With online shopping surpassing 4.2 trillion U.S dollars worldwide, competition in the eCommerce space is expected to grow even more.
Maintaining a competitive edge within your niche requires having a solid backlink profile.
Here are some advanced eCommerce link building methods that go beyond the obvious strategies.
Link Building For eCommerce Stores
Using link building strategies like guest posting, niche edits and broken link building for your eCommerce site is fine, but not rocket science.
In this guide I want to share 7 advanced strategies that we use at Contentellect to really dial-up an eCommerce website's backlink profile.
7 Advanced eCommerce Link Building Methods To Succeed (With Examples!)
Here are our 7 advanced eCommerce link building methods.
1: Best Of Inclusions
Find “Best of” roundups and get your product or service included.
For example, suppose you sell a funky yoga mat in your eCommerce store. In that case, best-of roundups on the “The Best Yoga Mats”, is an excellent way to get quality backlinks to your site.
How To Do It:
Find Your Target
First, you need to find appropriate targets for this link-building tactic to work. Go to your favourite search engine, such as Google, and search for the following:
- Best of [your product or service]
You can also use an SEO tool such as Ahrefs to find all the ranking results for "Best Yoga Mats"
Ideally, you want to identify targets with good domain authority and plenty of steady organic traffic. Bonus points if the target website fits or complements your niche.
Convince Them
Site owners and managers rarely go back to published content to change it. It’s a lot of work.
You must convince them that including your product in their published list will be worth their time and effort.
Here’s where it pays to be generous.
In your pitch, offer them a free sample. Let the site owners or managers know you’re willing to pay for the inclusion. Or that you can offer attractive affiliate commissions if they promote your product above others.
Here’s an example of an email we send to build links on "Best Of" pages. In this case it's for our blog writing service, but you can easily see how this applies to an eCommerce product.
Follow Up
Remember to follow up if the target didn’t respond to your first pitch. We’ve found that our second email is often the one that gets the most replies.
When you follow up, be gentle and don’t push or come across as a spammer. Remember, the target is doing you a favour.
Best Of Inclusion Checklist:
Use this checklist to ensure you correctly follow our eCommerce backlinking tactic:
- Does the target have a high domain authority or ranking?
- Does the target page have steady, high volume traffic?
- Does the target site complement or suit your niche, i.e., is it relevant?
- Did you write a short, to-the-point pitch?
- Did you include an incentive in your email?
- Did you follow up a couple of days later?
2: Reviews
Approach influencers and bloggers to review your product or service.
Influencers, bloggers, and complementary websites all have the potential to review your product or service. When they review your product, they can link back to your site, scoring you a juicy backlink. This tactic is often called blogger outreach.
For example, suppose you have the latest, best hiking poles. Find a website about hiking, and ask them to review your hiking poles.
How To Do It:
Find Your Target
Identify sites or influencers within your niche. Preferably it needs to be a site that your target audience frequents too.
You can use the same method as we did in the Best Of inclusions to find target. Affiliate marketers are the best targets. Scrape a list of target sites from the Google SERP using a relevant keyword, like "best hiking poles", or "hiking pole reviews". Or use Ahrefs to find the ranking results.
Do some due diligence and run the sites through Ahrefs to ensure they are good targets.
Remember, your target needs to be:
- Relevant: If you sell hiking poles, you don’t want to sell them on a mommy blogger’s homemade pastries site.
- Steady traffic: Any sudden drops or increases in traffic could indicate that the site isn’t healthy. Regular, high-volume traffic is best.
- Quality: When the site’s content is well-curated and organized, it usually means a quality site.
Write Your Pitch
You need to pitch your product or service to the target. You can easily find contact details if your target is a quality site. Send the target a short, to-the-point email.
Incentivize by offering them any or all of the following:
- Free products
- Money
- Discounts
- Affiliate commissions
Always Follow Up
If the target didn’t reply to your first email, don’t despair. Send the influencer a follow-up email a couple of days later.
You want the target to review your product and create that juicy link as fast as possible.
Review Checklist:
- Does the target have a high domain authority or ranking?
- Does the target page have steady, high volume traffic?
- Does the target site complement or suit your niche, i.e., is it relevant?
- Did you write a short, to-the-point pitch?
- Did you include an incentive in your email?
- Did you follow up a couple of days later?
3: Network with manufacturers, customers and service providers
Establish meaningful relationships and request links back to your site.
Do you work with other service providers? What about clients or even manufacturers?
Try getting backlinks from your network as part of your eCommerce link-building strategy.
For example, suppose you sell other manufacturer's products on your eCommerce store. Contact the manufacturer to show them you're doing a great job selling their product and ask them to link to your site. This is a win-win for both parties.
How To Do It:
No company is an island. We all interact, often daily, with people outside of our business. When you’ve formed a solid relationship with another website owner, ask them to link back to your website.
These links can often take the form of:
- A link on their website under the Our Partners or Our Retailers section.
- If you’re a client, let the service provider know you’re happy to be included in their list of clients.
- If you sell a product, let the manufacturer know. They may link to your site, informing visitors where to get the product.
While this is an unorthodox link-building tactic, it’s incredibly successful because of the relationships you’ve built with the people in your network. Since you’re all somehow related, their sites are most likely relevant to yours.
Networking Checklist:
- Do you have a meaningful relationship with the target?
- Would it make sense to have a link back from their site?
- Did you request a link back in a short email?
- Did you remember to follow up?
4: Get Links From Kickstarter
Find a Kickstarter campaign and get a link back from it.
