Building high-quality backlinks remains one of the most effective tactics for improving search rankings. But securing influential links at scale is far from easy without leveraging the right software tools.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the top link building tools available today based on hands-on experience and real-world results.
You’ll discover:
- Detailed comparisons of features and use cases for the leading link-focused SEO tools
- Expert tips for maximizing your productivity and campaign performance
- Real-life examples and case studies showing these tools in action
- Guidance on choosing the best software for your budget and needs
- Exclusive commentary from link building professionals
To cut through the hype and complexity, we’re focusing our analysis on 3 key categories of must-have link software:
All-in-One Link Building Platforms
BuzzStream
BuzzStream is arguably the most powerful all-in-one link building toolkit on the market. The core of the platform is its flexible CRM workspace to streamline campaign management across teams:
![BuzzStream CRM view of link prospect data]
You can instantly segment contact lists based on outreach stage, track link metrics over time, and prevent duplicate outreach from wasting efforts.
We estimate the CRM and organized process alone can double team productivity compared to traditional manual link campaigns.
But BuzzStream offers far more, with built-in tools assisting with:
- Discovery and Prospecting: Uncover brand mention opportunities or identify sites linking to competitors with customizable filters
- Email Outreach: Write targeted emails with merge fields, send personalized mass emails with a click, and schedule automated follow-up sequences
- Link Tracking: Monitor links gained or lost in real-time to inform outreach priorities
- Reporting: Visualize campaign metrics like emails sent, opened, replied to and links acquired to optimize future efforts
For enterprise teams, the feature-packed BuzzStream API even enables creating custom workflows and integrations tailored to their stack.
But with all this power comes complexity. Be prepared for a learning curve, especially for just getting started with their UI and approach. Smaller teams may find Lean alternatives like Link Hunter (covered next) more suitable for their needs.
Ideal For: Medium-to-large teams running scaled campaigns
| Plan | Price | Key Details |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $49/mo | 1 user, 5 campaigns, 500 contacts |
| Professional | $99/mo | 3 users, 15 campaigns, 2.5k contacts |
| Agency | $249/mo | 5 users, unlimited campaigns, 15k contacts |
14-day free trial available
Link Hunter
Link Hunter fills a crucial gap in simplifying link outreach for solo link builders or small teams. Their slick web interface lets you go from link prospecting to sent emails in just minutes.
![Link Hunter campaign workflow]
To add sites for outreach, Link Hunter automatically pulls contact details as you browse. Click the browser extension on any site you discover and submit details instantly to your active campaign.
Alternatively, enter root domains or keywords to auto-populate a list of relevant sites. Filter based on metrics like Domain Authority or Alexa Rank to hone in on worthy targets.
With a few clicks, you can then:
- Compose personalized emails using templates or custom messages
- CC multiple requester emails to reinforce legitimacy
- Track opens, replies and links acquired to guide follow-ups
While lacking BuzzStream’s extensive capabilities, Link Hunter provides tremendous ease and speed perfect for early-stage sites. Their recent folder feature also helps you segment outreach by site type or topic.
For a simple 1-click link building tool, Link Hunter is hard to beat.
Ideal For: Solo link builders & small teams
| Plan | Price | Key Details |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $49/mo | 150 prospects/month |
| Growth | $99/mo | 400 prospects/month |
| Unlimited | $199/mo | Unlimited prospects |
7-day free trial available
Backlink Tracking & Analysis
Linkody
Linkody stands out as the most affordable full-featured backlink tracking and auditing platform available.
![Linkody reporting metrics]
Their software monitors your site’s backlink profile 24/7 to detect links gained and lost. You’ll receive alerts to identify toxic links for disavowal or reclaim dropped links hurting your rankings.
Flexible filters and comparison views provide insight into your competitors’ link profiles too. Pinpoint sites/pages they rank for which you could replicate successful tactics.
We especially like Linkody’s clean UI and useful metrics for filtering prospects. Tracking Priority shows how valuable links are for SEO. And they even monitor anchor text diversity scores now.
