Effective Link Building Tactics for eCommerce Brands

What is Link-Building?

Link building is a term used in search engine optimization (SEO) to describe measures taken to increase the quantity and quality of inbound links to a webpage to raise the page’s or website’s position in search results. 

Here, the Domain Authority (DA) and the content relevancy to your site are used to evaluate a website’s quality. In other words, connections from high-DA websites that are relevant to your topic are more valuable than links from irrelevant, low-quality websites.

Even if they have a higher domain authority, connections from spammy websites like adult sites would hurt your site’s SEO more than help it.

Link building, in a nutshell, is the practice of developing pertinent hyperlinks to a website from other websites. A website’s chances of appearing well in search engine results can be increased by increasing the number of high-quality links pointing to the website.

Another effective marketing strategy for raising brand awareness is link development.

Why are links important for your eCommerce brand?

You want to make money, Right?

E-commerce websites rely on revenue to stay afloat. It’s the same with your website. It will need to earn income through traffic, recommendations, trust, exposure in the SERPs, and links.

Your links are significant since they convey support for your e-commerce website. They transfer authority, relevance, and other vital ranking elements to your site from authoritative websites in exchange for trust. The majority of the essential elements that determine an e-commerce site’s success, such as ranking and traffic, rely on backlinks to function correctly. External links are used to build trust with search engines and direct potential buyers to your website.

By boosting your ranking and visibility in the SERPs, you may attract more visitors to your website and boost sales. The most successful e-commerce sites rank well for their particular markets because they build quality links (nearly 70% of consumers click through on the first page of search results). High-quality links play a significant impact on ranking. Local lead generation is a powerful marketing tactic for finding the right customers online.

The more ways there are for visitors to access your website, the better it is for business. You must advertise your goods and services, provide informative material, and draw people in with shareable writing. Links are like the oil that keeps the traffic moving and the engine running.

The necessity of links for the survival of your e-commerce site ought to be clear by this point. 

But what sort of links should you take into account? What steps should you take to acquire them, too?

In most circumstances, you should strive for quality over quantity. Depending on your objectives, you can use a variety of backlink types. Your backlink profile will be made up of these links altogether. You should make sure you’re looking for quality over quantity when it comes to your e-commerce site, even if outsourcing backlinks from online marketplaces like Fiverr might be a highly alluring technique to quickly gain a lot of inexpensive connections.

Check out the graphs below for Mac Cosmetics. As its backlink profile has grown, so has its organic traffic according to Ahrefs.

Mac Cosmetics gets over 1 Million organic visits per month as per Ahrefs.

e-Commerce Link-Building Tactics:

It is well known that creating links for e-commerce websites is challenging. Developing links for an eCommerce site has some special difficulties, whether you’re an SEO building links for a client or a website owner trying to increase the exposure of your site.

Matters such as

• Incredibly competitive niches.
• Increased effect of technological mistakes.
• Suspicion and mistrust brought on by a commercial orientation.
• Lack of links-worthy pages and informative material.

These elements add to the challenge of creating links for these kinds of websites. E-commerce link building is still very much achievable despite all of these problems, but you need to have the appropriate expectations and objectives to be successful.

It will be difficult (unless you’re a well-known, significant company) to build links to your product pages and rank them for the top important terms.

For example, here are the organic results for [facewash]:

A small to medium-sized beauty eCommerce site will have a difficult time competing with Amazon, Flipkart, and Nykaa. However, link building can help smaller e-commerce businesses compete in some niches and SERPs.

Branding and awareness are the key metrics that most eCommerce companies should be attempting to affect with link development. Although link-building might indirectly increase sales (having more visitors can lead to more conversions), eCommerce link-building initiatives shouldn’t be judged by the sales they generate.

Link acquisition efforts should be directed at educational pages that can expose top-funnel visitors to your brand rather than product pages that convert well. You will be effective if you use link building as a branding strategy to expand the audience for your website.

