Our recommendation for the best link building tool is Ahrefs because it has several valuable features to simplify and streamline link research and prospecting. Start your 7-day trial for just $7.
Link building takes a lot of time, effort, and technical capability. But using the right tool can certainly make your life a lot easier.
This guide compares the best link building tools that are purpose-built to streamline every step in the link building process, from identifying opportunities for new backlinks to automating email outreach, and beyond.
The Top 6 Best Link Building Tools
Here’s a quick rundown of tools you can use to score powerful backlinks and automate your link-building campaigns. Ahrefs edges forward over other tools because of its significantly large database of live backlinks and several other link-building-focused features. Begin your 7-day trial by paying $7.
- Ahrefs — Best for competitor research and link analysis
- Buzzstream — Best for link prospecting and outreach
- Semrush — Best for Agencies
- Moz Link Explorer — Best for link tracking
- Hunter — Best for easy email verification
- Linkody — Best for affordability
Next, we’ll break down the features of each tool to help you find the best fit for your needs.
Match Your Scenario to the Right Link Building Solution
While there’s no shortage of reliable link building tools, they won’t necessarily meet your expectations or match your use case.
- You’re looking for an all-in-one SEO tool
- You want to simplify link prospecting and outreach
- You want a complete breakdown of your website link profile
You’re looking for an all-in-one SEO tool
Best option: Ahrefs
Ahrefs has one of the most diverse SEO suites that come with several SEO-focused tools.
In addition to Site Explorer and Content Explorer tools that are great for link building, you also get a Keyword Explorer and Rank Tracker to identify and keep track of your target keyword and how your website ranks in the SERPs.
Another great choice: Semrush
Besides executing end-to-end link building, Semrush has tons of dedicated tools to boost your site’s organic ranking.
Alongside a backlink gap tool that performs in-depth backlink gap analysis of your site and your competitors, it also has tools to perform keyword research, audit sites, perform comparative analysis, and track rankings of your target keywords.
If you want an all-in-one SEO solution with link building capabilities, look for tools that:
- Are full-fledged SEO suites
- Offers multiple tools to optimize your website as a whole
- Let you track crucial metrics to keep a tab of your SEO efforts
You want to simplify link prospecting and outreach
Best choice: Buzzstream
With Buzzstream, you can easily reach out to relevant websites and influencers to earn quality backlinks.
It gives you a centralized place to organize, personalize, send, and track emails, keeping you on top of your link building efforts. An integrated CRM is again useful to streamline your outreach and assign related tasks to teammates.
Another great choice: Hunter
Hunter is one of the more prominent email finder and verification tools, so it’s a no-brainer option when it comes to outreach.
It provides you with verified email addresses of contacts working in reputable sources, letting you reach out for guest posting and podcast feature opportunities without extra hassle.
If you want to streamline your link building outreach, look for tools that:
- Have built-in tools to find and verify email addresses
- Let you organize and track link building emails
- Integrate with leading cold email software (good to have)
You want a complete breakdown of your website link profile
Best option: Moz Link Explorer
Moz Link Explorer gives you a high-level overview of inbound links, linking domains, and ranking keywords. It also provides you with charts showing your domain and page authority, along with a sub-reporting functionality, to keep you on top of your website’s as well as your competitors’ backlink profiles.
Another great option: Linkody
Linkody is the most affordable way to keep track of your and your competitors’ backlink profile. It helps you identify and eliminate bad links and provides valuable insights into most linked web pages, thanks to its 24/7 link monitoring.
It also has an intuitive dashboard that allows you to easily track key SEO metrics.
If you want a detailed breakdown of any website’s backlink profile, look for tools that:
- Offers tools to check the quantity, anchor, and quality of links pointing to your website
- Has an intuitive dashboard to filter and view results as per your preference
- Identify and eliminate toxic backlinks hurting your ranking
Link Building Company Reviews
It’s certainly possible to build backlinks without tools, but leveraging them can significantly enhance your efforts and facilitate better decision-making. However, not every link building tool is worth your time.
