Link Building for Small Ecommerce Sites: A Comprehensive Guide

Link building is a crucial aspect of digital marketing, and for small ecommerce sites, it can be a game-changer. A well-executed link building strategy can increase your online visibility, drive more traffic to your site, and ultimately boost sales.

High-quality backlinks from authoritative sources can significantly improve your website's credibility and trustworthiness. According to a study, a website with 100 high-quality backlinks can experience a 25% increase in search engine rankings.

To start building links, focus on creating valuable and informative content that resonates with your target audience. This could be in the form of blog posts, product reviews, or even videos. By doing so, you'll increase the chances of other websites linking back to your content.

A good starting point is to identify your niche and target keywords. This will help you create content that's relevant and appealing to your audience. For example, if you're an online fashion store, focus on creating content around the latest fashion trends.

Link building is a process of getting high-quality backlinks from reputable websites to drive organic traffic to your small ecommerce site. High-quality backlinks from reputable sites boost your rankings, making it easier for shoppers to find your products.

Link building is not just about getting any links, but about getting links from well-known websites that will enhance your site's credibility. When well-known websites link to your store, it builds trust with potential customers, leading to higher conversion rates.

Securing valuable backlinks improves your search engine rankings and gives your store an edge over competitors who may not be as proactive in their SEO efforts. This is especially important for small ecommerce sites that need to compete with larger businesses.

To start a successful link building campaign for your small ecommerce site, you need to do your research. Understanding your audience is key, and link building helps you know which types of pages they're searching for and where they hang out online.

You have to consider different types of audiences require different kinds of link building. For example, hobbyists can have their own site and forum, while some niches can have a whole platform to socialize.

Researching your audience will bring you not only knowledge but also the opportunity to connect with them in a more personalized way, leading to more organic traffic and potential future link requests.

To identify effective keywords, start by researching product, category, and brand keywords that customers search for in your niche. Analyze competitor websites to find keywords they rank for and aim to target similar terms for your link building and content creation.

Here are some key steps to keep in mind:

Researching your audience is crucial when it comes to link building. You need to understand what types of pages they're searching for and where they hang out online.

Different audiences require different kinds of link building, such as hobbyists who have their own site and forum, or niches that have a whole platform to socialize.

Thoughtful research will not only bring knowledge but also the opportunity to connect with your audience in a more personalized way, leading to more organic traffic and potential future link requests.

Playing head-on with significant corporations on popular head terms is super tricky, so it's better to use long-tail queries to answer exactly what your audience is looking for.

In Google's algorithm, the site's relevancy can affect your site's rank. A site that's not relevant to your own site can lead Google to see you as practicing link building without noticing your friends, but just famous ones.

You want to get links from sites that are closely related to what you are selling on your site. This means a bicycle Ecommerce site should focus on getting links from bike-related sites, not a gothic costume site.

Relevant links can help you build a strong online presence and improve your site's credibility. It's essential to focus on getting links from sites that align with your niche and target audience.

Creating linkable assets is a great way to build backlinks to your small ecommerce site. This can be done by creating valuable content that resonates with your audience, such as guides, articles, listicles, recipes, tutorials, and more. The key is to offer value beyond your products, which would benefit the audience in a real way.

To create linkable assets, you can start by researching and writing a round-up post about the world's top 100 beauty brands, like Cosmetify did. They ranked the brands according to metrics such as Instagram followers, engagement, and search volume, and then shared the results on their website. This caught the attention of many of the brands they mentioned, who then linked back to Cosmetify's content.

Here are some examples of linkable assets that you can create:

These types of content are not only valuable to your audience but also provide opportunities for other sites to link back to your site. By creating linkable assets, you can attract natural referring domains and improve your site's visibility in search engines.

Finding high-quality sites is crucial for creating linkable assets. Good things are often rare, and it's no different for high-quality sites.

To identify them, look for attributes such as relevance, authority, and trustworthiness. These attributes are essential for building valuable relationships with other sites.

When evaluating a site, consider its content quality, user experience, and engagement metrics. A well-designed site with valuable content is more likely to attract high-quality links.

