events progress, staying informed is crucial as the outcome could impact the digital marketing landscape.


Featured Image: Rokas Tenys/Shutterstock

Full replay of congressional hearing available on YouTube.



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