Building links to your categories or products isn’t easy as there aren’t many opportunities or ways to do this. But thankfully, there are some eCommerce link building strategies you can use. From pitching product reviews to creating shareable content, there are several ways to promote your content. With the best link building strategies, you can attract more traffic and get more shoppers to your site.
But what is eCommerce link building?
eCommerce link building involves getting other websites to link to your e-commerce site. The main aim is to boost your store’s ranking in search engine results. And guess what? According to search logistics, 92% of marketers believe that in the next few years, links will be the main ranking factor in Google’s algorithm.
By having other websites link back to your site, search engines will see the high quality sites you’ve linked back to and presume it is trustworthy. This can ultimately lead to;
- Better search performance
- Enhanced credibility.
- Increase eCommerce ROI
In this post, you’ll learn how to build links to your eCommerce product pages, homepage, and other content on your site. Here are five reliable tactics for building eCommerce links to your homepage, product pages, and other content on your website:
Curated Statistics Pages For eCommerce Link Building
Statistics are normally used to show facts about a particular thing. Since they are accurate and factual, publishing them can help you attract backlinks.
You can create curated statistics related to eCommerce link building in categories like:
- Current trends in the industry
- Online or mobile shopping
- eCommerce market size
To succeed, you need to know what kind of statistics people are looking for. You can easily do this by entering the keywords related to your product or business. Next, you need to collect relevant statistics from credible sources relevant to your industry (eCommerce) and organize them in a way that’s easy to navigate and visually appealing.
Finally, you can promote it by sharing it in newsletters, on social media and in relevant forums. You can also contact other relevant websites and ask them to link to your statistical page.
Working With Influencers in Link Building For eCommerce
Working with influencers can help with link building for eCommerce websites. Influencers and other marketing models can help you maximize the use of social media platforms and website content to attract more traffic. Since influencers boast high ROI, strategic targeting, and engagement rates, they can help you target specific customers.
Research has shown that approximately 49% of consumers usually make purchases based on an influencer’s recommendations. Besides helping you achieve your goals, influencers can boost your credibility through sponsored promotions. As one of the most effective link building for eCommerce sites, you can use them to target any group of customers.
You can,
- Offer influencers free products in exchange for product mentions, reviews, and dedicated posts.
- Sponsor their content through paid partnerships.
- Ask them for backlinks to help you with link building.
By building solid relationships with influencers, you’ll improve your engagement and collaborate and work with them in the long run.
With several influencers on platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, you are spoilt for choice. To succeed with this strategy, you’ll want to pick the right influencers, reach out to them for backlinks, and follow up with them. This way, you deliver transformative eCommerce SEO results with commitment and a reliable plan over time.
Guest Posting Link Building for eCommerce Websites
Guest posting is also one of the most effective link building for eCommerce websites. The approach involves writing and publishing content such as blog posts on reputable third-party sites within the eCommerce niche. By publishing guest posts, you’ll gain a lot of contextual backlinks from reputable sites that are related to your eCommerce site. Below is a guide on how to get started with guest posting:
Start by identifying magazines, blogs, magazines, and sites that accept guest posts from sites such as yours. For example, if your eCommerce brand is running clothes, you need to look for a website that deals with similar products. You can then pitch them a guest post idea that provides original information to their target audience. Once your idea is accepted, you can write an in-depth guest blog that shows your authority and expertise.
Next, you’ll want to choose the best way to get your product out there and link your target page to the content. You also need to engage your readers by replying to their comments. If you do this consistently, you’ll easily earn high-quality backlinks. You can also choose to update content that already has backlinks, meaning you end up with a stronger backlink to your site.
Unlike regular guest posts, updating existing posts is more effective as it allows you to work with a post with backlinks. You can sometimes use them to build links directly to product pages, but they’re most useful for getting links to blog posts and other informational content. Once you have an idea about a guest post, use a free headline analyzer to test variations. You can then add or remove some words to get the best headline.
One thing to note, though, is to ensure your bio has ecommerce backlinks back to your website, ecommerce store, or any relevant product or category pages. Make sure you stick to high-quality sites if you want to build long-term relationships and maximize SEO gains. High-quality backlinks are also important because Google focuses on deciding which pages to rank at the top of SERPs so users can access valuable content.
Product Reviews As One of The Most Effective eCommerce Link Building Tactics
Product review is also one of the most effective eCommerce link building tactics for eCommerce brands. Here, you can reach out to a review website that matches your eCommerce offerings and have your product or service featured. A simple Google search will give you tons of these websites, but always go for the reputable sites.
With in-depth product reviews, you can quickly get valuable links from review sites and high-authority affiliates. According to a study by Bright Local, 68% of customers tend to purchase a product with positive reviews. So, it’s a plus if you get a positive but honest review from your affiliate.
Let’s say you are selling swimming costumes.
- Search reputable websites that review products in your e-commerce niche.
- Ask them respectfully to review your products by sending them free samples.
- Encourage satisfied customers to review your products on forums, retailer sites, affiliate blogs, and other social channels.
- To build trust and credibility, make sure you respond to all reviews, positive or negative.
Finally, you can link internally to positive reviews about your product to boost conversions. Overall, product reviews are one of the best strategies for building links for e-commerce websites. By getting genuine reviews from customers, you can improve the site’s credibility, improve your search engine visibility, and get better traffic. This is also ideal if you want to improve your social media campaign.
Use Unlinked Mentions in Link Building for eCommerce Sites
Unlinked mentions refer to online mentions of products and services that don’t link back to your site. For example, if you are dealing with Airpods or iPhones, wherever these products are mentioned online without a corresponding link to your site, you can monitor these mentions and then request the website owner for a link addition.
