Building a rock solid backlink profile is an important part of your blog's SEO strategy. It's also a great way of improving your blog's authority and to increase organic search engine traffic. Tracking your link building progress and driving results, however, can be a little tricky without the use of some online tool.
Well, fear no more! In this post, we'll take a look at 7 of the best backlink checker tools you need to check out.
Of course, it's not only about building your blog's link profile that's important. You should also use some of these tools to spy on your competitor's blogs from time to time. It doesn't hurt to see what keywords they're ranking for so that you can craft similar but better content to try to outrank them.
Over the years, my link building strategy for Magnet4Blogging, or for any website that I've built for myself, has been non-existent.
I try and produce high-quality content in the hope that others will find it valuable enough to want to link back to it, the natural way.
I wrote a detailed post about my lazy link building method. You can read it here if you want.
OK, enough ranting from me, let's dive right into these 7 wonderful link checker tools right now.
Important note: The accuracy of these tools can vary sometimes, at least that's what I've experienced. While some tools might be extremely-accurate, you will find using another tool may give you a completely different link profile score or result altogether. Nothing is set in stone, so just take the results you get with a pinch of salt, where you can.
SEMrush is probably the most popular tool for bloggers and marketers.
With SEMrush, you get access to over 28 website SEO tools, options, and features, including the ability to run backlink auditing on your own and your competitor's blogs, backlink analytics, and some useful link building tools for your projects.
You can have up to five projects running on their cheapest plan.
Now, I ran Magnet4Blogging.net through the backlinks auditing tool and it came back with the following result - My backlink profile toxicity was quite high.
Wow... Scary stuff, right?
However, when I dug a little deeper, some of those supposedly toxic links were said to be from high-profile blogs and authority websites that I've either guest blogged on or left a comment on at some point. Some of those blogs I've followed for many years.
Asides from a few guest posts and blog comments, I've never actively built any backlinks to this blog
As I said to you earlier, some of the results you get using any tool you should take with a pinch of salt and just use as a guide for your future link building campaigns.
All in all, SEMrush is a professional choice for a lot of bloggers. The downside is that it is not cheap by any comparison. Prices start from $99 per month (plus VAT if you're in the UK or EU) (Pro Plan), but you can save by taking out an annual plan.
If you have used SEMrush yourself, at any stage, I'd love to get your feedback. Leave them in the comment section below if you like.
Next, we get to Ahrefs, who's been in the game for a long while now. Like their competitor, SEMrush, Ahrefs provides a suite of SE marketing tools including SEO and backlink tools.
With the Ahrefs backlink checker tool, you can -
Pricing wise, Ahrefs is on par with SEMrush. Their Lite Plan starts from $99 per month.
If you have used Ahrefs yourself, at any stage, I'd love to get your feedback. Leave them in the comment section below if you like.
Next on my list is Monitor Backlinks. This is a dedicated service for those purely interested in not only checking up on their backlink profiles but also building up their backlinks too.
You get access to keyword rank checking, in-depth link reports, links disavow tool and more.
Monitor Backlinks is one of the most affordable options available for bloggers, with plans starting from just $25 per month. The basic plan allows you to Monitor -
I've been using Long Tail Pro for the last 6 months to help me with my research on traffic and profitable keywords for Magnet4Blogging.
One of the features in LTP that I like most is the backlink checker and analysis tool which you can use to monitor up to 5000 backlinks per day, depending on the plan you are on.
It's not the most comprehensive tool, but it's certainly an affordable solution. Plus, if you're looking for a powerful keyword research tool that combines with a backlink checker tool, then do check out Long Tail Pro.
OK, so if you're looking for a simple and free tool to use, then you can't really go wrong with the Google Search Console.
You can view the top linking sites to your blog, dive deeper into each referring domain to view which pages are being linked to, and the target pages.
Whilst there isn't a great deal of data or information to work with, it's a good start if you're on a tight budget.
Number six on my list is Open Link Profiler. This tool will enable you to analyze the link profile of any website for free. Well, you can analyze 20 backlinks for free that is.
You can also get full, unrestricted access to their Smart Plan for 1 full week for free (Regular price is $99 per month).
All their plans give you access to over 40 SEO tools, including backlink auditing, analysis, and monitoring.
Whilst not as popular as perhaps, Ahrefs or SEMrush, with Open Link Profiler, it appears that you certainly get a lot more bang for your money, at first.
For example, SEMrush's Pro Plan allows you to track 500 keywords daily and 5 projects. Compare that with Open Link Profiler Smart Plan at 3,000 keywords tracked daily and 50 projects.
But then, you also have to weigh in that both Ahrefs and SEMrush perhaps offer a lot more tools and features that Open Link Profiler doesn't have available yet.
RankWatch is the last choice in my list here. Perhaps not as well-known as some of the services mentioned above in the blogging world, but RankWatch provides it's services to over 25,000 customers worldwide.
RankWatch provides a suite of tools and features including backlink and keyword suggestion tool. Their backlink analysis tool provides a plethora of data and metrics for marketers. These include -
Price wise, plans start from $26 per month (Yearly plan). For that, you can monitor 250 keywords and 145,000 backlinks.
It really depends on your budget and needs. If you are trying to improve your blog's existing backlink profile, I would recommend SEMrush, even if you signup for just 3 months and make the most of those 3 months worth of access to all their tools.
If you are starting a brand new blog and need a keyword research tool and backlink checker all-in-one, I would recommend Long Tail Pro because it's super affordable and pretty reliable.
Well, that's all I have for you. Whatever you decide, hopefully, these 7 backlink checker tools should keep you busy for a while. Obviously, you don't need to use all of them, just find the one that meets your needs and give it a try.
I've tried nearly all of these tools myself. Currently, I'm using LongTailPro for keyword research, Unamo for keeping an eye on my keyword rankings and traffic generated from keywords, and occasionally SEMrush for backlinks.
If you know of a tool that's working well for you that you'd like to mention here, feel free to let me know. Or just leave a comment below as always.