Check out my top recommendations to make the right choice.
Ahrefs — Best for Competitor Research and Link Analysis
Ahrefs offers tons of excellent SEO and marketing tools that go beyond link building, but its end-to-end link building capabilities are certainly worth mentioning.
Site Explorer, for example, lets you uncover useful insights into your competitor’s backlinks. It comes with a link intersect feature that provides a list of all the websites that link to your competitors but not you.
You can also use the Content Explorer feature to identify the most popular articles on a given keyword/topic based on the number of referring domains linking to them. Add these domains to your own link building outreach lists if they make a good match for your needs.
What Makes Ahrefs Great
Ahrefs has a built-in site auditing tool and an excellent keyword research tool, but it’s the Site Explorer and Content Explorer functionalities that make Ahrefs your best bet when it comes to link building.
But these features are just the tip of the iceberg.
For instance, Ahrefs’ crawler is the one of most active tools (second to Google) and has a backlink index containing over 3 trillion live backlinks. You can also sort your web pages by link growth to determine which pages are getting the highest number of backlinks and then replicate that strategy for other web pages.
Ahrefs offers plans starting at $99, but if you choose the annual plan, you get two months free. You can also pay a small $7 fee to get access to all features for seven days.
Buzzstream — Best for Link Prospecting and Outreach
A crucial part of effective link building is finding publishers and influencers who have genuine interest in your content asset and are willing to link back to your page. With Buzzstream, you can do just that, thanks to its powerful link building tools that make it easier than ever to discover link opportunities.
Identify top-performing and relevant influencers and publishers based on your niche, conduct outreach, and manage relationships with them. Easily organize, personalize, send, and track emails from a single place as you expand your brand’s reach.
There’s also an integrated CRM that keeps your team in sync. Add multiple users to your account and assign tasks between them to ensure your link building campaigns run like a well-oiled machine.
What Makes Buzzstream Great
Buzzstream is an excellent option to scale your link building campaigns faster, saving you time and energy.
A digital PR feature lets you build a list of journalists and bloggers to identify and earn high-quality links, while custom fields are handy for organizing and customizing campaigns to your exact preferences.
You can also use its Chrome extension called Buzzmarker to accelerate your link prospecting efforts. It’s a handy tool to find contact information, add prospects to campaigns, and send emails from readymade templates—all while you continue browsing the internet.
Buzzstream’s pricing starts from $24 per month. A 14-day trial is also available on all plans.
Semrush — Best for Agencies
Semrush is a comprehensive backlink software designed to create and execute end-to-end link building to ensure concrete results.
While it makes a great tool for individual use, I recommend it for agencies. Semrush is an all-in-one SEO suite with efficient link building capabilities that makes it easy to track top-performing links based on geographical region.
The fact that its dedicated link building tool identifies the best backlink opportunities using its extensive database of over 43 trillion backlinks ensures agency owners can deliver the best possible results.
What Makes Semrush Great
Semrush has a Backlink Gap Tool that allows you to run a comprehensive backlink gap analysis that serves as a great starting point for any link building strategy. Use it to compare your link profile with the competition and discover potential opportunities to score high-quality links.
If you have a weaker link profile than your competitors, focus on acquiring links so they don’t have to close this “gap.” View the link gap prospects based on four categories: Weak (domains that point to you less than competitors), Strong (domains that point to you but not any of the competitors), Shared (domains that link to all the entered domains, and Unique (domains that only link to one domain).
Semrush’s subscriptions start from $119.95 and are payable monthly. A limited free account and a free 7-day trial are both available.
Moz Link Explorer — Best for Link Tracking
This list would be incomplete without mentioning Moz Link Explorer.
It allows you to search URLs and domains and p can also download CSV files for all these data points to hold detailed discussions with your team.