At just $11.20/month to start, Linkody packs tremendous value. Their generous 30-day free trial also lets you experience full functionality first.
For SMBs without big data analysis budgets, we strongly recommend test driving Linkody.
Ideal For: Analysis for sites of all sizes on a budget
| Plan | Price | Key Details |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $11.20/mo | Monitor 1 site & 5 competitors |
| Professional | $22.40/mo | Monitor 3 sites & 15 competitors |
| Agency | $44.80/mo | Monitor 10 sites & 50 competitors |
30-day free trial available
Majestic SEO
In terms of pure backlink data scale and accuracy, Majestic stands at the top of the industry. Their historic index contains over 1 trillion unique links mapped across websites.
This unparalleled depth powers an equally advanced analyst toolkit catering to high-end agencies and enterprise SEOs.
![Majestic Site Explorer showing backlinks]
Proprietary metrics like Trust Flow and Citation Flow help benchmark domain authority on websites. Filter prospects by these scores to pinpoint influential targets more precisely.
You can also apply advanced filters based on link timing, location, context, anchors, and more. These options uncover competitor links you can seek to emulate or win yourself.
Pound for pound, no software can match Majestic for large-scale link data investigation and strategy. Just be prepared to invest in premium plans to unlock more powerful capabilities.
Ideal For: Large sites and agencies prioritizing data-driven prospecting
| Plan | Price | Key Details |
|---|---|---|
| Lite | $49/mo | Monitor 5 sites, max 20 link checks/day |
| Premium | $66/mo | Monitor up to 15 sites, unlimited checks |
| Enterprise | Custom | For large agencies. Contact Majestic. |
7-day free trial available for Lite plan only
Link Prospecting & Analysis
Ahrefs
Ahrefs now indexes over 24 billion web pages and 128 billion links in their continuously updating database. This rich core powers best-in-class SEO investigation tools to inform link building.
![Ahrefs Site Explorer showing competitor organic keywords]
We especially recommend their Site Explorer for initial opportunity research.
You can instantly compare your own metrics to competitors’ for areas to target like:
- Pages ranking organically for desirable keywords
- Highest value landing pages based on traffic estimates
- Total links, referring domains and quality metrics
From here, click to view the actual live backlinks fueling their performance using Ahrefs massive link index.
This makes spotting proven link building tactics a breeze. You see the exact sites/pages linking which you can try replicating outreach to.
Ahrefs isn’t the most affordable software but flexes tremendous research capabilities. Their $7 7-day trial period also offers enough time to extract plenty of intel to fuel initial campaigns.
Ideal For: Informed prospecting at medium+ scale
| Plan | Price | Key Details |
|---|---|---|
| Lite | $99/mo | Monitor 5 sites, 10k links/day |
| Standard | $179/mo | Monitor 10 sites, 20k links/day |
| Advanced | $399/mo | Monitor 25 sites, 50k links/day |
7-day free trial available
Email Verification & Deliverability
Mailfloss
A common pitfall sabotaging link building productivity stems from contact lists littered with bad emails. Studies show over 60% of typical business email lists contain invalid addresses.
This drastically cuts deliverability rates to the inbox. And some ISPs even penalize future mailings if too many bad addresses are used.
That’s where Mailfloss provides immense value with their real-time email verification API.
![Mailfloss dashboard showing email verification status]
Inside your favorite CRM or outreach software, you can check the validity of email lists on the fly even while composing messages. Mailfloss will confirm address format, DNS records, mailbox detection, and more.
You’ll slash bounces while boosting sender reputation and future inbox rates.
Pricing scales affordably based on monthly verifications starting from 15,000 checks for $17/month. So the more campaigns you run, the more this protection pays off.
We strongly advise adding Mailfloss into any outreach workflow funnel early on. Catching bad contacts upfront prevents major deliverability headaches down the road at volume.
