Best Link Building Tools (by Use Case) in 2023 – The Ultimate Guide51 min read

Table of Contents

Best tools for link building (1)

Looking for the best link-building tool for your SEO agency? The challenge with finding a good link building tool is that it’s is a process that involves several very different activities. There’s no one-size-fits all tool that addresses them equally well, but in this comprehensive guide we’ll look at the 3-5 top tools for each Job-To-Be-Done involved in the link building process:

  1. Researching link-building opportunities through e.g. competitor backlink analysis, unclaimed brand mentions, broken link building or link inserts.
  2. Link-building outreach campaigns – from finding journalist/editor addresses to sending outreach campaigns.
  3. Managing the link-building contacts through a CRM – managing responses, following up with vendors and link partners etc.
  4. Monitoring and tracking links built – to prevent links from ‘disappearing’ (being removed) or being marked as ‘no-follow’.
  5. Guest posting and link exchanges – marketplaces with links, slack channels and groups offering link placement and link exchange opportunities.

As of the time of writing, this is the only really comprehensive guide covering tools by different use cases –  hope you find it useful in finding the right link building tool to complement your stack!

TL;DR

  • This post discusses the importance of link-building tools for SEO agencies, highlighting the need for different tools for various tasks involved in the process.
  • Tasks include researching link-building opportunities, managing outreach campaigns, CRM for contacts, monitoring and tracking links, and facilitating guest posting and link exchanges.
  • The post reviews several tools for researching link-building opportunities, including Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz Link Explorer, Majestic, and Google’s advanced search operators.
  • Ahrefs is praised for its comprehensive backlink analysis, competitive research tools, keyword research, content gap analysis, robust reporting capabilities, and affordable pricing plans.
  • Semrush is highlighted for its keyword research tool, ability to identify organic search opportunities, analyze competitors’ strategies, track keyword rankings, monitor backlinks, identify technical SEO issues, and generate detailed SEO reports.
  • Moz Link Explorer is commended for its comprehensive view of a website’s backlink profile and features that help identify and pursue link-building opportunities.
  • Majestic is recognized for its cost-effectiveness and unique Topical Trust Flow feature, which measures the number of links a site has from a group of highly trusted “seed” websites.
  • Google Search Console and Google’s advanced search operators are mentioned as free tools that provide valuable data for link-building efforts.
  • BuzzStream, RankTracker, and BacklinkManager are recommended for outreach, link building, and link management respectively, each offering a range of features and different pricing tiers.
  • HARO and SurferSEO AI writer are suggested for guest posting and link exchanges, providing opportunities for collaboration and content generation.

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What is link building? Is it legit?

Link building is commonly referred the process of acquiring outbound links to your website.

Why is link building important?

As you probably know (considering you are here and looking for link building tools 🙃) link building is important for improving your sites domain authority, indicating your niche expertise, helping your specific pages and blogs rank better in SERPs, and driving referral traffic. 

Although over time the impact of backlinks on SEO performance declines, even massive sites like Washington Post (according to their own reports) still invest in link building:

backlinks impact over time

So, do you need link building? I think it’s a rhetorical question here 😉

Why do you need link building tools?

Link-building tools are essential for several reasons:

  1. Efficiency: Link building can be a time-consuming process. Tools can automate many of the tasks involved, such as finding link opportunities, tracking your links, and analyzing the quality of the links.
  2. Analysis: Link building tools often come with features that allow you to analyze your link profile, understand your competition’s backlinks, and identify opportunities for growth.
  3. Monitoring: These tools can help you monitor your backlinks, ensuring that they are still live and passing value to your site. They can also alert you to any potentially harmful links that could negatively impact your site’s SEO.
  4. Scalability: If you are working on a larger scale, manual link building can become unmanageable. Tools allow you to scale your efforts, managing more links across various websites and campaigns.

Obviously, you wouldn’t be able to discover enough link building opportunities by scoring Google manually, find email addresses of the blog post authors manually or reach out to them using outlook. That’s why you need different tools for different jobs to be done.

Must have features of good link building tools – by use case

For each of the use cases we mentioned at the beginning of this article, here are some must-have features that a link building tool should ideally have:

  1. Researching Link-Building Opportunities:

    • Competitor Backlink Analysis: The tool should be able to analyze the backlink profile of your competitors and identify where their links are coming from. This can help you discover new link-building opportunities.
    • Unclaimed Brand Mentions: The tool should be able to scan the web for mentions of your brand that are not currently linked to your site. These are potential link-building opportunities.
    • Broken Link Building: The tool should be able to identify broken links on other websites that you can offer to replace with a link to a relevant page on your own site.
    • Link Inserts: The tool should be able to identify opportunities for link inserts in existing content on other websites.
  2. Link-Building Outreach Campaigns:

    • Finding Contact Information: The tool should be able to find the contact information of website owners, editors, and journalists.
    • Sending Outreach Campaigns: The tool should allow you to send personalized outreach emails directly from the platform, and track responses.
  3. Managing Link-Building Contacts through a CRM:

    • Managing Responses: The tool should allow you to track responses to your outreach emails and follow up as necessary.
    • Contact Management: The tool should allow you to organize your contacts, add notes about each contact, and track your history with each contact.
  4. Monitoring and Tracking Links Built:

    • Link Monitoring: The tool should monitor your backlinks and alert you if any links are removed or changed to no-follow.
    • Link Tracking: The tool should allow you to track the performance of your backlinks, including metrics like referral traffic and influence on search rankings.
  5. Guest Posting and Link Exchanges:

    • Marketplaces with Links: The tool should provide access to a marketplace or database of websites that accept guest posts or link exchanges.
    • Community Access: The tool should provide access to communities, forums, or groups where you can find link placement and link exchange opportunities.

Remember, not all tools will have all these features, and the effectiveness of each tool can vary. It’s important to choose a tool that fits your specific needs and budget. Let’s now

Best link building tools for

Best tools for researching Link-Building Opportunities

Before you send out link building campaigns, you need to find the right placements by either looking at competitors’ links, finding broken links, or reverse image search. Let’s look at the best tools that allow you to do that:

  1. Ahrefs: Ahrefs is a comprehensive SEO tool that includes a Content Explorer feature, which is a mini search engine for link builders. It helps find mentions of your brand and filter the sites that have never linked to you.
  2. Semrush: This tool offers a comprehensive backlink analysis feature. It provides quality backlinks data and notifies you if any of your backlinks are removed. It also comes with a built-in outreach tool to find prospects, prepare your outreach sequence, and track your campaigns.
  3. Moz Link Explorer: This tool allows you to reverse engineer your competitor’s backlinks. It shows all of their backlinks and provides link metrics like the site’s Domain Authority. It also has an Anchor Text Analysis feature.
  4. Majestic: Majestic is a backlink analysis tool that provides standard features like the number of backlinks, referring domains, and anchor text analysis. It also has a Topical Trust Flow feature that measures how many links a site has from a set of highly-trusted “seed” websites.
  5. Google: Google’s advanced search operators can be used to find link building opportunities for free. It allows you to refine your searches to find specific types of link building opportunities.

