The 10 Best Link Building Tools

There are plenty of link building tools out there, in fact, so many that choosing one can be quite a challenge. That’s why in this post we’ve rounded up some of the best link building tools, so you’ll know which ones are best suited to help you work like a pro.

1. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is one of the most recognized all-in-one SEO tools worldwide, and for very good reason.

Although you can perform a wide range of SEO tasks with it, what really makes it stand out is its strength as a link building tool.

In this regard, it includes specific sections like Site Explorer, which lets you check link building metrics for any site (such as DR, Ahrefs’ own website authority metric), backlinks, referring domains, and more.

If you need even more data, you can run large-scale analyses of up to 200 websites at once with its Batch Analysis feature.

You might be wondering: what’s the point of all this data if my goal is link building?

Quite a lot:

1. You can analyze the websites where you want to secure backlinks to make sure they’re worth it.
2. You can dig into the links your competitors are getting to stay ahead and ensure your pages get enough momentum.
3. Competitor and backlink analysis helps you understand what they’re doing to earn links, which pages get linked the most, what type of content works best, and more.

At the end of the day, as the saying goes, knowledge is power.

Having the right data at hand will help you invest your time and money in backlinks that truly make an impact.

2. Semrush

Semrush is another leading tool in the SEO industry, so comprehensive that it covers almost every aspect of SEO you might want to work on.

When it comes to link building, it doesn’t fall short. It offers tools like Backlink Analytics (which analyzes and displays all the backlinks a website or specific URL receives) and Backlink Audit (which reviews the quality of a site’s backlinks).

Other features, like Domain Overview, let you quickly see the backlinks a site is getting and its overall authority (measured by Semrush with a special metric called Authority Score).

And to top it off, Semrush includes the Backlink Gap tool, which shows the gap between the backlinks one site has and those of another.

This is extremely useful for understanding how your site’s authority compares to a competitor’s, how many links you currently have, and how many you may need to rank higher.

In short, Semrush gives you all the information you need to do effective link building and stay ahead of your competitors.

3. Linkatomic

Linkatomic is a link building platform that helps you secure backlinks on websites around the world.

Said like that, it may sound simple, but it’s actually the most important part of any link building strategy.

The challenge is that managing high-quality link building for your website on your own can get complicated, take a lot of time, and offer little guarantee of results.

That’s where tools like Linkatomic come in, handling the process for you so you can generate links easily, in a scalable and reliable way.

Practically speaking, all you need to do is choose the sites and define a few details, and Linkatomic takes care of the rest.

All of this makes it an essential tool for running a link building campaign.

4. Link Affinity

It’s not all about generating links through sponsored posts or guest posting, you can also build backlinks through public relations. In other words, by reaching out directly to website owners to get them to link to you.

Link Affinity is designed to help you with exactly this kind of PR-based link building strategy, from analyzing potential websites that could give you backlinks, to facilitating communication with their owners.

The advantage of managing link building through PR with Link Affinity is that the tool actually recommends sites that are already likely to want to link to you.

Beyond speeding up much of the outreach work with websites that could provide backlinks, it also analyzes your links to ensure quality and, in some cases, can even act as an intermediary with other sites to secure backlinks on your behalf.

All of this makes Link Affinity a powerful tool for implementing link building strategies that deliver real results.

5. Majestic

Majestic is a tool that focuses 100% on off-page SEO data analysis, with a strong emphasis on backlinks.

With Majestic, you can measure the authority of any website, analyze the links it receives, assess their quality, and much more.

Unlike Semrush and Ahrefs, which also appear on this list, Majestic is dedicated exclusively to backlink-related data.

This makes it a powerful ally for organizing your link building strategies, identifying the websites where it’s worth acquiring backlinks, and analyzing your own site’s link profile to ensure it’s in good shape.

With such valuable insights, Majestic can give a very positive boost to your link building efforts.

6. Google Search Operators

Google search operators are incredibly useful tools that often don’t get the attention they deserve.

In case you’ve never heard of them, search operators are expressions you can type into Google’s search bar to run more precise or better-filtered queries.

With just one well-used search operator, you can filter the web and land exactly on the type of results you’re looking for.

In many ways, it’s an advanced way of using Google and getting the most out of its potential.

What you may not know is that search operators can also help you with link building.

Specifically, some search operators will allow you to:

1. Find pages that are open to guest posting.
2. Identify websites related to yours that might be willing to link back to you.
3. Locate websites that already mention your business but don’t link to it.

