Google’s ranking algorithm is one of the most difficult things to crack. You cannot say whether a specific tactic is going to work. Google time to time, shares some insights about its algorithm updates, and one thing that is for sure is the Link building is one of the most important parts of Google’s ranking.
A backlink helps Google’s crawlers to determine that your site has a valuable resource that Google can display. One thing you must know that Google is hungry for valuable information and resources. Google wants its users to get the most valuable and precise info on the first page itself, and to reach the first page, you need to tell google that your content has something valuable, and there is no other way better than link building to do that.
There are mainly two types of links, the default ‘Dofollow’ links, and ‘Nofollow’ links. This update about links was introduced by Google in the year 2005, these links will look normal to a layman, but there is a huge difference, there is an attribute added after hyperlinks, these attributes tell Google whether the person linking wants to pass authority or ‘Link Juice’ as the SEO experts call it or not. The DoFollow links have a direct effect on the page rankings, whereas the Nofollow links don’t.
Link building is done in two ways. One is the organic and manual way. The other is the paid way. While the organic or manual way may take more time, it is the best way to build links. You can gain a lot of authority through this. Link building can be expensive and time-consuming at times. There are some tools that can help you in the process. In this article, we will tell you about the top 11 free link-building tools that you should know. But first, let us know how to start an organic/free link building.
How To Build Links For Free?
The key to building free links is producing informative, useful, and on-point content. Your content should not be overstuffed with words and should have some credibility. The process of organic link building is based on good quality content. Here are some ways you can build links for free:
- Submit a guest post: There are many high authority websites that will let you make a guest post where you can add a link to your website or some content on your website. The only thing here is that the content needs to be of some good worth to the website. Otherwise, it won’t. Sites like Medium.com are also very good for this purpose, but over abuse of this can lead to article takedown,
- Offer a free backlink exchange: This is a really nice way of building links. You need to make sure that both the sites fall in similar or related niches and have an equal amount of authority for a better success rate.
- Fix broken links for a site owner: You can fix broken links for a site owner, you need to do precise research for that, but this method works most of the time.
- Write deeply researched content: If you are specialized in a certain field, then you should go with writing deeply researched and most informative content that no other website has written. This increases the chances of organic linking.
Well, these were some of the proven methods for free link building. Let us proceed with our picks for the top 11 free link building tools.
Top 11 Free Link Building Tools
These tools can help you build links and do the right research for link building, and the best part here is that all of them are available for free.
1. Majestic SEO
It is one of the most popular free link-building tools that help you analyze the link profile of your site. You can do extensive research with the link profile of your site. There is also a paid version of the tool available, starting at $49.99. The premium version of the tool allows you to check the link history, make customized reports for your clients, do keyword research, and a lot more. The pricing is on point.
2. Mozbar
Mozbar is a free SEO tool that helps you analyze the backlinks of a website directly from the search results. It is a Chrome extension and works in all the browsers working on Chromium like Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Opera, Brave and etc. The free tool is pretty competent, and you can view metrics like the Page authority (PA), Domain Authority (DA), and the number of backlinks. There is also a paid version of the tool that offers advanced features like Link analysis. Page analysis, Keyword Analysis, and a lot more. The plans start at $99/mo
3. Hunter.io
Email outreach is one of the most used and proven ways of getting free backlinks. Many times it happens that the contact information that you are somehow able to extract is wrong. In this case, Hunter.io is a great free tool that enables you to find E-mails related to any particular website. You need to signup on to the platform to view results. The free version allows you to conduct 50 searches per month. You can opt for the premium one starting at $49/mo.
4. Ahrefs
Ahrefs provides a broken link checker tool that lets you find broken backlinks for a URL. The tools are limited and only show a portion of broken Outlinks. To get full data of broken Outlinks, you need to subscribe to them, which starts at $99/mo. You get access to various tools on the platform. Ahrefs is a leading SEO analysis and research platform.
5. Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest is a keyword research tool by Neil Patel which provides tons of free features like Keyword Ideas, analysis, CPC, ranking difficulty and link analysis. The tool offers limited functionality with the free version, but if you upgrade for a paid version starting at $29/mo then you get access to all the tools plus complimentary access to member exclusive SEO training videos.
6. BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo helps you identify the top-performing content in your niche by analyzing the social media shares and other factors, With BuzzSumo, you can also identify the top influencers in your niche and conduct an outreach campaign. The paid plans start at $99/mo.
7. Google Alerts
Google alert lets you track brand mentions. Tracking brand mentions is a great way of getting free backlinks, you can create an alert for any topic, and when it gets mentioned on the web, you will be alerted. The tool is completely free to use and all you need is an e-mail. There are no restrictions on the number of alerts you create.
8. WhiteSpark
WhiteSpark offers a local citations finder tool that helps you find local directories where you can list your business or website. Local citations create great opportunities for local businesses. The tool offers a free version which is very limited and reserved to only 3 searches a day and only 1 campaign, it can only help you to preview the tool. The premium version can be accessed at a starting price of $20/mo.
9. Linkody
Linkody is a free link profile analyzer tool that lets you analyze the link profile of your site for free, the tool lets you analyze the profile of top 100 links to your site for free and it offers unlimited searches. If you need the data for more than the top 100 links to your site, you can go for the paid version that starts @$15/mo. The paid version of the tool offers a wide functionality.
10. Check My Links Extension
Check my links is a completely free and very effective tool that lets you fetch broken links from a website, contact webmasters and solicit pages that you can get a backlink from. The tools is effective, but not completely dependable, since there have been irregularities in the data sometimes. The tool is offered by Pagemodified.com and does not have a premium/paid version.
11. HARO
HARO is a free link building tool that you can use to get high quality backlinks from high authority news websites. Journalists constantly look for reliable sources to cite information from. On HARO, you can register yourself as a resource and you will get E-mails with certain topics, you can pickup the topic relevant to you, and then mail the journalist back, you will need to answer a series of questions from the journalist to get yourself or your website cited.
TL;DR
Link building is an important aspect for establishing the authority of your site and increasing the search visibility of your site. Link building helps google to know that your site is a valuable resource. There are two types of links, DoFollow and NoFollow. Experts use many ways to build links, but the organic and unpaid ones are the best ways.
You can build links for free in the following ways:
- Submitting a guest post
- Offering a free backlink exchange
- Fixing broken links
- Writing deeply researched content
Building links is a long and expensive process, it can be eased with the use of our picks for top 11 free link building tools.
