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 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 och 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.

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.

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, och 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 och 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.

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.

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, och CTRify använda AI för att upptäcka möjligheter och automatisera processer.

10. Link Whisper

• Pricing: $77 per månad för en webbplats, med ytterligare planer för fler webbplatser.
• Payment options: En till 50 webbplatslicenser.

Link Whisper är användbart för internt länkbyggande.

AI-tekniker erbjuder automatiska länkförslag när innehåll produceras. Det kan också hjälpa dig att känna igen gammalt innehåll som behöver fler länkar riktade till det.

Verktygen automatiserar även länkar baserat på nyckelord och erbjuder intern länkrapportering. Det är ganska allomfattande och kan hjälpa till att påskynda internt länkbygge automatiskt.

11. Postaga

• Pricing: $84 per månad för ett konto med fem användare. $250 per månad för 30 konton med obegränsat antal användare.
• Payment options: Spara genom att betala årligen.

Postaga gör allt från att hitta möjligheter till att initiera uppsökande verksamhet.

AI spelar in med den uppsökande assistenten, som hittar relevant information från influencers att inkludera i e-postmeddelanden. Du kan också ange din domän i verktyget för att hitta relevanta kampanjidéer.

12. CTRify

• Pricing: En gratisversion. $197 eller $497, beroende på planen.
• Payment options: Engångsbetalning.

CTRify är ett WordPress-plugin som är bra för att skapa innehåll.

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

Slutsats

Jag har sammanställt den här listan med avsikten att erbjuda ett verktyg för varje läsare, tillhandahålla prisvärda lösningar på företagsnivå och mycket tekniska verktyg.

Det finns en mångfald i de tillgängliga verktygen och du måste välja rätt för jobbet.

Du behöver inte ha en $1 000 månatlig verktygsbudget för att vara en länkbyggare, men alla uppgifter kommer att ta tid. Att allokera din tid och din budget i rätt kombination förbättrar affärsresultaten.

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Utvald bild: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal