Guide to Link Building for E-commerce

Without a doubt, the possibilities for expanding your business in the e-commerce sector are endless. However, the competition is as fierce as the room for expansion. Owning an e-commerce website is equivalent to having a physical store surrounded by numerous stores selling exactly the same products as yours. But if your e-commerce site ranks high on Google, you’ll get a lot of potential customers. And the only way to stand out among your competitors is by maintaining a strong online presence.

You must, of course, have a fantastic e-commerce website. But when it comes to ranking it on Google, everything comes down to a solid SEO strategy. The secret to leveling up your SEO game is link building. A strong backlink profile propels and sustains the ranking of your e-commerce website. In this guide, we’ll tell you everything about link building for e-commerce. So, let’s dive into the details!

What is Link Building in E-commerce?

Link building in e-commerce is an SEO strategy by which an e-commerce website builds one-way links to related authority and quality websites. These one-way links are commonly referred to as “backlinks.” In actuality, a business builds links to other websites or businesses with the intention of increasing its exposure to potential customers on the respective search engine.

Benefits of Link Building for E-commerce Websites

Here’s how link building can help e-commerce websites achieve their business goals:

You can draw the attention of a completely new group of visitors that don’t even belong to your website.
Maybe these visitors from other websites aren’t necessarily looking to buy something. But the links to your website may turn them into your customers once they land on your page.
As a new group of visitors reaches your e-commerce website through links, you’ll be able to get more traffic and views to your website.
Link building is a hidden marketing tactic. It promotes your brand in the most natural way possible.
If your e-commerce website features informational articles, interesting infographics, exclusive resources, or other enticing content, the links will turn you into an informational resource rather than just a retailer.
When more and more websites link to a particular e-commerce website, it increases the credibility of that business. Google recognizes such a brand as reputable in the industry and ranks it higher than others on SERPs.

5 Effective Strategies of Link Building for Ecommerce

Link building is not easy for e-commerce websites. These websites don’t have many chances to obtain links to their products or category pages. Therefore, an e-commerce business must be innovative in its link-building strategy.

Luckily, we’ve found you some proven tactics to create links to various other websites. The five most important ones that you can use to grow your online business are listed below:

1. Create an Informational Blog

The secret to effective link building is to create link-worthy content that other businesses or websites will inadvertently link to. You must include a blog on your website and publish informational articles, infographics, and other useful content on it. It will encourage visitors to get back to you for more information. Moreover, you can internally link your product pages to your blog posts and increase your sales.

2. Build a Community of Brand Ambassadors

Collaborating with different social media influencers, bloggers, and journalists can also help your e-commerce website develop its brand image and clientele. You can benefit from influencers’ crazy social media followings by partnering with them. They will serve as brand ambassadors for you. By linking to the product pages on your website, they will promote your products while earning a commission. What you’ll get as a result is a large number of visitors, more sales, and more revenue!

3. Use the Product Feedback Method

In this method, you provide bloggers and website owners with your products in exchange for their “feedback” about the products. If they love your product, they’ll obviously feature you in the list of their favorite products. Here’s how you do it:

Find blog posts that are ranking on Google for terms like “best (product type same as yours)”.
Offer to send them a sample of your product in exchange for their feedback.
If they say they enjoyed the product, ask them to consider mentioning you in their article.
If they feature you, they’ll most likely link to you.
And Ta-da! You’ve got an organic link from a high authority website of your niche.

Remember! Don’t directly propose to exchange your products for a link in your pitch. The exchange of “goods or services for links” is considered illegal by Google. Your website may get penalized for it.

4. Update Guest Posts for Other Websites

The most popular link-building tactic for beginner e-commerce websites is guest blogging on websites that are pertinent to their niche. You may write a new piece of SEO-optimized content or update an already published blog post on the host’s website. Your post will provide information to the host’s audience, and you’ll gain a link in exchange.

Here’s how you can do it:

Craft a compelling pitch to get the host’s approval for updating their guest post.
Research the target audience of the host when updating the post.
Make the post SEO-friendly so that it’s visible to everyone.
Link to your website naturally in the post.

Remember! You should be guest posting only on relevant sites. Irrelevant and massive guest blogging is considered equal to spamming. Google will penalize your website as a result.

5. Fix Unmentioned or Broken Links

If you have already established links to some relevant websites, be sure to periodically check them. If there are any unmentioned or broken links, claim them as early as possible. Search for your website name like this on Google: “intext:website-name”. The results that appear will be the websites that have mentioned you. If any site hasn’t linked to your website already, request them to do so. If a link has been broken, fix it immediately. Moreover, you can also turn to a broken link-building strategy. For this purpose, you have to find broken links mentioning similar businesses to yours. Then, you may pitch the website owner to replace the broken link with yours.

FAQs

Which link-building strategies should be avoided in e-commerce?

The following are a few link-building strategies that an e-commerce website must avoid:

Buying links
Link baiting
Getting high link velocity
Getting links from irrelevant niches or websites
Having links for spammy sites
Preferring quantity of links over quality

What is the best link-building strategy for e-commerce sites?

In our opinion, producing link-worthy content (informational blog posts, video content, or infographics) is the first and foremost strategy to apply while building links.

Does SEO benefit e-commerce?

Yes! SEO not only benefits online businesses, but it is also essential for the survival of e-commerce websites. A brand’s website must rank higher than those of its competitors in order for potential customers to find it and its products. Only when consumers believe a brand to be reputable will they actually make a purchase. SEO makes all of this possible.

Which is better for e-commerce, on-page SEO or link building?

Both on-page SEO and link building are equally important for an e-commerce website. But we suggest you begin with working on your website’s on-page SEO and then move towards link building.

How do I create a link for a product page?

Publish linkable content on your website, then internally link to your product pages.
Utilize the product feedback strategy. Invite bloggers to review your products.
Get your products included in roundups by collaborating with journalists.
Write and update guest posts linking to your product pages (as a resource).

What is broken link building in e-commerce SEO?

Broken link building is an SEO strategy that takes advantage of the malfunctioning links on a web page. It involves identifying a dead link (or broken link) and requesting the linker to replace the link with a working page’s link on your website.

Wrapping Up

We hope our guide has helped you understand what link building is and how it works for e-commerce websites. The tactics we mentioned in the article are proven ways to build high-quality links. These are applicable to e-commerce sites of all levels. If you are still confused about anything related to link building for e-commerce, you may consult us for e-commerce link building