What Are the Most Effective Link Building Tactics For Ecommerce Brands?

Link building for ecommerce is notoriously tricky. You’re up against increased competition and cautious prospects, and with a comparative lack of link-worthy web pages on your side, it can seem a gargantuan task.

But difficult doesn’t mean impossible.

We’ve talked in the past about the power of guest posting as a link building tactic (it’s one of the things we’re best at).

But in this piece, we look at tactics beyond guest posting that you can use to effectively build links for your ecommerce brand.

1. Offer a useful and relevant tool for free

Linking back to product pages is hard. Get it wrong, and it looks spammy and unnatural.

While it is possible to build links to product pages with care and precision (as outlined here in one of our previous blogs), it’s far easier to encourage people to link to your ecommerce site by offering something free, shareable, and value-adding instead.

Take MAC Cosmetics, for instance.

The beauty brand offers a free Virtual Try On tool, which lets customers virtually ‘try on’ different shades of lipstick or eyeshadow with augmented reality. Simply choose a product, upload a selfie or use your camera, and find the colour or shade that suits you.

Image MAC Cosmetics

It’s free, so there’s a low risk of it being deemed spammy, and it offers genuine (and relevant) value to its prospective audience. As a result, host sites will be far more willing to link out to it.

It’s far easier to build links to a genuinely useful tool that doesn’t ask for payment to use, and there is less chance your link will be penalised too.

Beyond that, it also makes your brand more shareable. The Virtual Try On tool is hyper-relevant to MAC Cosmetic’s target audience, and individuals are more likely to share it with their friends who are also interested in beauty and cosmetics.

If you’re looking to build links to your ecommerce brand through the creation of a free tool, it needs to add real value to your prospective customers’ lives in a way that is relevant to your niche.

2. Embrace the hub and spoke model

Some product pages are nigh-on impossible to build links to. As well as being commercially-driven, some prospects might be reluctant to give you a link back to them on their site.

Pharmaceutical products, for instance, are often seen as spammy, and you’ll struggle to find a site that is willing to link to them.

Enter the hub and spoke model.

This involves creating a single ‘hub’ page (i.e. your product page), and then creating a number of supporting ‘spoke’ pages that link back to it—and it’s these pages that you build links to.

There are myriad benefits to the hub and spoke model, but first and foremost is that it lets you pass link juice to a product page without linking to it directly.

Say, for instance, you wanted to help an acne gel product page appear in relevant search queries.

Before you build any links, you would first create a number of pages that provide relevant and useful information around that product: how to use the gel, potential side effects, how long it takes to see results, and so on.

You could then build value-led links to the spoke pages, increasing their SEO value and passing their link equity onto the hub page.

Use keyword research to inform your hub and spoke content creation, and ensure each spoke page links back to your hub page and effectively passes link equity.

3. Build a thriving customer community

The benefits of a community for your ecommerce brand are numerous: it improves site traffic, strengthens your branding, fosters customer loyalty, provides easy market research opportunities, bolsters social proof, and more.

But beyond all this, building a community also helps your SEO too.

As well as encouraging repeat traffic and social proof across the web, a thriving customer community also fosters natural backlinks to your site.

These typically appear in forums, as well as on your customers’ own blogs, where applicable. They look and feel natural, and have a genuine customer-led quality that sets them apart from other, more forced, corporate backlinks.

There are myriad ways to build a customer community that willingly links back to your brand

User-generated content (UGC) is obviously a strong means of achieving this. Encourage customers to share photos, videos, and experiences of them using your product and cascade them across social.

Even a simple reply and a retweet is enough to strengthen your customer relationships and build a sense of personal community between you and your audience.

Good customer service also plays a role in building community. 42% of customers say they are put off a brand by poor customer service. Quick, efficient, and helpful resolution of complaints and queries is a simple thing, but it goes a long way towards making happy customers and a happy customer community.

But perhaps the best way to nurture a loyal customer community is to offer useful, relevant value.

The aforementioned tool idea is a good place to start. But this should also be bolstered with resource hubs for content that addresses your audience’s pain points.

These should be informed by keyword research, naturally, but also by your interactions with your customers. What are they asking but not searching?

Social media is a veritable treasure trove when it comes to this. Use your social media tool of choice (Keyhole and Sprout Social, for instance) to trawl your product keywords and see what kind of conversations people are having about your product.

They don’t necessarily need to be your customers either. Check out what your competitors’ customers are saying too, and then create content that addresses those queries too.

4. Create unique and different products

One creative, daring approach to ecommerce link building is through the creation and aggressive promotion of unique and interesting products—to the extreme.