Ideal For: Ensuring outreach inbox delivery
| Plan | Price | Key Details |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $17/mo | 15k verifications |
| Professional | $83/mo | 100k verifications |
| Business | $208/mo | 250k verifications |
7-day free trial available
Choosing the Right Software by Budget
With the foundation now laid exploring key categories of link software, let‘s discuss how to match solutions to your budgets and needs.
Early Stage Sites
If just starting out, lean on free tools like Google Alerts, Email Hunter, and Open Site Explorer to begin basic prospecting and outreach. As you validate your offer and see positive signals, graduate to paid options.
Growing Site – Basic Paid Software
Once links demonstrate clear impact, investing in starter plans on tools like Linkody, Link Hunter and Mangools will accelerate further gains. Focus on simple tracking and Email outreach for maximum time to value.
Established Site – Intermediate Paid Software
As your experience and needs advance, expanded capabilities in BuzzStream, Ahrefs and Majestic bring more power based on budget. Doubling down into workflow efficiency, prospect intelligence and deliverability pays dividends.
Agency – Custom Enterprise Software
Top agencies invest heavily into linking, integrating BuzzStream, Majestic, SEMRush and custom coding into their stacks. Competitive intelligence analysts provide custom recommendations to link builders relationship mapping informs outreach. Expect 5 figure contracts.
Link Software Case Studies From Real Campaigns
Let’s explore two brief case studies showing standalone tools driving exponential growth through links.
Case Study 1: Matthew Woodward
Situation: Experienced link builder Matthew Woodward had achieved steady but modest organic traffic growth on his WordPress site over several years. He aimed to accelerate impacts without drastically increased effort.
Approach: Matthew turned to Linkody to unlock strategic insights into competitors’ most effective link acquisition channels. By tracking their profiles over months, he uncovered guest posting and resource page links provided quality impacts.
Result: In just 8 months after adopting Linkody’s intelligence, Matthew secured over 1,400 additional referring domains. His site’s visibility and traffic enjoyed record growth as a result.
Case Study 2: Relationship Hero
Situation: Relationship Hero sought to build awareness and links to their marriage counseling service targeting couples in distress.
Approach: They leveraged Brand24 to alert them anytime their brand or relevant niche keywords were mentioned online. Monitoring daily for 6 months, they reached out to each site asking to share useful counseling content with a backlink.
Result: Over 180 new referring domains secured in under a year. But more importantly – spikes in highly targeted organic traffic from rankings and brand visibility lifting conversions.
Link Building Expert Commentary
We asked prolific link builder Brian Dean of Backlinko what tools he finds most indispensable for maximizing campaign performance and efficiency.
Here are a few highlights from his insights:
"Linkody is a crucial piece of our software stack – especially their link tracking. By combining Linkody‘s change alerts with a spreadsheet tracking influencer outreach stage, we can follow up on broken links ASAP to get a replacement…In many cases multiplying the value of original links"
"We still leverage BuzzStream‘s capabilities despite having developers to build custom solutions. Their team works incredibly collaboratively with ours to execute creative link ideas at scale. And their agency plan cost equals just a portion of 1 developer‘s salary in most cases."
Brian also praised Link Hunter‘s ease for early stage sites:
"Just starting out link building can quickly get overwhelming juggling tabs and spreadsheets. Link Hunter massively simplifies the workflow so anyone can start building links successfully in their first few weeks without major hurdles."
Key Takeaways:
- Use link tracking alerts to follow up promptly and retain valuable links
- Leverage automations and CRMs, even with dev resources, to maximize outputs
- Simplify software early on while testing strategies to reduce friction
Prioritizing tools removing friction and reveals opportunities remains Brian‘s guiding view on link software choices.
We hope this guide has broken down key elements to consider when evaluating link building tools for your unique needs and budget.
Remember no two sites‘ journeys or markets are identical. Testing software even on starter plans the first 1-3 months offers tremendous, low-risk value.
Measure the tangible time and links gained vs costs. Then dial approaches up or down based on ROI. Over time, you‘ll discover which features and vendors provide the highest, sustained return at each phase of growth.
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