Ahrefs

ahrefs dashboard

Ahrefs is a powerful SEO tool that helps you analyze your website’s backlinks, research your competitors’ backlinks, and monitor your website’s performance in search engine rankings. It is a web-based tool that can be used to analyze HTML code and identify potential issues with your website’s SEO. It can also be used to identify broken links, analyze keyword performance, and track your website’s performance in search engine rankings.

Link building is a crucial component of a successful SEO strategy, as it helps improve your website’s credibility and search engine rankings. Ahrefs offers numerous features to assist beginners in executing effective link building campaigns. Here’s how you can use Ahrefs for link building:

  • Create an account: Sign up for an Ahrefs subscription to access their wide range of SEO tools and resources.
  • Find link prospects: Use the Content Explorer and Link Intersect tools to discover potential link opportunities by identifying relevant websites, articles, and resources in your niche.
  • Analyze competitors: Analyze your competitors’ backlink profiles using the Site Explorer tool to uncover their link-building strategies and identify valuable link prospects.
  • Broken link building: Use the Broken Link Checker to find broken links on relevant websites, create replacement content, and reach out to site owners with a suggestion to replace the broken link with your content.
  • Guest posting: Identify guest posting opportunities by searching for relevant websites in your niche using the Content Explorer. Pitch high-quality, unique articles that provide value to their audience.
  • Monitor link progress: Keep track of your link building efforts by monitoring your website’s backlink profile using the Site Explorer tool, and set up Ahrefs Alerts to receive email notifications for new backlinks.
  • Outreach: Find contact information for potential link partners using Ahrefs’ email finder feature, and manage your email campaigns with the Outreach tool to track your communication and responses.
  • Expand your knowledge: Enhance your link building skills by leveraging the educational resources available through Ahrefs’ Academy and Blog.

PROs of Ahrefs

  • Comprehensive backlink analysis
  • Competitive research tools
  • Keyword research and analysis
  • Content gap analysis
  • Robust reporting capabilities
  • Integration with other SEO tools
  • Easy-to-use interface
  • Affordable pricing plans

Cons of Ahrefs

  • Expensive subscription plans
  • Limited data for free users
  • Difficult to use for beginners
  • No keyword research tool
  • No social media analytics

Ahrefs pricing

ahrefs pricing

Ahrefs offers a range of plans and pricing options to provide access to their powerful SEO tools and data. These plans cater to various needs, from small businesses to large enterprises:

  • Lite: Starts at £79/month – Essential data for small businesses and hobby projects. Subscribe.
  • Standard: Starts at £159/month – Perfect for freelance SEOs and marketing consultants. Subscribe.
  • Advanced: Starts at £319/month – More tools and data for lean in-house marketing teams. Subscribe.
  • Enterprise: Starts at £799/month – Ideal for agencies and enterprises. Talk to us.

Each plan comes with a variety of features and data allowances, such as SEO Dashboard, Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, Site Audit, Rank Tracker, and more. You can choose to pay monthly or pay annually and get 2 months free. To learn more about each plan and get started, visit Ahrefs’ pricing page.

Try the best tool for link building! CRM + Link Monitoring + Reporting in one!

SEMrush for link research

SEMrush dashboard

SEMrush is a comprehensive digital marketing suite that offers a wide range of tools and features to help businesses and marketers optimize their online presence. Trusted by professionals around the globe, SEMrush provides valuable insights into search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising (PPC), social media marketing, and content strategy. With its powerful keyword research, competitor analysis, and site audit capabilities, SEMrush enables users to make data-driven decisions and craft effective marketing campaigns. Whether you’re a seasoned expert or a beginner in the digital marketing space, SEMrush offers a user-friendly interface and a wealth of resources to help you grow your online visibility, drive organic traffic, and achieve success in the ever-evolving digital landscape.

SEMrush is an excellent tool for conducting link audits, helping you identify and analyze your backlink profile to ensure your website maintains a healthy link profile. To perform a link audit with SEMrush, follow these actionable steps:

  • Backlink Analytics: Start by using the Backlink Analytics tool to get an overview of your website’s backlink profile, including the total number of backlinks, referring domains, and anchor text distribution.
  • Backlink Audit: Run a Backlink Audit within the “Projects” section of SEMrush. This will help you identify potentially harmful or low-quality links that may negatively impact your website’s rankings.
  • Analyze Toxic Score: Review the toxic score assigned to each backlink in your audit report. The higher the toxic score, the more potentially harmful the link is to your website. Focus on the links with the highest toxic scores for further analysis.
  • Review Link Details: Examine the details of each toxic backlink, such as the referring domain’s authority, anchor text, and the type of link (follow or nofollow). This information will help you determine whether the link should be removed or disavowed.
  • Contact Webmasters: Reach out to the webmasters of the sites with harmful links, requesting link removal. SEMrush provides built-in email templates to streamline this process, or you can create your own personalized outreach emails.
  • Create a Disavow File: If you’re unable to get certain harmful links removed, use SEMrush’s Disavow tool to create a disavow file. Submit this file to Google Search Console to ask Google to disregard those links when assessing your site’s ranking.
  • Monitor Progress: Regularly review your backlink profile and update your disavow file as needed. Continuous link audits will help you maintain a healthy link profile and safeguard your website’s rankings in search engine results.

PROs of SEMrush

  • Comprehensive keyword research tool
  • Identify organic search opportunities
  • Analyze competitors’ organic search strategies
  • Track keyword rankings
  • Monitor backlinks
  • Identify technical SEO issues
  • Generate detailed SEO reports

Cons of SEMrush

  • Costly subscription plans
  • Limited data for free users
  • Difficult to use for beginners
  • No support for mobile devices

SEMrush pricing

semrush pricing

Semrush offers three pricing plans tailored to meet the needs of different users, from newbies to large enterprises:

  • Pro: At $119.95 per month, this plan is suitable for newbies and small teams. It includes 5 projects, 500 keywords to track, 10,000 results per report, and a range of SEO, social, and PPC tools, such as competitor analysis, keyword research, website audit, advertising, and social media tools.
  • Guru: Priced at $229.95 per month, the Guru plan is designed for agencies and mid-size businesses. It offers 15 projects, 1,500 keywords to track, 30,000 results per report, and all the features included in the Pro plan. Additionally, it includes the Content Marketing Toolkit, historical data, multi-location and device tracking, Looker Studio integration, and more.
  • Business: For $449.95 per month, the Business plan is tailored for large agencies and enterprises. It provides 40 projects, 5,000 keywords to track, 50,000 results per report, and all the features available in the Guru plan. Furthermore, it includes Share of Voice, extended limits, API access, PLA analytics, and free migration from third-party tools.

Additional users can be added to each plan at an extra cost, allowing for secure and efficient teamwork within the platform.

