12 great link building tools essential for success

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

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

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

These can be grouped into four categories:

• Link research.
• Prospecting and outreach.
• report.
• Tools powered by AI.

New AI-powered technologies make the link building process easier.

link research tool

Link research is essential to understanding the types of sites you should approach. This includes establishing quality standards, site categories, authority metrics, and more.

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

I included both of these sites because I constantly see that each has data that the other does not.

Majestic may have some links to competitor sites not listed on Ahrefs and vice versa.

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

1. Majestic

• price: $49.99 per month for 1 user in the “Lite” package. The “Pro” package costs $99.99/month and is recommended by SEO agencies and consultants.
• Payment options: Get discounts on monthly or yearly subscriptions.

Screenshot from Majestic, January 2023

Here are some recommendations for using it and a report to influence link building:

• topic: This data can be used to identify the types of sites that generate links. Consider running this report on the link profiles of your top ranked sites to find sites that fit into similar categories.
• Referral domain: Use this to assess how many unique domains you should focus on building your site. It can also examine the distribution of trust/quote flows (number of domains by trust/quote flow).

2. Ahrefs

• price: The “Lite” plan has only one user and costs $99 per month. $199 per month for the “Standard” plan.
• Payment options: Get discounts on monthly or yearly subscriptions.

Ahrefs screenshot, January 2023

In contrast to Majestic, Ahrefs has some reports that are much easier to run within the tool. Yes, it’s expensive, but if you need more data, Ahrefs is the right choice.

Here are the reports we use with Ahrefs on Majestic:

• Page > Best by Link: Two useful applications of this report are:
  • Identify your competitors’ most linked content to influence your content strategy.
  • Identify the types of sites that link to the content you create.
• Page > Best by Link Growth: This is a “trending” report that provides the content that is generating links over the last 30 days. Find link-proliferating content here and create more robust content.

Prospecting and outreach tools

Finding relevant sites that may link to your content is the hardest part of link building.

While you can save time by creating large lists and bulk outreach for your site, manual or semi-automated approaches are better if you want to evaluate your link building success in terms of links you get per hour and the quality of those links. It is recommended to handle prospecting in .

We’ll cover five tools: Pitchbox, BuzzSumo, Hunter.io, BrightLocal, and HARO.

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

3. Pitch box

• price: $500+ monthly average.
• Payment options: Pricing varies for individual Pitchbox walkthroughs.

Pitchbox is one of the more expensive tools on the market compared to email tools such as MailChimp, but integrated prospecting can reduce the time it takes to certify your site.

A prospective site list builder and SEO metrics integrated into the Opportunity Report make this tool stand out.

Screenshot from Pitchbox, January 2023

4. Buzz Sumo

• price: The “Pro” package is $99/month. $179/month for the “Plus” package. There is a simplified free version with a limited number of searches per month.
• Payment options: There is also a free version with limited functionality.

This is a great tool for building blogs, influencers, and author lists. Of all the prospecting tools on our list, BuzzSumo has the best filtering options.

This tool can be used for many purposes, but when it comes to link building there are two effective use cases:

• Author identification: The Content Research and Influencers section displays a list of authors/influencers searchable by keyword for content you have shared or created. One great use of this is to search the “most shared” report and find influencers who have received more than 2,000 shares of her content, contact them and share your content . This will generate many natural links.
• Identifying sharers/backlinks: The second use goes a deeper layer than the first to find out who has shared the content. Get a list of shared or backlink websites for each content and create similar and better content.

Buzzsumo screenshot, January 2023

5. Hunter.io

• price: Get started for free. The first two upgrade packages are $49/month and $99/month.
• Payment options: 25 free searches per month, $399 per month for 30,000 searches.

This browser extension looks up email addresses for easy contact.

It helps reduce the time spent sifting through the About page. You can even go one step further and use this tool for outreach.

Screenshots from Hunter.io, January 2023

6. Bright Local

• price: $29-$79 per month, depending on package size.
• Payment options: You can also pay for Citation Builder, Review, or Enterprise.

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

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

It has two components: citation monitoring and citation building. The tool also allows you to figure out your rankings based on local competition.

Screenshot from BightLocal, January 2023

7. Halo

• price: Get started for free. The first paid plan is $19/month and adds alerts and search capabilities.
• Payment options: The free option offers media options that are emailed three times a day, while the premium is up to $149/month.

This tool is traditionally used in the world of journalism, but it’s also useful for link builders. Connect with trusted sources and build natural backlinks.

Screenshot of HARO, January 2023

reporting tool

While many of the tools in the previous section have built-in reporting capabilities, we found them lacking the ability to link to custom reports and ranking performance.

These tools solve that problem. Agency Analytics and Cyfe.

8. Agency analysis

• price: $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 dashboards with data from Moz and Majestic and ties that data to key performance metrics like rankings and organic traffic.

Quality traffic that leads to leads and sales is what your link building and SEO efforts are for, so your reports should correlate them.

Agency Analytics screenshot, January 2023

9. Cipher

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

This tool can be built as a hybrid of Google Sheets and Agency Analytics. This means that while it is highly customizable, it also allows you to automatically and easily aggregate data from multiple sources to create meaningful reports.

Cyfe screenshot, January 2023

AI-powered tools

AI-powered tools can greatly simplify complex and time-consuming tasks. Note that some processes require human involvement. So always evaluate how performance is impacted when integrating AI into your process.

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

10. Link Whisper

• price: $77 per month for one site, with additional plans for multiple sites.
• Payment options: 1 to 50 site licenses.

Link Whisper helps you build internal links.

AI technology automatically suggests links as content is created. It also helps us recognize older content that needs more links.

The tool also automates linking based on keywords and provides an internal link report. It’s pretty comprehensive and helps speed up internal link building automatically.

Link Whisperer screenshot, January 2023

11. Postaga

• price: $84 per month for one account with 5 users. $250/month for 30 accounts with unlimited users.
• Payment options: Save by paying annually.

Postaga does everything from spotting opportunities to initiating outreach.

AI works with an outreach assistant that finds relevant information from influencers and includes it in emails. You can also enter your domain into the tool to find relevant campaign ideas.

Postaga screenshot, January 2023

12. CTRify

• price: Free version. $197 or $497, depending on plan.
• Payment options: One time payment.

CTRify is the best WordPress plugin for content creation.

Just enter one keyword and AI will create the content you need for your specific campaign. Posts can then be automatically published. It couldn’t be easier.

CTRify screenshot, January 2023

Conclusion

This list was created with the goal of providing all readers with tools that provide enterprise-level, affordable solutions and advanced technical tools.

There is a wide variety of tools available and you should choose the right one for the job.

You don’t have to have a $1,000 monthly tool budget to become a link builder, but it all takes time. Allocating the right combination of time and budget improves business outcomes.

Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal