11 Link Building Tools You Need in 2023

Link building is hard work. It also takes a lot of time.

However, it can be made easier with the right tools. Here’s our list of the best link building tools you should use in 2023.

1. Hunter

Hunter offers a suite of tools that are highly useful for SEO and link building. The first is Email Finder, a tool designed to help you find anyone’s email address in seconds.

If you know who you need to contact to request a backlink, you can find their email address using Email Finder — all you need is the person’s name and their website.

On the other hand, if you have a list of websites you’d like to get backlinks from but aren’t sure who you need to contact, you can use Domain Search to get a list of all the email addresses associated with a domain or a list of domains.

Hunter can be of help even if you already have a list of email addresses you’d like to contact — you can use the Email Verifier tool to verify all the email addresses on your list and make sure you don’t run into email deliverability problems.

Finally, you can use Campaigns to set up, launch, and manage link building outreach campaigns for free. Campaigns supports using multiple email addresses, custom sending windows, automated follow-up emails, and more.

Pricing

Hunter offers a free plan that’s limited to 25 searches and 50 verifications per month. You can also use the free plan to send cold email campaigns to up to 500 recipients.

Paid plans include:

• Starter ($49/month)
• Growth ($99/month)
• Pro ($199/month)
• Business ($399/month)
• Enterprise (custom pricing)

2. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is probably the most popular SEO tool on the planet. While it offers a host of useful features (the Keywords Explorer being a popular one for keyword research), we’ll be focusing on those specific to link building.

The first one is the Site Explorer. It’s very useful for link prospecting, allowing you to discover new link building prospects by learning which websites link to your competition.

There’s also the option to review the anchor text variants your competition uses to improve your own anchor text and link building strategy.

The second feature is the Content Explorer. It allows you to review the backlink profile of any page.

This is highly useful for learning which domains link to pages you’re looking to outrank so that you can build a list of link building prospects for outreach.

You can also use the Content Explorer to discover broken link building opportunities. Additionally, it’s useful for analyzing your own pages to understand whether you’re gaining or losing backlinks for a specific page over time.

Pricing

Ahrefs offers four plans:

• Lite ($99)
• Standard ($199)
• Advanced ($399)
• Enterprise ($999)

3. SEO PowerSuite

SEO PowerSuite is a complete SEO package made up of four tools: Rank Tracker, WebSite Auditor, SEO SpyGlass, and LinkAssistant. Among these, SEO SpyGlass stands out as the go-to tool for link building, offering detailed backlink analysis tailored for link builders.

SEO SpyGlass boasts a vast backlink database, thanks to its capability to crawl 7.1 billion web pages daily. This ensures users have access to the most recent and comprehensive backlink data available. This includes insights into a website's linking history, the caliber of referring domains, individual backlinks, and a breakdown of top linking countries.

One of the standout features of SEO SpyGlass is its ability to perform bulk backlink analysis. Users can simultaneously analyze up to 200 domains, providing a perspective on potential link building opportunities. Additionally, the tool offers a historical lens, allowing users to track the evolution of their backlink profile over time. This is invaluable for strategizing and gauging the effectiveness of link building campaigns.

Beyond its own backlink index, SEO SpyGlass integrates seamlessly with other data sources. It can directly fetch data from Google Analytics and Google Search Console, ensuring users get a well-rounded view of their backlink landscape.

Pricing

SEO PowerSuite offers a free version with limited features. For those looking to harness its full backlink analysis potential, you’ll need to get one of the paid plans:

• SEO PowerSuite Professional ($299/year)
• SEO PowerSuite Enterprise ($499/year)

4. URL Profiler

URL Profiler is a content and SEO audit tool with a number of useful link building features. You can use it to check your own and your competitors’ backlinks quickly and easily.

The tool also allows you to download link metrics (such as page authority and domain authority) in bulk from tools like Ahrefs, Majestic SEO, and Mozscape. You can also use it to check link status, classify links, and identify linking patterns.

URL Profiler is also capable of generating detailed link building reports you can use to get a better understanding of your own and your competition’s link building efforts.

Pricing

URL Profiler offers the following plans:

• Solo ($29.95/month)
• Pro ($39.95/month)
• Agency ($99.95/month)

5. Linkody

Linkody enables you to track your link building campaigns by letting you know when you gain and lose links. You can use it to do a deep dive into your own link profile or analyze your competitors’ link building strategies.

It’s also a great tool for creating and managing disavow lists. You can use it to identify and disavow low-quality links, and then generate disavow files you can upload to Google.

The software is also capable of generating detailed reports you can share with clients and internal stakeholders.

Pricing

Linkody offers a free 30-day trial you can use to see if it’s the right fit for your needs. Paid plans include:

• Webmaster ($14/month)
• Advanced ($24/month)
• Pro ($49/month)
• Agency ($97/month)
• Agency XL ($149/month)

6. LinkResearchTools

LinkResearchTools offers a suite of link building tools for SEO professionals. You can use it to perform link audits, generate detailed backlink reports, and analyze your competitors’ backlink profiles.