10 Effective Link-Building Tactics for eCommerce Brands:

1) Competitor Backlink Analysis:

Regardless of your business or niche, you need to identify your rivals and determine what they’re up to. Backlinking and SEO are both important. You may carry out in-depth backlink analysis using several tools, like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and others.

Using the right tool, you can examine a competitor’s backlink profile or a specific piece of content on their website. You can determine the websites and pages to which you want to gain links by evaluating the authority of each referring domain.

For instance, if I were to examine Marketing Lad’s backlink profile, I might choose to

• Review a site’s total number of referring domains.
• Look at the website’s most visited pages

I may find suitable keywords to target by looking at the site’s most popular pages. Additionally, it would enable me to comprehend how difficult it is to rank for some of these search terms.

I could thoroughly analyze each of the most popular pages if I were a rival. I might find prospects for a link insert campaign by examining the backlinks to each page. I could email the editor of that website, for instance, and request that they include my tool in the article if the page was getting a link from a roundup piece.

Even bettering your guest posting plan can be achieved by performing competitor backlink analysis. You can compile a list of authoritative websites and offer them guest pieces. In the earlier section, I mentioned this strategy in a very brief manner.

You must stay current on your rivals because SEO is a constant process. The top eCommerce companies frequently monitor the success of their rivals to aid them in adjusting and future-proofing their strategy.

2) Guest Post on Relevant Websites:

If you execute this strategy properly, it has been proven effective. You provide a website with something useful when you create a particularly nice guest article for them. Because of this, the majority of websites that accept guest posts anticipate and are fine with you include one or two pertinent links back to your website in the content you submit (but don’t overdo it; just stay with one or two). This strategy allows you the option to connect with a new audience that might not be familiar with your website or brand yet, which might potentially bring new traffic and followers in addition to earning you links.

You must be strategic and put in some serious effort if you want guest posting to be successful. Find blogs that are pertinent to your company or products and that are targeting the same demographic that you want to connect with. It is not worthwhile to write a guest article for a site that has no connection to your own. Search for blogs with authority and readers as well. It’s also not worth your time to write a guest post for a blog that nobody reads and has no actual SEO authority.

Once you’ve found blogs that would benefit from guest posts, learn about the subjects they cover, the writing style they use, and the audience they attract. Any subject you propose must be interesting to their audience for them to embrace it. Even though it takes a lot of labor, make sure the article you create for them has excellent content. In the worst-case scenario, lazy content won’t be published and you won’t end up getting links. However, even if it is printed, it won’t persuade anyone in their audience to visit your website.

3) Unlinked Brand Mentions:

The discovery of unlinked brand references is another efficient link-building strategy. It occurs when someone talks about your company on their website without including a link to your website. You can use a service like Mention, Ahrefs Alerts, or Google Alerts to find these mentions. You will be notified of these services whenever your brand is mentioned online.

With the help of these tools, you may configure alerts to send you emails whenever a certain term is referenced online. You may keep track of where your company’s name or product is mentioned online by entering it into one of these programs.

Google News and Google Search are two more excellent resources for locating unlinked mentions. Finding these mentions will provide you with some good opportunities for links. People who are already talking about and interested in your items are considerably more likely to link back to you.

Run a brand name search in Ahrefs Content Explorer to uncover potential unlinked references quickly. The results may look like below:

As you search for the precise word specified in the article, be careful to include a brand name variation in ” “. Advanced filters, such as domain filtering by Domain Rating (DR), website traffic, language, etc., can be used to lessen the amount of data cleaning. Don’t forget to jot down a brand’s domain name and use the “Highlight Unlinked” function. You will then see results for all unlinked mentions highlighted. You can later utilize the export option to remove tonnes of superfluous material from your list by exporting only unlinked mentions.

4) Product Reviews from Influencers:

E-commerce companies use paid product evaluations frequently to obtain links to their websites. You might approach influential bloggers and bloggers in your target market and ask them to review your goods. If you give them anything in return, like a free product, they’ll be delighted to share it. Small bloggers are typically eager to do it for free, while a prominent influencer with a large following can require payment. For a backlink from a leader, it is a tiny price to pay, nevertheless.

