Search Engine Optimization or SEO consists of three major parts; on-page, off-page, and technical SEO. If we move further in off-page SEO, there comes link building, one of the cores of SEO.
What is link building?
Link building is the process of getting backlinks from relevant niche websites in order to rank higher in search engines. These backlinks serve as ranking signals for search engines and pass link juice, indicating that the link mentioned is worth something. The more high-quality the backlinks are, the higher a web page ranks in search engines.
Without link building, SEOs have had a hard time ranking content. It works for some but not when it comes to highly competitive niches.
We’ve compiled a list of freemium (and some totally free) SEO link-building tools that are used for link building in the SEO industry. Here are the best FREE link-building tools in 2024:
1. Ahrefs
If you’re into SEO, then you must know that this is a must-have tool. If you want to spy on your competition, you need Ahrefs as it provides a detailed and much more deep analysis of a website. In addition, you can also find broken links through Ahrefs.
One thing that most people might not know is that you can get an Ahrefs account for free, but only for websites that are connected with Google Search Console. The free account allows you to take a look at the performance of your website articles and backlinks for FREE. However, not everything comes with a free tag in the free version. I must say, if you’re a newbie, must try this tool for free as it covers a lot of things that you might need to make your blog or website better in search engines.
2. SEMRush
SEMRush is another keyword research and analysis tool for SEOs. It works the same as Ahrefs and is one of the leading tools in the link-building industry. With SEMRush, you can do competitor analysis as well as keyword research. Not only this, you can look for what your competition is up to and track their back-linking techniques.
3. Google Search Console
Believe it or not, I’m adding Google Search Console as a third best tool in my list of best free link building tools. I wanted to add this tool as the first tool but because it doesn’t offer keywords insights better than Ahrefs or SEMRush, it’s on the 3rd position.
With Google Search Console, you can take a look at your website’s search performance in almost real time. You can track the keywords which are performing well and also check the errors like crawling errors, that you might face in search engine. Search console also lets you disavow backlinks that you might find harmful for your website. Maybe a cheeky rival is planning on taking your rankings down with these tactics, though they don’t really affect much, since Google is smart enough but still, you can disavow links that you think are not good for your website.
You can also track the newly ranked keywords in your search console and make better link-building strategies. So, what are you waiting for?
4. Majestic SEO For Monitoring Backlinks
Majestic SEO crawls and maps the web with its intelligent link database.
Majestic SEO offers two indexes: Fresh Index and Historic Index.
The Fresh Index contains a list of pages and links that it has found in the past 120 days. It also includes any links that you might have lost in that period. This is useful for understanding how link-building campaigns affect your immediate rankings.
The Historic Index is a massive database that spans the last five years and contains trillions of unique URLs. This lets you measure your site’s SEO performance over time.
Registering for a free plan does give you limited access to some of its features. But you can still view important metrics like external backlinks, referring domains, and more.
Trust Flow is a metric that displays the quality of links that point to a URL, while Citation Flow represents the quantity of links that point to a site. (Both are available in the free plan.)
One way to use Majestic SEO is to view the Trust Flow and Citation Flow of sites that are ranking on the first page for a target keyword. This can give you a better idea of how easy or difficult it is to rank.
5. MozBar (Keywords Analysis)
You must’ve heard of Domain Authority aka DA. Moz is behind the DA metric and is known for its backlink analysis and research in the link-building and SEO industry. MozBar is a free Chrome extension from Moz that lets you conduct backlink research and view metrics right from the search results.
The tool is incredibly easy to use. After installation, you can enter a keyword and quickly analyze keyword details.
The free version comes with limited features, but you can still view other metrics like DA aka Domain Authority, and PA aka Page Authority.
6. Hunter.io For Finding Emails
If something plays a vital role in link building, that’s Emails. It’s crucial for link building because it’s a direct source of communication between the target website and the person who’s looking for a link.
Hunter.io is a tool that makes it easy for you to find email addresses.
Conducting outreach is one of the most important aspects of link building and PR. The process involves reaching out to webmasters and requesting an inbound link back to your site.
But a common challenge with an outreach email campaign is finding the right contact information.
If you don’t reach the right person, your email will likely go unread. Complicating matters even further is the fact that companies don’t always list email addresses of their employees.
Hunter.io lets you quickly find email addresses associated with any website. Simply type in the company’s URL to start your search.
You’ll need to create an account to view the full results and access other features like search filters and CSV downloads.
Another handy feature that Hunter.io offers is email verification (as seen by the green checkmarks above). This tells you that an email is active and in use.
A free account gives you access to 50 free searches a month, but you can always upgrade to a premium plan as you ramp up your outreach emails.
7. Sitechecker For Monitoring Backlinks and Backlinks Generator
Backlinks Generator and Backlink Analysis are handy SEO tools from the Sitechecker platform that greatly simplifies external website promotion. They make it possible to monitor the number and quality of backlinks on your project and competitors’ sites, as well as generate links to landing pages for free can be created easily with the help of landing page creators. It doesn’t require much of your time and can help you get started in no time.
Backlinks Generator is a tool for getting free links to a page. It automatically builds indexed backlinks from analyzer sites. These projects have a high-quality link profile and a lot of traffic. This allows you to more effectively promote the new site and prevent spam on projects working in competitive niches. The tool is highly recommended for new projects.
Bonus Tool:
8. Whitespark For Finding Local Citations
9. Ubersuggest For Analyzing Backlinks
10. Google Alerts For Brand Mentions
11. BuzzSumo For Identifying Influencers
12. Snov.io For Conducting Outreach
13. SE Ranking For Checking Backlinks
14. Disavow Link Tool For Disavowing Links
15. SEO SpyGlass from SEO PowerSuite
These were the best free link-building tools in 2024 that you can use to create backlinks. If you’re looking for experts that can do link building for you professionally and help increase your website credibility and search appearance, we at Outreach Hawks can do that for you. Feel free to drop a message and we’ll get back to you.