 

MOZ link explorer

Moz dashboard for inspecting backlinks new and lost

Moz Link Explorer is a powerful tool for researching link opportunities. It provides a comprehensive view of a website’s backlink profile, which can be used to identify potential link-building opportunities. Here’s a detailed description of how it works:

  1. Entering the URL: To start, you enter the URL of the website (either your own or a competitor’s) that you want to analyze into the Moz Link Explorer search bar.
  2. Overview of Backlink Profile: Once you’ve entered the URL, the tool will provide an overview of the website’s backlink profile. This includes the total number of backlinks, the number of referring domains, the website’s Domain Authority (DA), and its Page Authority (PA).
  3. Detailed Backlink Analysis: You can then dive deeper into the backlink data. The tool provides a list of all the backlinks pointing to the website, along with information about each backlink, such as the linking domain’s DA, the anchor text used, and whether the link is dofollow or nofollow.
  4. Competitor Backlink Analysis: By analyzing a competitor’s backlink profile, you can identify websites that are linking to them but not to you. These are potential link-building opportunities. You can reach out to these websites and try to get them to link to your site as well.
  5. Anchor Text Analysis: Moz Link Explorer also provides an analysis of the anchor text used in the backlinks. This can help you understand what keywords your competitors are targeting in their link-building efforts.
  6. Spam Score: The tool also provides a Spam Score for each backlink, which is a measure of the quality of the link. This can help you avoid low-quality or spammy links that could harm your SEO.
  7. Link Intersect Tool: One of the powerful features of Moz Link Explorer is the Link Intersect tool. This tool allows you to compare the backlink profiles of up to five websites. This can help you identify websites that are linking to your competitors but not to you, which are potential link-building opportunities.
  8. Exporting Data: Finally, you can export all of this data to a CSV file for further analysis or to share with your team.

In summary, Moz Link Explorer provides a comprehensive view of a website’s backlink profile and offers several features that can help you identify and pursue link-building opportunities.

MOZ pricing

MOZ pricing

If you’re considering Moz Pro as your SEO tool of choice, it’s essential to understand the different pricing plans available to you. All Moz Pro plans include 24-hour online support, and you can choose between monthly or yearly payment options, with a 20% discount for annual subscriptions:

  • Standard: $99/month ($79/month when billed yearly) – Perfect for beginners or those requiring basic SEO features.
  • Medium: $179/month ($143/month when billed yearly) – Most popular plan, with ample limits and full access to keyword research tools.
  • Large: $299/month ($239/month when billed yearly) – Ideal for businesses and agencies serious about search, offering more extensive limits and tools.
  • Premium: $599/month ($479/month when billed yearly) – Designed for large SEO-focused agencies and in-house marketing teams, providing the most comprehensive features.

Each plan offers different levels of access to features such as campaigns, keyword rankings, mobile rankings, pages crawled per week, performance metrics, keyword queries, backlink queries, link tracking lists, and more. By selecting the plan that best fits your needs and budget, you can optimize your SEO efforts and make the most of Moz Pro’s powerful tools.

Majestic

using majestic for link building

Majestic is a cost-effective solution for link analysis, offering a suite of features that make it a valuable tool for researching link-building opportunities.

Majestic is a well-known backlink analysis tool, offering a range of features that you would typically expect from such a tool. It provides insights into the number of backlinks a website has, the domains referring to it, and an analysis of the anchor text used in these backlinks.

One of the standout features of Majestic is the Topical Trust Flow. This unique metric measures the number of links a site has from a group of highly trusted “seed” websites. It’s essentially Majestic’s version of TrustRank. This feature allows users to understand the trustworthiness and authority of the sites linking to them or their competitors, providing valuable insights for link-building strategies.

While Majestic boasts a vast link database, it’s worth noting that its user experience is somewhat dated and may not be as intuitive as some other tools on the market. However, for the price point, especially at the lower end, you certainly get value for your money.

In conclusion, Majestic is a robust tool for link-building research, offering a wealth of features and data that can help you identify and capitalize on link-building opportunities. Despite its older user interface, the value it provides, especially considering its cost-effectiveness, makes it a tool worth considering.

Majestic pricing

majestic pricing

With pricing tiers ranging from $47 to $399 per month, Majestic offers a solution for SEOs even on small budgets.

Please note that the pricing information can change frequently and is only valid as of the publishing date. For the most up-to-date pricing, please visit the Majestic Pricing Plans page.

  • Lite Plan: Designed for individual users or small businesses, the Lite Plan is priced at $49.99 per month. This plan includes 1 million analysis units, 60 detailed reports per month, and access to Fresh Index data.
  • Pro Plan: Targeted at professionals and agencies, the Pro Plan costs $99.99 per month. It includes 5 million analysis units, 300 detailed reports per month, and access to both Fresh Index and Historic Index data, along with additional features like Raw Data Exports and API access.
  • API Plan: For users with advanced data needs, the API Plan starts at $399.99 per month. This plan includes 100 million analysis units, 950 detailed reports per month, access to Fresh Index and Historic Index data, and extensive API access for custom applications.
  • Custom Plans: Majestic also offers custom plans tailored to specific business requirements. To inquire about custom plans, users can contact the Majestic sales team for a personalized quote.

Google Search Console

google search console google search performance preview for link building

Google Search Console is a free tool provided by Google that helps you monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your site’s presence in Google Search results. While it’s not specifically designed for link building, it does provide valuable data that can be used in your link-building efforts. Here’s how:

  1. External Links Report: The External Links report in Google Search Console shows you which pages on your site are linked from other websites. This can help you understand which of your pages are attracting the most backlinks. You can use this information to create more similar content or to improve and update the popular pages to attract even more links.
  2. Internal Links Report: The Internal Links report shows you which pages on your site have the most internal links. Internal linking is an important part of SEO and can help improve the authority of your important pages. You can use this report to identify pages that could benefit from more internal links.
  3. Top Linking Sites: This report shows you which websites link to your site the most. This can help you identify potential link-building partners. For example, if a particular website is linking to your site a lot, they might be open to further collaboration or link exchange.
  4. Top Linked Pages: This report shows you which of your pages are linked the most from outside sites. This can help you understand what type of content is attracting the most links.
  5. Disavow Links Tool: If you find any spammy or low-quality backlinks pointing to your site, you can use the Disavow Links tool to tell Google to ignore these links. This can help protect your site from any potential negative effects of these bad links.
  6. Performance Report: While not directly related to link building, the Performance report can show you which of your pages are performing well in search results. Pages that rank well are likely to attract more backlinks, so this information can be useful in your link-building efforts.

Remember, while Google Search Console provides valuable data, it’s not a complete link-building tool. It should be used in conjunction with other tools and strategies for the best results.

google search console to review linking domains

FREE: Google advanced search operators as a resource for link-building

Google search operators enhance your searches, giving them an extra edge.

Here are the most beneficial operators for link building:

  • “inurl:” – returns results with specific words/phrases in the URL.
  • “intext:” – pinpoints keywords or phrases mentioned in the content.
  • “intitle:” – similar to intext, but only applies to the titles of the results. For instance:
  • SEO inurl:resources – this will yield resource pages about SEO, where you can propose your content to be included.