This is best illustrated with an example.

As documented by the @asbos_sos Instagram account, the fashion retailer ASOS is renowned for its wild and outlandish products (face jewellery, anyone?)

Image Instagram

While you can actually buy these products yourself, that’s not the point.

The point is that they generate buzz around the ASOS brand, encouraging natural backlinks from mainstream and industry publishers with a highly unusual (but newsworthy) product.

It’s comparable to the dead cat strategy of politics, wherein someone introduces a shocking or sensational story to distract from a negative one, except the goal of this is to win links rather than to deflect bad PR.

It’s a strategy employed by a number of brands, and one yours could benefit from too.

Find a unique, unusual angle that is likely to generate attention around your brand. As with your tool, it should be tailored to your product offering, but with a fresh slant to it, something that is likely to generate shock or amusement while being careful not to provoke outrage or offence.

While finding a fresh angle like this is important, it’s the marketing of this product that really counts. You want people to see it, and a paid campaign on Instagram, for instance, helps get it in front of the people who are going to talk about it—and link to it.

Unusual products also make for great PR fodder too. Reach out to journo contacts and pitch your product to them—some will relish the chance to jump on a click-worthy story like this.

These are just four ways you can effectively build links to your ecommerce site. While it might be challenging, with a little creativity and effort, you can build a backlink profile that works for your online retail brand.

5. Start broken link building

Image: Dall E

The premise is simple but powerful with this one: identify broken links on other websites, reach out to the site owners, and suggest your own content as a replacement. Your site gains valuable dofollow links, and their site benefits from an enhanced user experience. It’s what you might call a win-win SEO-nario. Ahem.

There’s one minor snag though —  finding broken links manually takes time. So long, in fact, that we’d actually discourage the practice altogether unless you’ve got the tools to get the job done. 

Fortunately, if you’re already immersed in the world of SEO, you’re very likely to possess some of these tools already; Ahrefs or Screaming Frog are two of the most popular choices, but you could also use SEMrush, Moz, or a slew of alternatives. In any case, automating the process of uncovering a site’s broken links will make things far more feasible. 

Once you’ve discovered a suitable broken link to your niche, it’s time to craft a friendly persuasive outreach email. As crucial as this step may be, there’s no need to overthink it, simply point out the broken link, explain why your content would make a suitable replacement, and do so in a polite, professional tone. 

Pro tip: Your broken link building endeavors should focus on sites directly related to your niche. Chasing links from irrelevant sites won’t just decrease your chances of gaining a positive response (or any response at all), but any links you do win won’t move the needle very far from an SEO perspective. Repeat this important SEO mantra: quality and relevance over quantity. 

6. Reach out to resource pages in your industry

Image: Dall E

While we’re on the topic of relevance, let’s talk about resource pages. More commonly referred to as “roundup pages” or “best of lists”, these consumer-friendly listicles ostensibly exist to advise confused shoppers. As you might expect, this makes them prime targets for savvy link builders, because a backlink here means a shot of link juice and an increase in high-converting traffic.

Your first step is to identify relevant websites that host resource pages. Thankfully, doing this is remarkably simple, just head to Google and use search queries like

“best [product] 2024” 

“Ultimate list [topic]”

“[topic] roundup”

“Top 10 [product type]”

Once you’ve found a few suitable pages, grab the contact details via the site’s ‘contact’ or ‘about’ page. If you’re still coming up blank, a tool like Hunter.io can come in handy, but we’d recommend trawling through LinkedIn first, as this will usually produce the details you’re seeking. 

From here, it’s just a case of reaching out and requesting that your product gets a mention. If you’re really keen to sweeten the deal, you could even offer a free review sample, though this will usually only be necessary if you’re targeting the big, glitzy publications. 

7. Help a reporter out!

Image: Dall E

If you haven’t heard of it, HARO* (Help A Reporter Out) is a super handy service that connects journalists and bloggers with expert sources, ie: you. It’s an awesome way to win high-quality links from high authority, reputable news sites. 

Here’s how it works: You sign up to HARO and begin receiving daily emails from journos seeking expert insights for their stories. The minute you see a query that matches your expertise, you need to respond with a print-ready quote, and trust us, you’ve got to be fast. Businesses of all shapes and sizes are well aware of the value these opportunities hold. A mention in The Daily Mail or MSN is gold dust for your site\’s search engine optimisation. 

And here’s the cool part—these links can lead to more links. Once you’re quoted in an article, other reporters and bloggers might pick it up and reference you, creating a ripple effect that amplifies your backlink profile. This means more organic traffic and better visibility for your site.