 Additionally, keep in mind to abide by Google’s guidelines for working with influencers. Make sure, for instance, that sponsored articles and reviews are identified, and that links contain the “no-follow” tag. For e-commerce link-building, you can work with affiliate agreements in addition to collaborating with influencers.

If bloggers disagree with you, they won’t link to you or showcase you. Here are the actions to take if you’ve got that part covered:

• List the different product categories you sell.
• Look up listicles where you aren’t mentioned on Google
• Present your product for comments.

Creating new product category concepts is easy. Examples of smart home products that you might sell include smart TVs, speakers, and thermostats. Find the best product lists that exclude you by searching Google. Avoid stating in the pitch that you will send authors your products in exchange for a link. The exchange of “goods or services for links” is considered by Google to be a link scheme, which could lead to penalties.

Instead, propose sending them a sample in return for their comments. Below is an example outreach email:

Hello, [Name]

Ours wasn’t on your list of the best smart thermostats when I recently came upon it.

I’m curious as to whether this is a result of your preference for our competitors’ goods or the fact that you haven’t yet utilized our thermostat.

If it’s the latter, I’d be glad to send you a sample unit to experiment with.

If you’re interested, please let me know.

Cheers,
Shahid

If the author responds and says they haven’t tested it yet, send them a sample of your product and come back to them in a few weeks. Ask if they’ll think about including you in their roundup if they enjoy the product.If not, take that as enlightening product criticism.

5) Affiliate Partnerships:

A promotion and an affiliate marketing program are similar in that you delegate the selling to others. Affiliate marketing, however, is distinct from promotions and partnerships in that you pay your affiliate sites a percentage of the sales they bring in.

What relevance does this have to link building? Most affiliate marketers use “affiliate links,” which trace visitors from an affiliate site to your site for payment purposes, to advertise your product.

The most notable company to employ affiliate marketing is certainly Amazon. Its affiliate connections can be found on blogs, YouTube videos, and Facebook postings. Since Amazon’s affiliate marketing program is so well-liked, many people successfully make money as affiliates through it.

Publishers appear pleased to write articles about the items of men’s clothing company Raymond, even when the topic is as straightforward as a new product release or a sale. This may be due to the brand’s strong affiliate program.

Since affiliate links are frequently designated “Nofollow,” they may not have a significant impact on your results. However, they will boost your visibility and draw more visitors to your website. In the end, this can lead to more organic backlinks.

6) Create Linkable Assets:

Most websites never link to the pages that sell, which makes link-building for eCommerce one of the hardest hurdles. Therefore, in addition to your product pages, you must provide visitors with a purpose to link to your website whether you are selling eBooks, courses, artwork, or tangible goods like coffee makers.

Due to this, you must produce linkable assets that readers will find interesting and relevant. To do this, merely concentrate on writing material that is not intended to promote your items.

Types of Linkable Assets:

• Tool & Widgets: 

When combined with focused outreach, these are incredibly potent resources that can generate ton of referrals. We obtained links for this Keto calculator by contacting websites that are leading consumers to out-of-date or malfunctioning calculators and advising them to use ours instead. This is a tried-and-true method of generating broken links.

• Comprehensive Guides:

Backlinks can be gained via comprehensive guides on subjects relating to your speciality. This pre-workout supplement guide has improved in the SERPS as a result of the quality links we created for it, and it now receives about 15,000 organic visitors per month.

• Top Lists Award

If you share your list of the top websites and blogs in your niche with the sites you’ve selected, you may get backlinks. For one of our clients, this list of the best blogs for men generated dozens of backlinks. We made it into an award that people were proud to display and link to from their websites by turning it into a badge of honour. It led to numerous strong links coming from bloggers’ homepages.