Now we’ve explored several tools for researching your link opportunities, let’s look at the ones you can use for finding email addresses of the website admins and content editors, and reach out to them in your link building campaigns!

Best link-building tools for finding email addresses & sending outreach campaigns

So what are the best tools for finding emails and sending link building outreach campaigns, which are free, low-priced and expensive? 

  1. Semrush: Semrush is a comprehensive SEO tool that also includes a built-in outreach tool. You can find prospects, prepare your outreach sequence, and track your campaigns in minutes. It also keeps a tab on your backlinks and notifies you if they’re removed.
  2. Respona: Respona is a powerful link building outreach platform. It has pre-built campaigns to choose from and walks you through the entire process – from finding high-quality opportunities and getting contact info to sending personalized emails. It also automatically finds the right person for each website – including their verified email and LinkedIn profile.
  3. Pitchbox: Pitchbox is an outreach platform built for advanced link builders. It walks you through all the steps to find prospects and grab contact info. It also allows several people to participate in the same campaign, making it ideal for teams.
  4. Buzzstream: BuzzStream is an outreach CRM that helps you stay organized with link building. It allows you to track conversations and manage campaigns across multiple projects. It also has a Chrome extension that automatically scans the site you’re on for any email address or contact page.
  5. Hunter.io: Hunter.io is a tool for finding contact info. It’s fast, and the contact info you get from it is highly accurate. It pulls data from several different sources and automatically verifies each email that it gives you.

These tools offer a variety of features that can help streamline your link-building outreach efforts, from finding the right contacts to managing your outreach campaigns. Now let’s dive in deeper into them!

Hunter.io – the best tool for finding email addresses

Hunter.io is a powerful tool that specializes in finding and verifying email addresses, making it an invaluable asset for link-building outreach. It streamlines the process of finding the right people to contact, saving you time and effort, and increasing the effectiveness of your outreach campaigns.

One of the standout features of Hunter.io is its ability to find email addresses associated with a specific domain. You simply enter the domain of the website you’re interested in, and Hunter.io will provide a list of email addresses associated with that domain. This feature is particularly useful for link-building outreach, as it allows you to directly contact the people who can add your link to their site:

Hunter.io email finder by domain

In addition to finding email addresses, Hunter.io also verifies them. It uses a range of data sources and verification methods to check the deliverability of each email address. This ensures that you’re not wasting your time sending outreach emails to addresses that don’t exist or aren’t in use.

Hunter.io also provides a confidence score for each email address, which is an estimate of the deliverability of the email based on various factors. This allows you to prioritize your outreach efforts and focus on the email addresses that are most likely to be valid.

Another useful feature of Hunter.io is its ability to find the most common pattern used for email addresses on a particular domain. For example, if the most common pattern is firstname.lastname@domain.com, you can use this information to guess the email address of a specific person at the company.

Finally, Hunter.io integrates with a range of other tools, such as CRM systems and spreadsheets. This allows you to easily import and export data, making it a seamless part of your link-building workflow.

Hunter pricing

Hunter pricing

Hunter.io offers a variety of pricing plans to suit different needs:

  1. Free Plan: This plan costs $0 and includes 25 monthly searches and 50 monthly verifications.
  2. Starter Plan: Priced at $49 per month or $408 per year, this plan includes 500 monthly searches, 1,000 monthly verifications, full results for domain search, 5 email accounts, and allows for 2,500 recipients per campaign.
  3. Growth Plan: This plan costs $99 per month or $828 per year and includes all Starter Plan features, plus 2,500 monthly searches, 5,000 monthly verifications, domain search downloads, 10 email accounts, a custom tracking domain, and allows for 5,000 recipients per campaign.
  4. Pro Plan: Priced at $199 per month or $1,668 per year, this plan includes all Growth Plan features, plus 10,000 monthly searches, 20,000 monthly verifications, 20 email accounts, and allows for 7,500 recipients per campaign.
  5. Business Plan: This plan costs $399 per month or $3,348 per year and includes all Pro Plan features, plus 30,000 monthly searches, 60,000 monthly verifications, 40 email accounts, and allows for 10,000 recipients per campaign.

All plans allow for unlimited users. For larger businesses with unique needs, Hunter.io also offers an Enterprise Plan with features such as a dedicated account manager, on-demand quotas, a higher rate limit, and flexible quotas. The pricing for the Enterprise Plan is tailored to the business’ unique needs and can be obtained by contacting the Hunter.io sales team directly.

In conclusion, Hunter.io is a powerful tool for link-building outreach. Its ability to find and verify email addresses, along with its other features and integrations, make it an invaluable asset for anyone looking to improve their link-building efforts.

Apollo – an all-in-one email address finder + email outreach tool

Apollo dashboard

Apollo.io is a tool that combines two key functions: a database of contacts and the capability to run full outbound campaigns. It has a vast database of over 200 million contacts across 10 million companies. This feature is especially useful for smaller link building teams who can’t afford more expensive contact database offerings. Apollo.io guarantees accurate emails and phone numbers, and even offers mobile numbers, which is particularly useful with the shift to remote work.

The workflow feature of Apollo.io is the core of their outreach tool. It allows users to easily create custom sequences, which is crucial for any modern outbound sales organization. It includes standard features like A/B Testing, Automated Emails, Custom Field Personalization, and Out of Office Detection.

Apollo.io also integrates with popular CRM systems like Salesforce and HubSpot. It offers different pricing plans to suit different needs, starting from a free plan to a custom plan for larger businesses with more robust outbound sales needs. The professional plan, priced at $99 a month, includes access to the full database of contacts and important features such as A/B testing, the dialer, and custom stages.

In short, Apollo.io is a tool that can help you find the right contacts and reach out to them effectively, all in one place.

Apollo pricing

Apollo offers a generous free (!) plan with unlimited email credits, which means you can pretty much use it for link building outreach for free. It has a limit of 250 emails per day (which is more than enough for link building outreach, to be fair). The only downside of the free plan is that it only allows you to plug in only gmail addresses. But the basic plan is still extremely affordable at $39 per month.

Apollo pricing

Buzzstream – an extremely robust (but expensive!) link-building platform for email outreach

buzzstream dashboard

Buzzstream is a digital PR and outreach platform that helps marketers and PR professionals build relationships with influencers, manage campaigns, and measure results. It provides tools for prospecting, outreach, and relationship management, as well as analytics and reporting. Buzzstream also offers a suite of tools for content promotion, link building, and SEO.