Two Google Search Operators That Can Help You with Link Building:

1. To find websites that mention your brand

• Search operator: [Your brand or business name] -site:yourwebsite.com

Example: wikipedia -site:wikipedia.org

With this search operator, you’re asking Google to show all mentions of the keyword you typed (in this case “wikipedia”), but excluding results from Wikipedia’s own website.

That way, you get all the mentions of “Wikipedia” across the web outside of its own site.

For your brand, you can use this operator to spot websites that mention your business and check whether they link to you or not.

If they don’t, you could reach out to the site owners and request a direct backlink to your site. Since they’re already mentioning you, they’ll often be open to adding a link.

2. To find websites that accept guest posts

• Search operator: intitle:(“phrase or keyword”)

Examples:

• intitle:(“guest posting”)
• intitle:(“write for us”)
• intitle:(“contribute to our site”)

Here, you’re telling Google to only show results with titles that include the keyword you put in parentheses and quotation marks.

Because these are common phrases used by sites that accept guest contributions (a popular way to earn backlinks), this operator helps you quickly find those opportunities.

With just these two operators, you already have powerful ways to build links to your site, often at no cost. That makes them highly effective link building tools.

7. BuzzStream

BuzzStream is a powerful tool that helps you manage public relations campaigns. In fact, in this field, it’s one of the most recognized platforms worldwide.

What BuzzStream does, essentially, is centralize all your contact data and the entire communication process you’d normally have to manage manually in order to generate backlinks, traffic, brand mentions, and more.

So, while it’s not strictly a link building tool, and it’s not marketed as one, it definitely allows you to earn backlinks through PR campaigns (very much like Link Affinity).

On top of that, BuzzStream can even crawl the web to find opportunities for backlinks, mentions, and traffic for your site.

Once it identifies those opportunities, it finds the emails of the right people you need to contact and helps you pitch collaborations that could generate backlinks.

And to make things even easier, it also manages email outreach directly from the platform, so you can keep all your communications organized in one place.

As you can imagine, these are very powerful features for link building. If you know how to take advantage of them, BuzzStream can seriously boost your site’s authority and visibility.

8. Hunter

Have you ever come across a website where a backlink to your site would have been a perfect fit?

In cases like that, Hunter is the ideal tool, since it helps you get in touch with the people behind any website on the internet.

For example, if there’s a specific blog where you’d like to do some guest posting, all you need to do is go to Hunter and enter that blog’s domain.

From there, Hunter will automatically search for the email addresses of people connected to that blog.

That way, you can reach out directly to the team behind the site and arrange a collaboration where you can earn backlinks to your website, and much more.

Like Link Affinity, Hunter is a link building tool that focuses on PR-driven strategies to generate backlinks.

And it’s a perfect complement to a paid link building campaign.

9. SE Ranking

SE Ranking is a low-cost all-in-one SEO tool, quite similar to platforms like Semrush or Ahrefs but at a much more affordable price.

It has dedicated sections for link building, where you can track metrics such as Domain Trust (essentially a measure of site authority), the number of backlinks, and referring domains.

With SE Ranking’s Backlink Checker, you can analyze the link profile of any website, including your own.

You’ll also find the Backlink Gap feature, which lets you compare your backlink profile with your competitors to identify the links you might need to rank higher.

On top of that, you can even monitor the backlinks you acquire, and the tool will notify you if you lose any. That’s an incredibly useful feature to make sure your link building results actually stick.

Overall, SE Ranking is a fantastic option for analyzing link building metrics and building more effective strategies backed by solid data.

10. Google Search Console

One of the best tools for webmasters (and certainly a favorite for many), Google Search Console is like a Swiss Army knife for managing different aspects of your site’s SEO.

From tracking the organic traffic you’re getting, to submitting your content for indexing, or even sending your sitemap directly to Google Search Console has plenty of useful features.

When it comes to link building, Search Console isn’t the most complete or ideal option, but it does provide some valuable data.

As long as you’ve already registered your website with Google Search Console, you just need to head over to the Links section.

There, you’ll be able to see which pages on your site are the most linked, which domains link to you the most, and the anchor texts being used.

It may not be a massive amount of data, but since it comes straight from Google and gives you a quick snapshot of key link metrics, it’s definitely worth checking from time to time.

If you’re looking for link building tools, you now have a list of some of the very best.

Many of them complement each other and will help you develop more effective link building strategies, whether it’s checking the quality of a backlink or making sure a site is a good fit for a sponsored post.

Do link building and get real results with Linkatomic

Doing link building to boost your site’s authority is simple with Linkatomic. Check out our guide and see how you can start strengthening your website today with quality backlinks from media outlets all around the world.