7) Frequently Asked Questions:

Your eCommerce website’s blog section can help you with link-building. With a FAQ page, though, you can go above and beyond. In essence, these websites act as tools to handle the typical problems encountered by clients in your sector. In contrast to the blogging technique, the method for obtaining links for your FAQ page does not require outreach. Instead, figure out how to get it to rank for a variety of long-tail keywords related to hot themes. When you reach your objective, your page will appear for users who are looking for these terms. Users are likely to share a page on social media or forum websites if they discover pertinent answers to frequently asked issues.

For the television eCommerce website, you might have the following sections for frequently asked questions:

• Mounting

-What televisions are wall-mountable?

-How much weight can a wall mount support in total?

-How is a television mount installed?

-How is a television wall mount put up on drywall?

• Choosing options

-What television has the sharpest images?

-Which television brand should you purchase?

-Which TV model should I purchase?

-Which portable TV should I purchase?

-What type of television is healthier for your eyes?

-Which TV is ideal for gaming?

-How is a television wall mount put up on drywall?

• Audio systems

-What audio equipment do you suggest for television brand X?

-Etc.

8) Digital PR:

Using digital PR to obtain links from highly credible news and magazine websites is a successful method. However, for new and small websites, it is not simple to pull off. You need to provide journalists with compelling tales and products so they will want to write about and link to you.

Journalists frequently use sites like HARO and ResponseSource to contact company owners for advice and inspiration. You can locate questions about your industry and respond to them. You might be highlighted on some of the well-known news and magazine websites with a link to your store if they think your input to be beneficial.

Here are four methods that digital PR can be used by e-commerce firms to increase backlinks.

• Release Novel or Crazy Products
• Volunteering and Giving
• Gimmicks
• Roundups
• HARO
• Discounts

9) Niche Edits:

E-commerce companies can benefit from niche edits. Other names for niche edits include “crafted links” and “contextual backlinks.”They consist of the act of inserting a link utilizing SEO-driven anchors within already published content. Google has already indexed these posts.

There have been niche edits for a while. Due to their strength and ease, their use has recently become more and more common.

By utilizing them, you are also creating a network of connections to increase traffic. PBN systems should not be confused with this approach; they are completely different. It is possible to guarantee the success of links by adding them to other people’s articles. They can choose alternate posts with similar material that are already competent and established.

10) Adopt Video Marketing:

Through walkthroughs, narratives, and in-depth instructional videos, video content helps you bring your brand’s products (and the stories behind them) to life. You can produce a variety of material for your target audience using this media, including humorous stories, slapstick comedy, and instructional how-tos.

This is helpful when trying to create links that interest visitors and increase click-through rates. Google frequently ranks video content highly and may display it in highlighted snippets.

Let’s imagine that you manage an online shop selling handcrafted leather pants for men. Creating entertaining, interesting videos about subjects like “25 Leather Pants Outfit Ideas for Men” is a good method to attract links and gain more viewers.

By posting the video on YouTube, you can also increase your audience. Keep an eye on the Analytics to see who is embedding your YouTube video. This may provide you the chance to contact relevant blogs and ask for a backlink to the original post on your website.

Conclusion

It’s not as tough to launch an online store and an eCommerce company as it is to drive visitors to the website and make sales from it. For any type of website, link development is a critical component of off-page SEO. It is what enables you to gain credibility points for your website and move up the Google, Bing, and other search engine result pages. We discussed the most successful and tested eCommerce link-building techniques in this article. You will have high-quality backlinks to your website quickly if you do it correctly.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is E-Commerce SEO?

eCommerce SEO increases the visibility of your online store in search engine results pages (SERPs). You want to show up as high up the search results as you can for the products you sell to attract as many visitors to your website. 

Is SEO worth it for E-Commerce?

SEO does more than only improve the visibility of your eCommerce website. Additionally, it increases traffic to your page while creating new social media profiles for your company. SEO and social media work well together.

What link-building tactic works best for e-commerce websites?

We have given the top ten link-building strategies for E-Commerce sites in this article and you can go through them to see which one suits your E-Commerce Brand.

P.S. Read our SEO Question and Answer Blog here!