Buzzstream is an effective tool for managing email outreach campaigns, helping you connect with influencers and website owners to build relationships and acquire valuable backlinks. Here’s how you can use Buzzstream for email outreach as a beginner SEO:

  • Create an account: Sign up for a Buzzstream subscription to access their suite of email outreach and link building tools.
  • Discover outreach prospects: Use Buzzstream’s Discovery feature to find relevant websites, bloggers, and influencers in your niche for potential outreach opportunities.
  • Gather contact information: Leverage Buzzstream’s Research feature to automatically find email addresses, social media profiles, and other contact details for your target prospects.
  • Create personalized emails: Craft customized email templates with personalized fields to make your outreach messages stand out and increase the chances of getting a positive response.
  • Send and track emails: Use Buzzstream’s email features to send and schedule outreach emails, track opens and clicks, and set reminders for follow-up messages to stay organized and improve your chances of success.
  • Manage your outreach: Track your email communications, notes, and follow-ups with each contact directly within Buzzstream, ensuring you have a comprehensive view of your relationship history with each prospect.
  • Analyze campaign performance: Utilize Buzzstream’s Reporting feature to track key metrics, such as response rates, links acquired, and the effectiveness of your email outreach efforts, allowing you to optimize your strategy over time.
  • Collaborate with your team: Use Buzzstream’s Team Collaboration features to assign tasks, share notes, and manage workflows with your team members, ensuring smooth and efficient email outreach processes.

PROs of Buzzstream

  • Automates tedious outreach tasks
  • Provides detailed analytics and reporting
  • Integrates with popular CRM and email platforms
  • Enables collaboration between team members
  • Offers a comprehensive database of influencers

Cons of Buzzstream

  • Expensive for small businesses
  • Limited customization options
  • No built-in analytics
  • No mobile app

Buzzstream pricing

buzzstream pricing

BuzzStream offers four pricing plans to cater to the needs of businesses and individuals at different stages:

  • Starter: Priced at $24 per month, this plan is ideal for up to 2 users and includes 1,000 contacts, contact info discovery, email templates, email scheduling and reminders, open, click, and reply tracking, and more.
  • Growth: At $124 per month, this plan is designed for teams that require advanced features, including team template sharing, project performance reporting, Ahrefs integration, 25,000 contacts, and support for up to 3 users.
  • Professional: For $299 per month, larger teams get advanced analytics, extensive customizability, API access, a dedicated account manager, 100,000 contacts, and support for up to 6 users.
  • Custom: Starting at $999 per month, this plan is tailored to the unique needs of your organization, offering a complete solution for 15+ users and 300,000+ contacts, including an implementation plan and onboarding for new team members.

Each plan comes with a free trial option, allowing you to test the platform and find the right fit for your needs.

Respona for link building email outreach

Respona dashboard

Respona is a powerful email outreach tool designed to help you streamline your communication efforts and build valuable relationships. Here’s how you can effectively use Respona for email outreach as a beginner SEO:

  • Find the right prospects: Use Respona’s App Search feature to discover websites, influencers, or journalists in your niche. Evaluate their relevance and authority to ensure they’re a good fit for your outreach campaign.
  • Obtain accurate contact information: Utilize Respona’s Email Finder feature to automatically find and verify the email addresses of your prospects. This ensures you’re reaching out to the right person and increases your chances of a positive response.
  • Personalize your emails: Craft customized emails using Respona’s Email Personalization feature. Incorporate personal details, tailor your message to the recipient’s interests, and use engaging subject lines to improve your open and response rates.
  • Automate your outreach: Set up personalized, multi-stage email campaigns using Respona’s Automated Email Outreach feature. What’s really cool about Respona too is that it has built-in campaign templates, designed especially for link building:
    Respona campaignsYou can of course use it to schedule follow-up emails and track the progress of your campaign to ensure you’re staying on top of your outreach efforts.
  • Monitor your campaign performance: Analyze the success of your email outreach campaigns using Respona’s Email Analytics feature. Assess your open, click-through, and response rates to identify areas for improvement and optimize your future outreach efforts.
  • Collaborate with your team: Leverage Respona’s Team Collaboration tools to work seamlessly with your team members. Assign tasks, share notes, and coordinate your outreach strategy to ensure everyone is on the same page.

Respona Pricing

Respona pricing

Respona offers two pricing plans to cater to the needs of businesses and individuals at different stages:

  • Starter: Priced at $99 per month, this plan is ideal for in-house teams and SMBs. It includes 1 email account, 5,000 credits per month, and access to all features like email sequences, pitch analyzer, article summarizer, spam protection, auto-reply detection, custom variables, and more.
  • Unlimited: For $399 per month (billed annually), this plan is designed for agencies and large teams. It offers unlimited email accounts, 600,000 credits per year, and all the features included in the Starter plan, catering to larger outreach campaigns.

Both plans come with a 14-day free trial, allowing you to test the platform and find the right fit for your needs. Respona also offers a custom onboarding session to help you get started.

Postaga for email outreach

postaga for email outreach

Postaga is a comprehensive email outreach tool that empowers users to effectively reach out to prospects and build meaningful connections. Here’s how you can leverage Postaga for email outreach as an SEO professional:

  • Identify relevant prospects: Utilize Postaga’s Prospect Search feature to discover relevant websites, influencers, or journalists in your industry. Evaluate their suitability for your outreach campaign based on relevance and authority.
  • Obtain accurate contact information: Postaga’s Contact Finder feature enables you to automatically find and verify the email addresses of your prospects. This ensures that you are targeting the right individuals and increases the likelihood of a positive response.
  • Personalize your outreach: Craft personalized emails using Postaga’s Email Personalization feature. Customize your messages by incorporating personal details and tailoring them to match the recipient’s interests. Engaging subject lines further enhance your open and response rates.
  • Automate your outreach campaigns: Set up automated, multi-stage email campaigns with Postaga’s Outreach Automation feature. Schedule follow-up emails and track the progress of your campaigns to ensure consistent and timely outreach.
  • Measure campaign performance: Analyze the effectiveness of your email outreach initiatives using Postaga’s Campaign Analytics feature. Assess metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and response rates to gain insights into your campaign’s performance and identify areas for improvement.
  • Collaborate with your team: Foster seamless collaboration within your team using Postaga’s Team Collaboration tools. Assign tasks, share notes, and coordinate your outreach strategy to ensure everyone is aligned and working towards common goals.
  • Access educational resources: Stay informed about the latest email outreach best practices by exploring Postaga’s Blog and Resources section. Gain valuable insights, tips, and strategies to enhance your outreach campaigns and establish stronger connections with your prospects.

Postaga Pricing

postaga pricing

All plans at Postaga start with a 14-day free trial, allowing you to experience the platform 100% risk-free. This is a great opportunity to start building relationships with your fully-featured trial. Source

Postaga offers two main paid plans:

  • Pro Plan

    This plan is perfect for businesses seeking to supercharge their outreach. Priced at $84 per month, it offers a variety of features including all campaign types, 2,000 contacts, unlimited campaigns, 10,000 emails, 300 daily emails per user, 5 users, 1 account, 1,000 opportunity searches, SMTP integrations, a custom signature, campaign generator, instant campaigns, website intelligence, content intelligence, upcoming API access, and automated reporting.