High-quality links are often rare, just like good things. So, focus on building relationships with sites that share your values and target audience.

By building these relationships, you can create a network of high-quality sites that will help promote your linkable assets.

Creating linkable pages is a great way to build trust and familiarity with your audience, and it can help take them more smoothly to the purchase step.

These rich-content pages offer value beyond your products, which benefits the audience in a real way. They can link directly to your product pages too.

Other site owners will have to add hyperlinks to your site for better information, which is essentially free advertising. You can also ask them to do it.

The key to crafting linkable pages is to provide value beyond your products. This can include informational and non-promotional pages that help your audience learn something new or solve a problem.

Creating linkable assets is all about offering value to your audience beyond your products. This can be achieved by creating informational and non-promotional pages that help build trust and familiarity with your audience.

Rich-content pages can link directly to your product pages, making it easier for visitors to take the next step and make a purchase. These pages can also attract links from other sites, providing free advertising for your business.

To craft linkable pages, focus on offering value beyond your products. This can include guides, articles, listicles, and other types of content that benefit your audience in a real way.

Here are some examples of linkable assets that can help drive links to your site:

Some types of content that can be particularly effective include how-to guides, round-up posts, and "best-of" lists. These types of content can be valuable to your audience and make sense for your niche.

Getting product reviews is a powerful way to build links and enhance your ecommerce site's credibility. By sending free products to bloggers and influencers, you can encourage them to create reviews that link back to your page.

To get product reviews, you need to identify relevant bloggers and influencers in your niche who have a strong following and engage with their audience. Look for bloggers who have linked back to your competitors or review products in your e-commerce niche.

Provide clear guidelines when sending the product, but also leave room for a genuine review. This will help ensure they include a link back to your site.

Here are some steps to follow when asking for product reviews:

DJI sent drones to review sites like Dronethusiast, DroneGear and Digitalcameraworld to get reviewed and linked to. This shows that getting product reviews from reputable bloggers and influencers can gain you valuable backlinks, increase your site's visibility, and attract more customers.

Spamming links like a maniac may have worked in the past, but today it will surely get you a penalty from Google.

You need high-quality links to succeed in link building, not just a number of links.

Link building for e-commerce is a very important method of digital marketing that mainly deals with getting inbound links from outside websites that carry good reputation to your online store.

High-quality links are like votes of trust, according to search engines, making your website better placed in search results.

Websites that have a robust link profile show good performance in search engine results, they attract traffic, reach their target audience, and create income.

Both external and internal links enhance the visibility of your site, making it easier for search engines to crawl through it.

In fact, websites that have a robust link profile show good performance in search engine results, they attract traffic, reach their target audience, and create income.

Link building tactics can apply to most types of ecommerce websites. The resources you have and the industry you are in may affect the tactics you choose.

Manual outreach links are a common type of link building, especially for small and unknown businesses. You contact website owners and bloggers to ask them to link to your site, providing them with a reason to do so.

You need to provide a reason for website owners and bloggers to link to your site, such as your content containing benefits for their customers or your article complimenting their products. This helps them gain benefits from being your linking allies.

Link building brings new traffic to your website, like digital "word of mouth" or an online reputation. When a high-quality, relevant website links to content on your website, you get "link juice" that pumps up your domain authority.

High-quality blogging content can attract natural backlinks. Regularly publishing valuable and informative content on your blog can help you achieve this.

Guest posting is another effective strategy, where you share your expertise on other sites and include backlinks to your own. This helps you build relationships with other websites and increase your online presence.

Creating PR campaigns can also help you gain media coverage and high-quality backlinks. This can be a great way to get your brand noticed and build credibility.

Recovering lost links is an important part of maintaining your site's link profile. Identifying and reclaiming lost backlinks can help you retain link equity and prevent lost traffic.

Influencer marketing is a powerful tool for small ecommerce sites to build links and increase visibility. By partnering with micro-influencers, you can reach a targeted and loyal audience that is more likely to engage with your brand.