Its proprietary Link Detox Risk metric allows you to identify potentially toxic links, while the Link Detox Boost feature helps you speed up link crawling and recovery.

You can use LinkResearchTools to scan search engine results pages for link building opportunities and sort the results by a number of criteria.

Other link building tools included in the suite are the Link Simulator, which helps you understand how much a specific link would help or hurt your rankings, and the Link Recovery tool, which allows you to generate redirect instructions automatically.

Pricing

LinkResearchTools offers a paid trial ($17 for 7 days). If you find the tool useful and want to continue using it, you’ll need to opt for one of the paid plans:

• Superhero Small ($499/month)
• Superhero Standard ($799/month)
• Superhero Plus ($1,999/month)
• Enterprise (custom pricing)

7. Image Prospector

Image Prospector is a link building tool powered by Google’s reverse image search engine. It allows you to upload your website images and find other websites that are using them.

The software will provide you with a list of link building prospects you can contact to ask for a link. The list can then be sorted by a number of criteria or exported to a .CSV file.

The great thing about Image Prospector is that you only need to upload each image once, and the tool will then re-check if any of your images was used anywhere every month.

Pricing

You can monitor up to 10 images for free using Image Prospector. Paid plans include:

• 100 monitored images ($19/month)
• 200 monitored images ($39/month)
• 500 monitored images ($49/month)

8. Monitor Backlinks

Monitor Backlinks is a dedicated keyword and backlink monitoring tool. You can use it to track your own and your competitors’ backlinks.

The tool is capable of pulling link metrics from tools like Majestic and Moz, allowing you to look more closely into any link profile.

Monitor Backlinks features an intuitive dashboard and allows you to sort links using tags and filters. It comes with a number of useful reports already built in, but you can create custom ones as well.

There’s also the option to set up email alerts for new backlinks, as well as a feature for building disavow lists easily.

Pricing

Monitor Backlinks offer a free 30-day trial you can use to test out the tool and see if it’s the right fit for your needs. Paid plans include:

• Start ($25/month)
• Plus ($47/month)
• Professional ($89/month)

There’s also the option to set up a custom plan that works for you.

9. Ontolo

Ontolo uses 80 different sources to help you find link building prospects. You can also upload prospect lists from other tools and then crawl them using Ontolo.

The tool allows you to search through lists of prospects using advanced queries to find just the right prospects for your link building campaigns.

You can export any list you create in either .CSV format or as an organized, color-coded spreadsheet.

Pricing

Ontolo offers the following plans:

• Pro ($97/month)
• Agency ($297/month)
• Custom (custom pricing)

10. BacklinkGap

BacklinkGap can help you analyze your backlink profile, identify broken links, set up email alerts for new and lost links, and more.

The Backlink Checker feature allows you to gain deep insights into your link profile by performing advanced link analysis.

You can use it to compare dofollow and nofollow links, understand the types of backlinks that make up your link profile, and review anchor text.

The Backlink Monitoring feature can notify you of new and lost backlinks. It also allows you to add tags and notes to links.

You can use BacklinkGap to perform competitor backlink analysis, monitor your competition’s new and lost links, and discover link building opportunities in the process.

There’s also a very useful Link Disavow feature, which allows you to identify toxic backlinks, compile them into a list, and export the list as a .CSV file you can upload to Google.

Pricing

BacklinkGap offers the following plans:

• Starter ($19/month)
• Pro ($39/month)
• Business ($199/month)

11. SE Ranking

SE Ranking in an all-in-one digital marketing platform that provides a comprehensive SEO toolkit. Although most users use it for its accurate keyword rank tracking features, SE Ranking also includes a powerful link building toolkit.

The first tool is the SE Ranking Backlink Finder. It helps to examine your and your competitors' backlink profiles, analyze referring domains, linking pages, and anchor texts, as well as determine the value of each backlink.

The second tool is the Backlink Gap Analyzer, which is designed to discover new link building opportunities based on your competitors’ backlink profiles.

Finally, once you’ve planned a data-driven link building strategy and got new links, you can turn to SE Ranking’s Backlink Monitor. It allows you to monitor your website’s backlinks, get ​​automated notifications of any link changes, and manage new and lost backlinks.

It’s very helpful for tracking link profile growth and managing link building process so that you can analyze off-page SEO efforts and keep them under control.

Pricing

SE Ranking offers three plans:

• Essential ($49/month)
• Pro ($109/month)
• Business ($239/month)

Automate link building with the right tools

The tools on this list should help you automate parts of your link building process and help you build more links in less time. For more help with building links, check out these posts from the blog:

• SEO & Outreach for SaaS: How to Grow Your Traffic and Backlinks in 2022
• Blogger Outreach: How to Do It Successfully in 2022 (Complete Guide)
• Affiliate Link Building: All You Need to Know