  • Agency Plan

    Designed for multiple sites and/or multiple clients, the Agency plan costs $250 per month. It provides all campaign types, 15,000 contacts, unlimited campaigns, 100,000 emails, 300 daily emails per user, unlimited users, 30 accounts, 15,000 opportunity searches, SMTP integrations, custom signature, campaign generator, instant campaigns, website intelligence, content intelligence, API access (coming soon), and automated reporting (coming soon).

In addition to these, Postaga also offers a free plan. With this plan, you can use all of Postaga for free with certain limitations: all campaign types, unlimited contacts (with a Hunter subscription), 3 campaigns, 500 emails, 100 daily emails, 1 user, 1 account, 50 opportunity searches, SMTP integrations, custom signature, API access, and automated reporting are included.

Pitchbox for link building outreach

Pitchbox dashboard. Source: Pitchfork.

Pitchbox is a powerful link building and outreach platform designed to help streamline the process of acquiring high-quality backlinks. The platform offers a range of features that make it simple for beginners to execute effective link building campaigns. Here’s how you can use Pitchbox for link building:

  • Create an account: Sign up for a Pitchbox subscription to access their suite of link building and outreach tools.
  • Find link prospects: Utilize Pitchbox’s Prospecting feature to discover potential link opportunities by searching for relevant keywords, websites, and influencers in your niche.
  • Conduct competitor analysis: Use the Competitive Link Analysis feature to analyze your competitors’ backlink profiles and uncover valuable link prospects based on their strategies.
  • Customize outreach templates: Create personalized email templates for your outreach campaigns, ensuring your messages stand out and resonate with your target audience.
  • Automate follow-ups: Set up automated follow-up emails to improve response rates and save time on manual follow-up tasks.
  • Track campaign performance: Monitor your outreach campaigns using Pitchbox’s Reporting feature, which provides insights into response rates, conversions, and other key metrics to help you optimize your strategy.
  • Integrate with other tools: Connect Pitchbox with your preferred SEO tools, such as Ahrefs, Moz, or SEMrush, to enhance your link building efforts and access additional data.

What’s also cool about Pitchbox is that again, like Respona – it provides campaign templates tailored specifically to the needs of link-building outreach:

Pitchbox campaign

But again, the users complain about similar things as Buzzstream users do: that the tool is too complex, too expensive, and too difficult to use: 

pitchbox negative reviews

Managing the link-building contacts through a CRM

As you’re scaling your link building efforts, especially as an SEO agency, CRM is a must. You will end up spending more money and building links slower/ dropping the ball a lot more if you don’t use a CRM. A CRM keeps all your outreach efforts and responses in one place, preventing duplication and ensuring you don’t miss follow-ups. It’s also a valuable tool for nurturing ongoing relationships that can lead to multiple links over time. Additionally, a CRM allows you to monitor the effectiveness of your outreach, providing insights into successful strategies. If you’re part of a team, a CRM ensures everyone is aligned, fostering collaboration and preventing overlap.

Let’s look at the best link-building CRMs:

BacklinkManager – the best platform for link-building partnerships and CRM for SEO agencies

backlinkmanager dashboard

BacklinkManager is a tool used to monitor and analyze the backlinks of a website. It helps to identify the quality of the backlinks, detect any malicious links, and track the progress of the website’s backlink profile. It can also be used to generate reports and track the performance of the website’s backlinks.

BacklinkManager pioneers as the first Link Building CRM on the market, providing an efficient platform for managing relationships with clients, freelance link builders, and vendors.

  • Linkbuilding Client Relationship Management: The tool allows users to monitor links built for a specific client and delegate client management to different team members, ensuring effective organization and tracking.
  • Link Vendor & Freelance Link Builder Relationship Management: BacklinkManager simplifies the management of link exchanges and guest posting partnerships, eliminating the need for multiple link exchange sheets and allowing goal setting for each party involved.
  • Chat and Comments: The tool includes a live chat and comments feature, allowing users to communicate directly with link-building partners and vendors on specific partnership and link-building target pages.
  • Link Partnership Scorecard: BacklinkManager’s partnership scorecard automatically tracks the status of link exchanges, providing a clear view of link contributions and enabling users to request owed links directly through the live chat.
    BacklinkManager Partnerships
  • Link Matchmaking Tool (Coming Soon): BacklinkManager plans to introduce a Link Matchmaking Tool, which will enable users to match with other link builders who offer link exchanges on domains related to their niches.

BacklinkManager, as a full solution for link-building operations, provides more than just CRM functionalities. It equips users with comprehensive tools to monitor links, generate reports, set goals, and share interactive dashboards, making it a powerful asset for effective link-building strategies.

Try BacklinkManager and see how it can help you efficiently manage your link-building relationships with its Link Building CRM feature. The Link Building CRM for Link Partnership Management enables you to keep track of all your link exchange and guest posting partnerships in one place, making it easier to communicate and manage link-building goals with your partners.

BacklinkManager also makes it easy to report on your link building campaigns to your clients:

Reporting clients - backlink manager

PROs of BacklinkManager

  • Automates the process of building backlinks
  • Helps improve website’s search engine rankings
  • Provides detailed reports on backlink performance
  • Offers a variety of backlink sources to choose from
  • Allows for customization of backlink building strategies
  • Saves time and effort compared to manual backlink building
  • Can be used for multiple websites or clients
  • Provides ongoing support and updates

Cons of BacklinkManager

  • Can be expensive for single SEO hustlers or really small businesses

BacklinkManager pricing

backlinkmanager pricing

BacklinkManager offers three pricing plans to help you streamline your backlink building operations. You can start for free without a credit card, and each plan comes with different features and limits:

  • Free: Monitor and manage up to 250 backlinks, 50 targets, and invite 3 team members. Start for free.
  • Pro: $49/month billed annually – Monitor and manage up to 2,500 backlinks, 100 targets, invite 15 team members, and receive priority support. Start for free.
  • Enterprise: $500/month billed annually – Monitor and manage up to 50,000 backlinks, 10,000 targets, invite 30 team members, whitelabel reporting, and priority support. Start for free.

Choose the plan that best fits your needs to effectively monitor and manage your backlink building operations. To learn more about each plan and get started, visit BacklinkManager’s pricing page.

Buzzstream – a sophisticated all-in-one outreach + CRM

manage-followups using buzzstream

BuzzStream is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool specifically designed for link building outreach. It helps you stay organized by tracking conversations and managing campaigns across multiple projects. Instead of using spreadsheets and random Gmail inboxes, BuzzStream provides a centralized platform for all your outreach activities.

One of the standout features of BuzzStream is the Buzzmarker Chrome extension. This extension automatically scans the website you’re on for any email address or contact page, making the process of finding contact information much easier and more efficient.

link prospecting Buzzstream

Another significant feature is the Custom Fields. This feature allows you to organize and customize campaigns in any way you want. For instance, you can use the Relationship Stage field to track the current status of your relationship with a particular contact.

On the flipside: some Buzzstream users complain that the tool is cumbersome, hard to use, and very expensive:

Buzzstream pricing

buzzstream pricing

BuzzStream offers a range of pricing options, starting from $24 to $999 per month, making it accessible for different budgets. In summary, if you do a lot of outreach or work with a team of link builders, BuzzStream can help you keep track of your outreach and stay organized.