Micro-influencers often have small but engaged audiences in your product niche, making them a great choice for influencer marketing. To discover relevant influencers, search for hashtags related to your products and vet them for genuine interest and expertise in your niche. As mentioned in example 4, Swedish watch company Daniel Wellington connected with micro-influencers in fashion and gave them discount codes for readers.

You can also offer free products to influencers in exchange for reviews, product mentions, or dedicated posts. As seen in example 3, MVMT Watches gifted free products to micro-influencers in the watch niche in exchange for reviews, resulting in sponsored videos reaching over 1 million views on YouTube.

Remember to develop long-term partnerships with influencers by maintaining relationships beyond one-off content collaborations. This will help you build trust and credibility with your audience and increase the chances of securing high-quality backlinks.

Finding the right email addresses is crucial to reaching out to influencers and getting your message across.

You can use a simple strategy called reverse engineering to find potential linkers.

Search your target keyword in Google and take the URL of the first result.

Use Ahrefs to find all the sites that link to that URL.

These sites are potential linkers, so the next step is finding their email addresses.

Don't use their sites' contacts, as it often leads nowhere.

Instead, use Hunter.io to find an email address associated with a domain.

This is a great way to reach out to small sites and one-person blogs.

For more prominent sites, use VoilaNorbert to find the email address of the person you want to contact.

Just enter the person's name and the domain of their company, and you'll get their email address.

Partnering with influencers is a great way to expand your reach and build credibility. You can identify relevant influencers in your niche by reviewing their content and audience, and even offer them free products in exchange for reviews.

Micro-influencers often offer the best value, as they have a small but engaged audience. For example, MVMT Watches gifted free products to micro-influencers in the watch niche in exchange for reviews, which resulted in sponsored videos reaching over 1 million views on YouTube.

To find micro-influencers, search for hashtags related to your products. However, it's essential to vet influencers for genuine interest and expertise in your niche before reaching out to them. Daniel Wellington, a Swedish watch company, connected with micro-influencers in fashion and gave them discount codes for readers.

Developing long-term partnerships with influencers is crucial, as it can lead to more opportunities for backlinks and content sharing. You can also use social proof to mention any awards, recognitions, or positive reviews your site has received.

Here are some benefits of partnering with influencers:

To request links from influencers, you can send them a personalized message offering your product for free in exchange for an honest review. Provide clear guidelines on what you're looking for, and follow up to ensure they received the product and to remind them about the review.

By partnering with influencers, you can gain valuable backlinks, increase your site's visibility, and attract more customers.

Link building is a crucial SEO strategy for small ecommerce sites, and it's essential to understand the process and tactics involved. Content marketing is key to getting high-quality backlinks, but merely publishing content is not enough; you need to focus on creating certain types of content that work.

To build a strong backlink profile, you should use integrated content marketing and create a compelling blog that provides relevant and high-quality content. Your blog should not only serve as a direct funnel to key product pages but also serve an internal linking purpose that builds your site's structure. By creating interesting content with in-depth knowledge, you can engage instantly with your customers while improving the quality of links that build back to your site.

Here are some effective link building strategies for small ecommerce sites:

By implementing these strategies, you can build a strong backlink profile and improve your search engine rankings, driving more organic traffic to your site.

Site Authority is a crucial factor in determining the quality of a link. A link from a widely known site like Medium will have a more significant impact than unknown sites, simple as that.

High-quality links can come from authority sites in your niche, which can significantly boost your domain authority. Links from these sites can also increase your search engine rankings and drive more traffic to your website.

Ahrefs is a tool that can help you check the domain rating of a site. This can give you an idea of the site's authority and whether it's worth pursuing a link from them.

To give you a better idea of the importance of site authority, here's a breakdown of the factors that influence a link's quality:

Having high-quality links from authoritative sites can significantly boost your ecommerce SEO and drive more sales to your online store.

Email marketing is a powerful tool for businesses looking to connect with their audience and drive sales. It's estimated that for every dollar spent on email marketing, the average return on investment is $38.