Building links via HARO is all about speed, so our pro tip here is to build a quote bank. Fill it with quotes on all of the hot topics relevant to your niche. If you run a furniture store for example, your quote bank might look like this:

• Sustainable furniture trends: “Eco-friendly furniture isn’t just a trend; it’s a shift towards a more sustainable lifestyle. Consumers are increasingly looking for pieces made from reclaimed or responsibly sourced materials.”
• Interior design tips: “A well-designed living room balances functionality and style. Start with a neutral palette and add pops of color with accessories to create a versatile and inviting space.”
• Furniture care and maintenance: “Regularly dusting and polishing your wooden furniture not only keeps it looking great but also extends its lifespan. Use products that are specifically designed for wood to avoid damage.”
• Seasonal decor ideas: “Transitioning your decor with the seasons can refresh your home’s look. For autumn, consider adding warm tones like burnt orange and deep red through throws and cushions.”
• Space-saving solutions: “Multi-functional furniture, like sofa beds and storage ottomans, is perfect for maximising space in smaller homes. They offer practicality without sacrificing style.”

Obviously, your quotes should be a little longer and attuned to your brand’s unique tone of voice, but you get the idea!

*HARO recently rebranded to Connectively, but most of the digital marketing community has, for whatever reason, agreed to ignore this name change. 

Link building strategies to avoid

We’ve talked plenty about the link building tactics we would use, but what about those we avoid like the plague? Here’s a quick rundown:

• Buying links: Purchasing links can lead to penalties from search engines. It’s against Google\’s guidelines and often results in low-quality, spammy backlinks.
• Link farms: Participating in networks where sites exist solely to link to each other. These are easily spotted and penalised by search engines, as they provide no real value.
• Automated link building tools: Using software to generate links en masse. These links are often low quality and irrelevant, and can be detected and devalued by search engines.
• Comment spamming: With the growing trend of ‘forum hacking’ tactics, leaving links on public forums might seem worthwhile, but aside from the fact that these links are usually nofollow (meaning no link juice for your site), it’s also rather poor form. Nobody likes spam, so if you must promote your products on sites like Reddit or Quora, frame it as a genuine recommendation, and qualify your input with evidence to back your claims. 
• Private blog networks (PBNs): Creating a network of websites to interlink and boost SEO. Search engines are adept at detecting these schemes and can severely penalise all sites involved.
• Guest posting on low-quality sites: guest blogging on sites with poor content quality or those unrelated to your niche just to get a backlink. A quick cheap win from a simple blog post might seem tempting, but it’s really not worth it, as you’re risking your site’s reputation. 
• Exact match anchor text overuse: Over-optimising anchor text with exact match keywords can look unnatural and manipulative, leading to penalties.
• Duplicate content: Republishing the same content across multiple sites to build links. This can be seen as spammy and lead to penalties for duplicate content.

FAQ

What is link building for ecommerce?

You can think of link building as the equivalent of networking for your website — just like in real life, the more connections you have, the more opportunities will come your way.

The more websites that link back to yours, the higher your site will appear in the search engine results pages. Of course, this is a vast simplification of the ins and outs of link building, but essentially, you can think of links as votes of confidence, where other websites are signaling to search engines that your site is both trustworthy and authoritative. 

Why is link building the best SEO strategy for ecommerce businesses?

It’s better to think of link building as a component of your SEO strategy. SERP supremacy is built through a holistic approach, and with search algorithms getting smarter by the month, it’s no longer enough to simply focus on building thousands of links to your store. Yes, link building is a powerful way to gain the upper hand against your competitors, but it shouldn’t be the only weapon in your arsenal. 

What kind of ecommerce backlinks should you aim to build?

Just like you wouldn\’t trust a recommendation from a dubious source, search engines value links from credible, relevant websites. Aim to get backlinks from industry-related blogs, authoritative news sites, and respected review platforms.

Think of it as cultivating endorsements from the who\’s who of your niche. High-quality backlinks from these sources are like gold stars that tell search engines your site is a reliable and significant player in your field. Diversify your approach: guest posts, product reviews, partnerships, and even local business directories can all contribute to a robust backlink profile that boosts your ecommerce success. Struggling to win the links your store deserves? Contact our team — we’re experts at crafting tailored link-building strategies, and we’ll be more than happy to talk you through our process step by step. 

Link building is something Seeker does best. If you want to get your products to soar in the SERPs and be seen by the right people, we can help—get in touch today.

Originally crafted by Elliot Taylor, this blog has been collaboratively updated by Alex Daintith to ensure its ongoing relevance and accuracy.