RankTracker- Best link building platform for link tracking

Keyword tracking ranktracker

Ranktracker is an all-in-one SEO platform designed to help you rank higher and drive more traffic to your website. Used by marketers from leading companies such as RedBull, Apple, Adidas, and more, Ranktracker offers a comprehensive suite of SEO tools to optimize your search performance.

With Ranktracker, you can:

  • Track your keyword rankings and monitor your SEO progress with the Rank Tracker tool
  • Discover new keywords that will bring more visitors to your site using the Keyword Finder
  • Research the competition and identify the best opportunities for ranking your website with the SERP Checker
  • Conduct a thorough website audit to identify and fix SEO errors using the Web Audit tool
  • Analyze backlinks and monitor linking pages with the Backlink Checker and Backlink Monitor

Ranktracker provides you with the foundations of a powerful SEO strategy, offering features that allow you to track important metrics, analyze competitors, and optimize your website for better search engine visibility. With Ranktracker, you can gain an SEO advantage at every stage of optimization.

While Ranktracker offers a comprehensive set of SEO tools, it’s important to explore different options to find the best fit for your specific needs. One alternative tool you may consider is BacklinkManager.io, which specializes in managing backlinks and can complement your link building efforts.

Let’s look at the different features of RankTracker for link building and SEO agencies in more detail

RankTracker offers various features that can support your link building efforts, although it doesn’t have dedicated link partnership and client CRM functionalities. However, BacklinkManager can complement RankTracker as a tool specifically designed for link partnership and client CRM. Let’s explore how RankTracker and BacklinkManager can be used together:

Monitoring and tracking links

Why build all the links if you’re not monitoring them? According to Ahrefs, 8% of links “die” every year due to link rot. Your customers won’t be happy either if they find out that the links you’ve built for them for $$$ have disappeared after only a few weeks. So you may see link monitoring as a reputation management tool.

Which tools are best for link monitoring though?

I’d mention RankTracker, Ahrefs, SEMrush and BacklinkManager here.

BacklinkManager for link monitoring

lost links in backlinkmanager

BacklinkManager provides a powerful platform for seamless link monitoring, offering a range of features to ensure the effectiveness of link-building operations.

  • 24/7 Link Monitoring: BacklinkManager allows users to check the current status of their links (do-follow, no-follow, server not responding) at any time, enabling immediate action in case of mislabeled links.
  • Reliable Link Crawler: The platform uses a reliable crawler for tracking link statuses, eliminating the need for makeshift solutions. It performs a two-factor check on every link to ensure data accuracy.
  • Link Status Notifications: Users receive instant notifications in-app or via email when the status of a link changes, such as when a paid link is removed or a page goes 404. This helps to prevent vendors from unjustly removing links.
  • Linkbuilding Targets, Goals & Target Groups: BacklinkManager allows users to manage their link-building efforts by setting link-building goals for target pages, grouping target pages by various parameters like projects, domains, or clients, and easily monitoring link-building progress and goal completion.
  • Backlink Monitoring by Status: Users can easily switch between their do-follow and no-follow links, and find specific links using the search bar.

As a comprehensive solution for link-building operations, BacklinkManager extends beyond CRM functionalities, offering powerful tools for link monitoring, report generation, goal setting, and interactive dashboard sharing. This complete package of features makes BacklinkManager an ideal choice for professionals seeking efficient link monitoring tools.

BacklinkManager pricing

BacklinkManager offers a free version that allows you to monitor and manage up to 250 backlinks, 50 targets, and invite 3 team members. The Pro version costs $49 per month (billed annually) and allows you to monitor and manage up to 2500 backlinks, 100 targets, and invite 15 team member

Ahrefs for link monitoring

ahrefs link monitoring

Link monitoring is an essential aspect of any successful SEO strategy. Ahrefs is a powerful tool that can help you effectively monitor your website’s backlinks and improve your search engine rankings. Here’s how a beginner can use Ahrefs for link monitoring:

  • Create an account: First, sign up for an Ahrefs subscription to access their comprehensive suite of SEO tools.
  • Add your domain: After logging in, navigate to the Projects section and add your domain to start tracking your website’s backlinks and other metrics.
  • Access Site Explorer: Use the Site Explorer tool to analyze your domain’s backlink profile, including the number of referring domains, backlinks, and more.
  • Monitor new and lost backlinks: In the Site Explorer, navigate to the ‘Backlinks’ and ‘New & Lost’ tabs to keep track of your website’s newly acquired and lost backlinks. Regularly monitoring these links will help you identify and address potential issues, such as broken or toxic links.
  • Set up alerts: Configure Ahrefs Alerts to receive email notifications for new backlinks, lost backlinks, and keyword rankings. This will help you stay informed and quickly react to changes in your backlink profile.
  • Export data: Export your backlink data to a CSV file by clicking the ‘Export’ button in Site Explorer, making it easier to analyze, share, and archive your link data.

Ahrefs pricing

Ahrefs has four pricing tiers. The Lite plan costs $99 per month, the Standard plan costs $179 per month, the Advanced plan costs $399 per month, and the Agency plan costs $999 per month.

SEMrush for link monitoring

link monitoring SEMrush

SEMrush is a powerful SEO tool that offers a variety of features for link monitoring. By keeping track of your website’s backlinks, you can maintain a healthy backlink profile and improve search engine rankings. Here are some actionable steps for beginners to monitor their links using SEMrush:

  • Backlink Analytics: Use SEMrush’s Backlink Analytics to analyze your website’s backlink profile, including the total number of backlinks, referring domains, and anchor texts. Regularly review this data to identify trends and potential issues in your backlink profile.
  • New and Lost Backlinks: Monitor new and lost backlinks in the “Backlinks” tab within the Backlink Analytics section. This allows you to track the stability of your existing backlinks and discover new link-building opportunities.
  • Backlink Gap: Utilize the Backlink Gap tool to compare your backlink profile with your competitors’. This can help you find websites that link to your competitors but not to you, which could be potential link-building opportunities.
  • Backlink Audit: Regularly perform a Backlink Audit to identify potentially harmful backlinks and disavow them, protecting your website from penalties and negative SEO impacts.
  • Set Up Alerts: Set up Backlink Monitoring alerts to receive notifications when your website gains or loses backlinks. This enables you to stay on top of changes in your backlink profile and react accordingly.

SEMrush pricing

semrush pricing

SEMrush offers three pricing tiers. The Pro plan costs $119.95 per month, the Guru plan costs $229.95 per month, and the Business plan costs $449.95 per month.