While this is a straightforward strategy, if you are committed, you’ll end up with thousands of unlinked mentions. Since that’s a lot of prospects, you’ll want to filter them by removing the low-value opportunities. You can then filter them to search for opportunities that make sense so you can provide value.
To work with this strategy, you need to find all your unlinked mentions of your brand. While this can be time-consuming, you can easily find them via Explorer. Here are a few steps to follow;
- Search for your product name in quotes and click highlight unlinked.
- Enter your domain and look for one page domain.
- Finally click “Export” and then move to “Only pages with highlighted domains.”
You can also use tools such as Ahrefs or SEMrush to find unlinked mentions and enhance your link building for eCommerce sites. For example, you can set up alerts on Ahrefs to monitor mentions of your product, brand, or other relevant keywords. This way, you’ll be notified whenever your product or brand is mentioned online.
Broken Link Building For eCommerce Backlinks
Broken link building is a strategy that involves searching for broken links or pages on other websites and contacting the website owners to suggest your content as a replacement for broken links. Here are the key steps to follow;
Search for the broken link: You can use tools such as Broken Link Checker or Ahrefs to find broken links relevant to your niche.
Create content: Create high-quality content that can replace the broken link. You can make your content unique by including videos or infographics and making it relevant to the page you are targeting.
Reach out to website owners: Reach out to website owners and suggest that your content can replace the broken link since it’s relevant.
Broken link building can help you get high-quality and relevant backlinks, thus making it an effective way to drive traffic and improve your website’s SEO. Always remember to create high-quality and relevant content and be patient, as the process might take time.
High-Quality Content Tailored with Specific Keywords
Creating engaging and high-quality content is also one of the best ways to build eCommerce backlinks. By including a blog in your online store, you can write articles focusing on search terms relevant to your products or services. Ensure your content is unique, informative, and relevant to your target audience and website. This can include:
- How-to guides
- Product reviews
- Industry news articles.
You can use various formats like infographics, videos, and images to make your content more appealing. In addition, make sure your article includes relevant keywords, is easy to read, and is well structured with proper headings. Finally, you can promote your article on various social media platforms and other relevant websites to expose your business and improve the chances of being shared.
For instance, if you sell running gear, you might create a high quality content titled, “ The Best Running Gear for Beginners” featuring several running clothes. With this strategy, you can attract potential customers and acquire valuable backlinks. Consider the scenario where beginner runners search for their first running gear and stumble upon your blog. They may click on a product page to access the gear you’ve highlighted . Other websites offering running lessons may find your blog post valuable and choose to link to it in their content. This process contributes to acquiring e-commerce backlinks, enhancing your website’s authority and visibility over time.
To identify relevant keywords to target in your blog posts, utilize tools like Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool. By entering a broad term related to your e-commerce website, known as your “seed keyword,” and exploring the generated keyword suggestions, you can identify topics with potential for driving organic traffic and acquiring valuable backlinks.
Plan an Innovative PR Campaign for eCommerce Link Building
As one of the most used online tactics, planning a PR campaign can boost your brand’s reputation and increase its visibility. Like traditional PR, an innovative PR approach can yield a plethora of backlinks, traffic, and sales when executed creatively. Let’s look at one example where this strategy proved to be a success:
Missguided, a fashion brand, initially struggled to rank. However, it was propelled to the top spot on Google when Rise at Seven PR discovered similar women jumpers on the website. By using this insight, they organized an exclusive story with TYLA. The campaign apparently garnered 30k engagements on social media in just an hour after launch.
This success led to the development of a new optimized category page and product line. This campaign was also supplemented with blog content and strategic internal linking, further boosting the impact. This led to thousands of social media links, averagely 60 backlinks, thousands of social media links and additional revenues.
You can as well establish your own PR campaign like the above. To follow this strategy successfully, ask questions such as:
- Who is the audience the campaign targets?
- Which resources were used to make the process effective?
- What elements contributed to the campaign’s success?
- Which channels were used to promote the campaigns?
NB: Authenticity matters if you want to attain success with the PR campaign. So, ensure that your content is newsworthy since this is what will keep the readers interested.
Request Partnerships for Website Backlinks
Whether you are selling or reselling products online, you can contact suppliers and distributors who compile lists of where their products are available for purchase and request the inclusion of your products.
The first step is to search for websites relevant to your eCommerce site’s niche and reach out to them with a personalized message. You can then offer them something valuable, such as collaboration on a piece of content or a guest post. Once you’ve established a partnership, you can always work together, ultimately helping both websites gain more visibility.
Let assume a hypothetical scenario where you sell Greenies pet food and you aim to be listed among vendors like Amazon, Target, and Walmart. If you already have relationships with distributors or stockists, you’ve laid the groundwork for this step.
You can then review your list of partners and request that they link your website. You can also expand your outreach to online business directories such as Shopgram (for Shopify), CartInsight (for WooCommerce), and Store Leads (for Wix). By doing a simple Google search for industry-specific directories, such as “pet food + online directories,” you’ll get numerous options.
Final Thoughts
While implementing eCommerce link building strategies takes time and effort, if you are dedicated enough, you’ll realize tangible results within no time. First, you must set goals and balance link maintenance and new link acquisition. Next, it’s essential to track the metrics and how they affect your profile link-building strategies.
Finally, you can focus on content assets such as guest posts, videos, and infographics to support your outreach. By focusing on outreach and pitches based on priorities, you’ll establish long-term partnerships and consistently add value to your website. Plus, do not forget to integrate link-building strategies, such as influencer collaborations.
