But link building isn’t something that just happens. Businesses invest a significant amount of time and energy into developing link building partnerships, and hiring reputable professional link building agencies is generally considered the best option for securing safe, ethical, effective links to your pages. That said, if you’re committed to keeping your link building efforts in-house, you’re going to need the right resources. You’re going to need link building tools.
What Are Link Building Tools?
Link building tools are just what they sound like: digital solutions designed to automate and support your link building efforts. These tools offer a range of capabilities, helping you with everything from tracking competitors and managing content partners, to identifying broken backlinks and discovering new backlink opportunities.
But that’s just a general overview. Backlink tools come in many different shapes, sizes, and price ranges, and finding the right one to fit your needs can be a daunting task. But don’t worry! If there’s one thing we know, it’s building links, and we’re putting our industry expertise to use by highlighting the 7 best link building tools available today:
7 Best Link Building Tools on the Market
If you’re looking for a link building tool to help bring in that sweet, sweet link juice, consider these 7 options:
In fact, Ahrefs is the second most-active crawler on the web (right behind Google), with a backlink index of more than 3 trillion live backlinks. In other words, this is the industry standard for link research and is one of the preferred tools of link building agencies everywhere.
Price: You get a lot with Ahrefs and the pricing reflects that. Ahrefs offers several different monthly subscription options, ranging from $99 to $999. Not every package includes every feature, so make sure you’re paying for the tools you want before you commit.
2. BASE’s “What It Takes to Rank” — Best at Reporting Links
These reports detail the top SERP competitors’ average domain ratings, 12-month link velocities, and numbers of backlinks. The “What It Takes to Rank” tool then identifies any areas where your target page may be lacking and shows you exactly how many backlinks you need and what other actions you should be taking to push your page to the top.
Price: What would you pay to get a microscopic view of your page and your competitors’ backlink profiles? Don’t bother answering that, because our “What It Takes to Rank” tool is free. Just fill out a short form with your target keyword, target page URL, and a limited amount of other information, and we’ll email you the report. Easy and budget-friendly — two words you’re not going to find in every link building solution.
3. Hunter.io — Best at Finding Emails
At the click of a button, you can set Hunter.io to scour the web, retrieving accurate contact information (i.e. names and email addresses) for the people you need to connect with. Hunter.io helps ensure that lack of contact info never gets in the way of building powerful link-equity relationships.
Price: Depending on how many searches you plan on performing per month, Hunter.io monthly subscription packages range from free (up to 25 searches and 50 email verifications) to $399 (30,000 searches and 60,000 verifications).
4. HARO — Best at Securing Journalistic Links
HARO offers a unique form of link building. In essence, you sign up as a subject matter expert, and reporters and publishers then reach out to you for your help. And while there’s no guarantee that they’ll use the information you provide, if your help is valuable then they’ll repay it with a quote and a link.
Price: Because HARO represents a give-and-take relationship between webmasters and journalists, it’s one of the more budget-friendly tools on this list. The basic plan is free, with other subscription options topping out at $149 per month.
5. Semrush — Best at Real-Time Backlink Visibility
Semrush refreshes its data nearly constantly, providing a more real-time view into the backlink ecosystems of top-ranking sites and alerting you instantly if any of your existing backlinks get taken down. For keeping on top of any changes that might impact your page’s profile, it’s hard to beat Semrush.
Price: Semrush monthly plans range from $199 for the “Pro” plan and top out at $449 for the “Business” option. Considering the range of tools and capabilities you get, many users find that even the most-expensive plan more than pays for itself.
6. Pitchbox — Best at Overall Outreach
One of the key differentiators here is that Pitchbox is extremely user-friendly. Pitchbox includes tried-and-true outreach templates and offers step-by-step guidance, so that even outreach beginners can secure valuable partnerships with ease.
Price: Pitchbox isn’t extremely upfront about their pricing (they’d like to walk you through a demo before they lay on the sales pitch). That said, their monthly plans currently range from $195 to $150.
7. Moz — Best at Assessing Top Pages on a Site
One of the areas where Moz Link Explorer really stands out is in its ability to locate and assess the top pages on a website in terms of inbound links. With Link Explorer, you’ll always know exactly what makes your top competitors your top competitors.
Price: Moz subscription plans start at $99 per month for the “Standard” option and range to $599 for “Premium.” As with any link building tool, it’s always a good idea to get a clear feel for exactly what you’re paying for with each plan. Thankfully, Moz also offers a free 30-day trial.
BuzzSumo stands out as a premier tool for those looking to leverage content for link building. It excels in identifying high-performing content within your niche, revealing insights into what topics are resonating with audiences and garnering backlinks. With BuzzSumo, you can analyze the most shared content on social media platforms and discover the most linked-to content across the web, providing a blueprint for your content creation efforts.
Additionally, BuzzSumo offers features to monitor your brand mentions and track competitor content performance, enabling you to seize opportunities for outreach and collaboration. Whether you’re looking to create content that naturally attracts backlinks or find influencers to partner with, BuzzSumo equips you with the data to make informed decisions.
Price: BuzzSumo offers a tiered pricing structure, starting with a basic free plan for limited searches. Paid plans begin for individual users and scale up to offer more robust features for larger teams and agencies, ensuring there’s a package that fits various needs and budgets.
Linkody is a tool that simplifies the process of tracking and analyzing your backlinks. It provides detailed insights into your backlink profile, including the status of each link, the linking page’s authority, and the anchor text used. Linkody makes it easy to understand which backlinks are most valuable to your site and which ones might be harmful. It also offers competitor analysis, allowing you to peek into your competitors’ backlink strategies and find new opportunities for your own link building efforts. Additionally, Linkody alerts you when you gain or lose backlinks, helping you stay on top of your link profile’s health.
Price: Linkody offers a range of pricing options starting from about $14.90 per month for the most basic plan, going up to $153.90 per month for agencies and businesses requiring more extensive features. Each tier allows for monitoring a different number of domains and links, making it scalable for different needs.
Majestic offers a vast array of features centered around backlink analysis and link intelligence. With one of the largest link indexes, Majestic provides a comprehensive view of the link landscape, helping you to understand the quality and quantity of backlinks pointing to any site. Its “Trust Flow” and “Citation Flow” metrics are particularly useful for gauging the trustworthiness and influence of linking pages. Majestic also offers features like “Link Context,” which gives insight into the content surrounding your backlinks, and “Topical Trust Flow,” which helps to understand the topical relevance of inbound links.
Price: Majestic’s pricing starts with the “Lite” plan at around $49.99 per month, with more advanced plans like “Pro” and “API” offering additional features for professionals and agencies at higher price points.
Link Building Tools of the Trade
Done right, link building is a full-time job. The tools highlighted in this list can help you better manage many aspects of the link building process, but they’re only scratching the surface. For a comprehensive link building solution, you need a reliable link building partner. With BASE Search Marketing, you’ll have the talent, the attention, and the tools at your disposal to get you to the top of your rankings. Contact BASE Search Marketing today, and let’s start building!