Kickstarter is a high authority, high-volume traffic site. Getting a link from Kickstarter to your website is an excellent way to build your authority and rank higher.
Pro Tip: This tactic works well for any other crowdfunding site. Use this tactic to score quality, relevant links from various sites.
How To Do It:
Find The Perfect Campaign
Find a campaign that’s relevant to your business. For instance, if you sell the latest camping tent, find a Kickstarter campaign within the camping niche.
The more relevant and the more complementary the campaign is, the better!
Offer A Pitch They Can’t Refuse
Once you’ve found the right campaign, it’s time to send them your pitch.
Your pitch must offer them value. Think of what you can offer the target, for instance:
- an authoritative review on your site
- a testimonial on their Kickstarter page
- a mention to your social media network
- a mention in your newsletter
Always Follow Up
Once you’ve sent your pitch, wait a couple of days and follow up. Don’t let up, but always be gentle, to the point, and insistent.
Kickstarter Checklist:
- Is the campaign relevant to your business?
- Can you offer them value in exchange for a link back?
- Did you send a short, polite pitch?
- Did you remember to follow up?
5: Use HARO
Use HARO (Help A Reporter Out) to get links from high authority sites.
HARO is a resource that connects PR managers, business owners, and journalists. Often journalists will ask for personal insight, and in exchange, they’ll link back to your site.
It’s an excellent opportunity to score high-quality links from sites such as Forbes, Huff Post, Healthline, Business Insider, and Associated Press.
How To Do It:
Sign Up
On the HARO site, sign up for free as a source. You’ll receive 3 emails daily with various requests from journalists. You must review the requests and identify those from high authority publications that you can pitch to.
Pitch Every Day
Once you’ve identified a relevant request, it’s time to pitch! Remember that HARO reporters receive hundreds of pitches daily. Use these tips to make yours stand out from the competition:
- Personalize your reply: Use the journalist’s name.
- Don’t waste time: Your response should be short and to the point.
- Give insight: Provide the journalist with personal insight and anecdotes.
- Be thankful: At the end of your email, thank the journalist for taking the time to read your pitch.
- Build relationships: Continue to reply to requests and steadily build relationships with the journalists.
Rinse And Repeat
HARO, like most link-building tactics, is a long-term game. You must rinse and repeat the process over and over to succeed.
One pitch is not enough to guarantee success.
Pro Tip: Don’t have enough time to do HARO yourself? Use our HARO link-building services to help gain quality backlinks.
HARO Checklist:
- Did you sign up as a source?
- Did you reply to relevant requests in every daily HARO email?
- Are you familiar with our HARO guide?
6: Create Better Assets
Create excellent, linkable assets and let people know about them.
You must aim to create excellent content, such as infographics, research papers, or ultimate guides.
For example, suppose you’re selling the next-best coffee beans from Ecuador. In that case, you can create an infographic about Ecuador's coffee industry relative to other major coffee-producing markets.
Perform outreach and get people to link to your content. You can pass the link juice on to higher converting pages from these pages.
How To Do It
Learn From The Competition
Identify your top competition. Now search for your competitors in Ahrefs. Under the “Top Pages By Links” section, you’ll see which pages have the most referrals.
Are these pages guides or infographics? Are they videos or step-by-step instructions?
Use this info to create a list of content you’ll need to develop and improve. You must create a guide if most of the content is how-to guides. If the majority are infographics, you need to include infographics.
It’s best to follow the crowd.
Be Better
Now that you have a list of content to create, it’s time to outperform the competition. You can make better content by:
- Going into more depth
- Add more relevant media, such as charts, or infographics
- Introduce new research or statistics
Tell People About Your Content
Finally, you need to contact the people who link to your competitor’s content. Use Ahrefs to find these people and send them an email.
Let them know that you’ve got expanded, more detailed research than what they’re currently linking to.
Tell them why your content is better and how it’ll benefit their readers.
Better Assets Checklist:
- Do you know who your competition is?
- Did you identify the assets that people link to?
- Did you create better, improved content?
- Did you tell people about your content in a brief email?
7: Leverage Social Media
Create videos on social media to score more links for your eCommerce site.
Video content can bring your products to life in an engaging, exciting way. For instance, if you’re selling a new line of oil paints, create videos showing people how vibrant your colours are.
Take it one step further and create life hacks with your products. When your content is fun and exciting, people will share it on social media.
How To Do It
Create Different Types of Videos
Depending on your niche, you can create different types of video content. From informative how-to guides to walk-throughs and narrative videos, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to make your product or service shine.
Share Them
Share your videos on social media like Facebook, TikTok, or Twitch. While these links may not have high authority, they can quickly help generate organic traffic that boosts your site’s ranking.
You’ll also have a diverse source of traffic, something that search engines love.
Partner Up
Finally, identify bloggers and influencers within your industry. Approach them and let them know you’ve got these high-quality videos. Offer them some incentive for sharing your videos.
If you’re sharing your videos on YouTube, you can see whether people have embedded them on their sites. If they did, reach out and offer them an irresistible deal to link back to your online store.
Social Media Checklist
- Is your content fun, informative, and original?
- Did you make it easy to share your videos?
- Are your videos available on various social media platforms?
- Did you share your content with influencers and industry leaders?
- Did you offer them an irresistible deal for sharing your videos with their audience?
How To Build Quality Backlinks For eCommerce
eCommerce link building doesn't need to be complicated.
While there are many more link-building tactics for online store owners, our list has focused on 7 opportunities that eCommerce store owners often forget.
You only need time, creativity, and determination to succeed. If you feel you’re running short, consider using our link-building services. Or check out these good link building companies.