By focusing on segmentation, email marketing campaigns can be tailored to specific customer groups, increasing the likelihood of conversion. For example, a company that sells outdoor gear can create separate email lists for customers who have purchased hiking boots versus those who have purchased camping equipment.

Personalization is key in email marketing, with 75% of consumers reporting that they are more likely to engage with personalized content. Using data from customer interactions, businesses can create targeted campaigns that speak directly to their audience's interests.

A well-crafted subject line is crucial in email marketing, with 47% of email recipients deciding whether to open an email based on the subject line alone. Using action-oriented language and including the recipient's name can increase the chances of the email being opened.

Content marketing is key to getting fantastic backlinks, but publishing content alone isn't enough to get links instantly. Certain types of content work and these are what you should be focusing on.

Creating a compelling blog is essential for link building, and your blog should be the heartbeat that provides relevant and high-quality content that can make authoritative links. Your content should not serve only as a direct funnel to key product pages, but instead serve for an internal linking purpose that builds your site's structure.

Link building brings new traffic to your website, similar to digital "word of mouth" or an online reputation. When a high-quality, relevant website links to content on your website, you get "link juice" which pumps up your domain authority, brings you new traffic, and helps you rank better in search results.

A backlinking strategy is important for improving SEO and driving more traffic to your E-commerce store. The more high-quality backlinks your E-commerce site has, the more search engines will trust your store and rank you higher.

Here are some effective link building strategies:

To build high-quality backlinks, you should focus on creating authoritative content assets like infographics, videos, and guest posts to support outreach at scale. Personalize outreach and pitches based on priorities of potential linking sites rather than spamming.

As a small ecommerce site, you want to make the most out of your content. Use integrated content marketing and create a compelling blog that provides relevant and high-quality content to make authoritative links.

Your blog should serve not only as a direct funnel to key product pages, but also as an internal linking purpose that builds your site's structure. This is where your content should be interesting, engaging, and provide in-depth knowledge to instantly connect with your customers.

By making your content serve both purposes, you'll improve the quality of links that build back to your site, keeping your link building method safe and effective.

Video marketing is a game-changer for businesses. Video content is the standard for delivering information in an easy way, making it easy to share and embed on other websites.

Visual assets like videos are hard to include without some links to the owner or creator. This is why video content is a great way to get links back to your original site.

For example, if you own an online clothing store and create a video on a topic like "99 ways to lace your kicks cooler", people will want to watch and share it. You can then outreach to those who embedded your video and request a link back to your original site.

Providing a better embed option, like a high-quality HD video without YouTube ads, can also encourage people to link back to your site. This can increase your audience and drive more traffic to your website.

Video content ranks well on Google and has the potential for featured snippets. In fact, 87% of marketers say video has helped increase sales.

Repurposing e-commerce images can breathe new life into your visual content and attract more customers. High-quality product images can make or break your online presence and customer experience.

License high-res product images to other websites for a fee, with links back to your ecommerce store. This can earn you valuable backlinks.

Allow select media sites to feature your product visuals in buying guides, roundups, and galleries while citing your store. Wayfair does this successfully.

Create recurring affiliate promotions where product images are shared on partner sites along with affiliated links back to your store. This can drive more traffic to your site.

Contextualize product images with useful advice and tips to make them more shareable. Repurposing product visuals taps into the marketing potential of your e-commerce assets.

Link building brings new traffic to your website, like digital "word of mouth" or an online reputation.

To start building links, focus on creating high-quality, relevant content that will attract links from other websites. This "link juice" pumps up your domain authority and brings new traffic to your site.

Ahrefs and SEMrush are two popular tools that can help you find link building opportunities and track your progress. They can also help you analyze your competitors' link profiles.

Link building is not just about getting any links, but about getting high-quality links from relevant websites. This means targeting websites in your niche or industry.

To increase your chances of getting links, make sure your website is optimized with good on-site optimization, including product titles, descriptions, and pages. This will make it more attractive to other websites that want to link to your content.

Link building is an ongoing process that requires regular effort and attention. Set aside time each week to research and pursue new link building opportunities.