RankTracker for link monitoring

RankTracker dashboard

When it comes to link monitoring, RankTracker offers several features and functionalities to help you keep track of your website’s backlinks. After all, it has the word “tracker” in its name, so link tracking is the best Here’s how RankTracker can be used for link monitoring:

  • Backlink Checker: RankTracker’s Backlink Checker allows you to analyze the backlinks pointing to your website. You can monitor the number of backlinks, the quality of the linking domains, and the distribution of dofollow and nofollow links. This helps you assess the health and authority of your backlink profile.
  • Backlink Monitor: With RankTracker’s Backlink Monitor, you can keep an eye on the status of your backlinks in real-time. It allows you to track and monitor the backlinks you gain or lose over time. You can see the details of each backlink, such as the linking domains, domain ratings, and anchor text used.
  • Competitor Analysis: RankTracker enables you to analyze the backlink profiles of your competitors. By monitoring their backlinks, you can identify new link opportunities, track their link building activities, and gain insights into their overall link strategy.
  • Link Quality Assessment: RankTracker helps you assess the quality of your backlinks by providing information about the domain ratings, trust scores, and other relevant metrics of the linking domains. This allows you to identify low-quality or spammy links that may harm your website’s SEO performance.
  • Historical Data: RankTracker keeps a record of your backlinks, allowing you to access historical data and track changes in your backlink profile over time. This helps you identify trends, patterns, and any potential issues with your backlinks.
  • Email Alerts: RankTracker can send you email alerts and notifications whenever there are changes in your backlink profile. This helps you stay informed about new backlinks, lost backlinks, or any suspicious activity related to your link profile.

While RankTracker offers valuable features for link monitoring, it’s important to note that it may not provide the same level of depth and automation as dedicated backlink monitoring tools. However, for basic link monitoring needs and keeping track of your backlink profile, RankTracker can be a useful tool.

RankTracker pricing

RankTracker pricing

 

RankTracker offers a 7-day free trial with access to all features. Their paid plans range from $19 to $167 per month.

Guest posting and link exchanges

Finally, if you got so far – you must be really determined to build links 😉 Let’s look at tools that will help with guest posting and link exchanges!

HARO – for getting linked mentions in big publications

HARO website

While not a tool per se, Help a Reporter Out (HARO) is a unique platform that serves as a bridge between journalists and experts in various fields. It’s a goldmine for guest posting and link exchanges, offering a unique approach to these traditional SEO strategies. When a journalist needs information, statistics, or perspectives for their articles, they post a query on HARO. Experts, like yourself, can respond to these queries with relevant information. If the journalist finds your response valuable, they may quote you in their article and often provide a backlink to your site. This not only helps you gain high-quality backlinks but also enhances your brand awareness and media coverage.

The process is simple. You sign up on HARO and provide some basic information about your expertise and industry. Then, you customize your preferences to see requests specific to your area of expertise. You receive daily emails filled with opportunities across various topics. You browse through these emails and find relevant topics that you can contribute to. Responding to these queries promptly and professionally increases your chances of being selected by the journalist.

HARO is not just about getting backlinks; it’s also about building relationships with journalists and establishing your authority in your field. By providing valuable content to journalists, you can position yourself as an expert in your field, reach a new audience, and improve your SEO through backlinks.

HARO Pricing

As for the pricing, HARO offers both free and premium plans. The free plan allows you to respond to journalist queries, while the premium plans offer additional features like keyword alerts, profile/bio that gets automatically inserted into your pitches, and early access to media opportunities. The premium plans range from $19/month for the Standard plan to $149/month for the Premium plan. The Standard plan is usually sufficient for most users, offering a good balance between cost and features.

SurferSEO AI writer for generating guest posts on a budget

SurferAI PES article

Guest posting is a powerful strategy to build backlinks, establish authority, and drive traffic to your website. But the process can be time-consuming, from researching topics to writing and optimizing content. Surfer AI, a cutting-edge content generation tool, can revolutionize your guest posting strategy. Here’s how:

  1. Rapid Content Creation: With Surfer AI, you can produce ready-to-rank articles in minutes. Instead of spending hours or even days crafting a guest post, Surfer AI can generate one in less than 20 minutes.
  2. Cost-Effective Solution: Hiring dedicated writers can be expensive. Surfer AI offers a solution that’s seven times cheaper, allowing you to produce more content for less.
  3. Optimized for SEO: Surfer AI doesn’t just write; it optimizes. With a click, your article is not only well-written but also primed to rank on search engines.
  4. Data-Driven Research: Surfer AI analyzes over 300,000 words across the internet when generating your article. This ensures that your content is backed by extensive research, making it authoritative and valuable to readers.
  5. Customizable Outlines: Before diving into content creation, Surfer AI allows you to adjust article settings, review outlines, and then generate the article. This ensures that the content aligns with your guest posting guidelines.
  6. SEO-Enhanced Features: From generating alt tags for images to analyzing the “People Also Ask” section on Google for your target keyword, Surfer AI ensures that every aspect of your article is optimized for SEO.
  7. Upcoming Features: Soon, Surfer AI will offer the ability to insert specific links, provide citations, and even offer templates for various types of content, further enhancing its utility for guest posting.
  8. Real Results: Users have reported significant growth in organic traffic after publishing Surfer AI-generated content. For instance, the NBA Blast SEO case study highlighted a 3000% growth in organic traffic in just 60 days using AI content.
  9. Avoid AI Detection: If you’re concerned about your content being flagged as AI-generated, Surfer AI has an “Anti-AI detection” feature to make your content appear more human-written.
  10. Affordable Pricing: With various pricing options, you can choose a package that fits your needs and budget. Whether you’re just testing the waters or diving into high-volume content generation, Surfer AI has a solution for you.

In conclusion, Surfer AI is not just a tool for generating articles; it’s a comprehensive solution for anyone looking to enhance their guest posting strategy.

BacklinkManager Link Matchmaking

BacklinkManager’s link exchange will match with other link builders who are willing to swap links with you on autopilot! Instead of trying your luck through cold email campaigns and LinkedIn – set the niches you’re looking after, your DR expectations, and browse link exchange partners looking to do business with you!
matchmaking in backlinkmanager

Conclusion

As we’ve seen from the post above, there are several reasons why you should be using a link building tool.

To provide a stellar link building, you need to have the right tool in your stack.

Hopefully you’ve found this post helpful with choosing the right link building tool for your SEO agency!

Still can’t decide about the best link building tool for your company?

Frequently Asked Questions

Which SEO platform is best for link building?

For link building, SEMrush is the go-to SEO platform according to reviews. It’s renowned for its comprehensive capabilities and in-depth reporting features that make it a powerful choice.

What is the best link building strategy?

Creating an online presence for your brand can be achieved by regularly connecting with bloggers and reporters in the same niche through social media. This tactic will not only increase reach but also page views, as well as generate new links. These benefits make it a worthwhile effort to engage journalists and authors via digital platforms so you can extend the breadth of recognition for your organization’s name even further.

How can I monitor and track my backlinks?

With the help of Google Search Console, Linkody, and Monitor Backlinks you can track your backlinks easily to gain valuable insights into how well your website is performing with competitors’ strategies.

Why is it important to analyze competitor backlinks?

It is essential to evaluate your competitors’ backlinks, as it can uncover chances for link building that you may have overlooked and afford insight into their tactics.