In the spirit of continuing my free tool series, I’ve turned my focus to link building. Link building is a huge part of getting any website to be visible to search engines these days. Of course, Annie Cushing’s Tools for Marketers Google Doc has a tab for link building tools which I used to pull together the tools for this post. This list includes five simple, free link building resources, that are easy to use and don’t require downloads of any kind. For a more extensive list of in-depth paid and free tools, I recommend checking out Annie’s Google Doc.
Check My Links
This is a link checking Chrome plugin that tests all the links on a web page and either marks them green if they’re valid or red if they’re broken. The broken links have codes next to them according to the type of error message they have. Links that require a login to see the pages also show up as red.
A full list of the HTTP response codes and full URLs of broken links are published in the Console log (Found in: ‘Chrome > Tools > Javascript Console’ or Ctrl+Shift+J), under the Sources tab.
MailTester
This website checks email addresses to see if they’re valid by pinging the mail servers and the individual addresses for validation.
Embed Code Generator
This is an online tool that generates and emails you a customized embed code for infographics or types of media that you would like to track by incorporating the media’s URL, source link, anchor text, and title.
Citation Labs Link Filter
This web service filters a set of links according to the keywords you require or exclude in your query.
Ontolo Tools
Ontolo is a website with free and paid link building tools. Here’s how you can navigate to their full list of link building tools from their homepage:
These are my five favorite free Ontolo tools:
Generate Link Building Queries
Creates link queries that you can export as a CSV file based on the types of assets, opportunities and campaigns you have associated with your keywords.
Prospect List Filter
Filters the links that you’ve already gone through from the sites that you haven’t worked with yet and generates a report you can export as a CSV file.
URL Viewer
Opens a list of URLs in separate tabs.
URL and Hostname Counter
Counts the number of URLs or individual hostnames entered into the tool and creates a report that you can export as a CSV file.
SEO Keyword Generator
Creates a list of keywords based on the root and stem phrases you provide.
Pro tip: You can sign up for a free account with Ontolo and get 25 free reports from their paid tools.
What are your favorite link building tools? Feel free to share in the comments!