In addition to viewing a breakdown of lost and newly discovered links, Moz also generates charts showing how your domain and page authority has changed over a specific time period. A sub-reporting feature lets you see which of your web pages are getting the most links and identify anchor texts your linking sites use the most.
What Makes Moz Link Explorer Great
While Moz Link Explorer is great for analyzing the backlink profile of any website, it’s also handy for finding link opportunities, repairing broken lines, and removing bad links. Check the Spam Score of your backlinks to remove spammy links pointing to your website and increase the quality of your links.
Other than this, you get access to several other tools such as a keyword explorer tool and an on-page grader to further enhance your SEO strategy. There’s also a Moz reporting integration that lets you create detailed dashboards featuring all your backlink data, alongside over 70 other marketing platforms.
Moz’s pricing starts from $99 per month, but you can start with a generous 30-day free trial of its Pro plan.
Hunter — Best for Easy Email Verification
When doing outreach for potential link building opportunities, you’ve likely struggled to find the right email address. This is a huge advantage that ends your campaign before you even begin.
Luckily, Hunter can help you out of this situation.
Simply enter the domain name or company you’re targeting, and Hunter will provide you with a list of emails for people working at the website or publication. What’s more, its unique email verification feature automatically verifies each email it gives you to ensure your efforts don’t go in vain.
What Makes Hunter Great
Hunter makes reaching out to reputable sources for podcast features, guest posts, and other marketing strategies easy, thereby improving your on-page SEO and scoring those valuable backlinks.
It has a Domain Search feature that allows you to find the email addresses of specific companies, and an Email Finder tool to identify the right email address of a particular professional.
I also like its Google Sheets add-on that lets you match emails for all your link building prospects—all with a single click.
Hunter offers a free plan, as well as paid plans starting from $49 per month.
Linkody — Best for Affordability
Linkody is one of the most user-friendly link building tools with very affordable pricing plans, providing excellent value for your money.
Despite the lower prices, it offers several features that are useful for analyzing your backlink profile and identifying and eliminating bad links. It provides you with all the information you need to easily manage all your links and domains in one place and understand when you lose or gain links.
An easy-to-understand dashboard allows you to easily track top SEO metrics (for example, DA, TF, PA) to stay on top of your link building campaign.
What Makes Linkody Great
Full disclosure: Linkody isn’t as advanced as the previous tools I mentioned, but it’s certainly worth a shot for those with a limited budget.
Use it to discover your competitors’ backlinks and identify which pages point to you and your competitors—or only to them. You can also view their most linked pages to find opportunities to get more quality links. Linkody also offers 24/7 link monitoring for your website and your competitors and sends email reports in case of any status changes.
As mentioned, Linkody is one of the cheapest link building tools right now, with plans starting from only $14.90 per month. If you choose to pay annually, you get three months free. A free 30-day trial—no credit card required—is also available.
Quick Sprout Link Building Related Content
If you want to learn more about effective link building, check out our other guides for more in-depth information.
Link Building Guides and How-Tos
- How to Get Backlinks: The Complete Guide
- A Thirty-Day Plan for Gaining 100 Authoritative and Relevant Backlinks to Your New Website
- The Link Builder’s Guide to Email Outreach
- How Many Links Should You Build to Your Website?
- How to Create a Link-Building Strategy from Scratch
- What Is a “Good Link Profile” and How Do You Get One?
- 7 Link Building Mistakes You Ought to Avoid
- 7 Ways to Make Your Brand and Content More Likable
- How to Combine PR with SEO for the Biggest Success
- Types of Content That Attract The Most Backlinks
- The Quest For The Perfect Link
The Top Link Building in Summary
Link building tools make your backlinking process more efficient. If you use them correctly, you’ll find yourself in the perfect position to earn high-quality links to boost your website presence.
Ahrefs is the best link building tool that comes with plenty of features to help you better understand your link profile and identify new link prospects.
Source: quicksprout
Compare the Best Link Building Tools