Ecommerce Link Building: Examples + Best Practices

Just like any website, to ensure that an ecommerce store is as successful as possible, link building should be at the top of a site owner’s priority list.

The thing is, although backlinks are an integral component of search engine optimization (SEO), link building can be a very time-consuming and potentially expensive operation.

Not to worry.

To help you build a backlink profile that’s filled to the brim with high-quality backlinks, here we:

• define what ecommerce link building is,
• explain how to build backlinks for ecommerce sites,
• and detail the best practices for ecommerce link building strategies.

What is ecommerce link building?

Ecommerce link building is the process of acquiring backlinks to an ecommerce website from other websites – commonly known as referring domains. Link building is an essential part of running a profitable online store. By acquiring links from referring domains, site owners and marketers can improve an ecommerce website’s search engine rankings, which will significantly boost the chances of more online traffic and increased conversions.

What is SEO and how does it benefit an eCommerce site?

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of improving the ranking of a website on search engines. The higher the ranking, the more likely people are to find the site. SEO can be used to improve the visibility of an ecommerce site in order to increase traffic and sales.

One way to improve SEO is by increasing the amount of backlinks a website has in its backlink arsenal. The more backlinks a website has, but more importantly, the higher the quality of a backlink, the higher its ranking will be.

Sounds good in theory, but…

Is ecommerce link building still relevant for SEO?

The short answer: heck yes! Backlinks remain an important ranking factor in Google’s – and other search engine’s – algorithm and can help your store rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).

The long answer: backlinks are important for two key reasons – credibility and referral traffic.

Backlinks help improve your store’s SEO. Backlinks act as a “vote of confidence” for your website, indicating that other websites believe your content is valuable and worth linking to. This helps to improve your website’s credibility in the eyes of search engines, which can result in higher SERP rankings.

To highlight the importance of backlinks to SEO further, understand that backlinks are a key metric that Google and other search engines take note of when ordering the results searchers will see appear on SERPs.

To further this point, check out the below graph from a case study carried out by the Backlinko team on no less than 11.8 million search results. As the below graph demonstrates, the study concluded that web pages ranking first on the SERPs have around 3.8x as many backlinks as those pages taking out spots 2-10.

Powerful stuff.

To back up this finding, Google has previously stated that: “Google and most other search engines use links to determine reputation. A site’s ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to it. Link-based analysis is an extremely useful way of measuring a site’s value, and has greatly improved the quality of web search. Both the quantity and, more importantly, the quality of links count towards this rating.”

Additionally, backlinks can help to drive more traffic to your website, which can boost your online visibility and sales.

This last point ties in nicely to the second reason why backlinks are key to the success of ecommerce – referral traffic.

When a consumer clicks on a link from a third-party website to your own, this is referred to as referral traffic. This type of traffic is oftentimes more trusting than other forms of traffic, like paid search traffic (a term used to describe traffic that originates from ads placed on the SERPs).

In fact, as you can see in the above Marketing Charts graph, when compared to other traffic sources, referral traffic has some of the highest conversion rate averages across the entire ecommerce industry.

Does my ecommerce site need backlinks?

Yes, most definitely. If you want your online store to not only rank well for organic search but also be viewed as a credible and reputable store by consumers, backlinks are one of the most powerful forms of social proofing that exists on the internet today. Even top B2B eCommerce companies need a strong link-building strategy to overtake the competition and attract more customers.

So as you can see, backlinks are not something to be ignored. Which, of course, raises the question: what kind of backlinks are best for ecommerce stores?

Let’s explore this now.

Ecommerce Link Building Best Practices

I cannot stress this enough. When it comes to ecommerce link building best practices, securing backlinks from reputable and well-respected referring domains is your best bet.

And as I’ve hopefully made clear here already, backlinks are the lifeblood of any website looking to rank in search engines. The more backlinks you have from authoritative and highly reputable websites, the higher your website will rank on the SERPs.

But what exactly is meant by an authoritative and reputable referring domain?

An authoritative referring domain is a website that is considered to be a reliable source of information by Google and other search engines. This means that the website is likely to be included in the search engine’s results pages for relevant queries.

In order to be considered authoritative, a website must meet several criteria, including having high-quality, informative, and factual content, being well-linked to and trusted by other authoritative websites, receiving high levels of traffic, and following best SEO practices.

To dive a little deeper, you may have heard of terms like domain authority (DA) or domain rating (DR). Domain authority is a metric created by Moz and domain rating is a metric that was devised by Ahrefs. Both of these metrics work fairly similarly: they predict how well a website will rank on search engines.

They are scored on a 100-point scale, with higher scores representing a greater ability to rank. DA and DR take into account numerous factors, including the number of links to a site, the quality of those links, and the age of the domain.

So if you can acquire backlinks from third-party websites that have a high DA or DR, you’ll be well on your way to pushing your website and its various web pages to the top of the SERPs.

With all that said, let’s check in with how difficult link building is for ecommerce.

How hard is link building for ecommerce?

Sorry to be a touch ambiguous, but there is no definitive answer to this question. Why? Well, how hard it is depends on a variety of factors, including the competitiveness of the industry niche and the quality of the backlinks being built.

To give it to you straight, ecommerce sites will often find link building to be more difficult than sites in other industries.

How come?

The popularity of ecommerce has exploded in the past few years, leading to a high level of competition. This leaves many ecommerce niches choked full of competitors.

Competitors that are all vying for backlinks and traffic.

Further, as the ecommerce landscape is a highly competitive space, it can be difficult for businesses to find unique products that will help them stand out from the crowd. This is largely due to the ecommerce being based upon the dropshipping model.

Dropshipping has many advantages, but one key disadvantage is that there are a limited number of suppliers who can provide unique and innovative products. And if a supplier does offer a unique product, these suppliers are often inundated with requests from ecommerce stores.

So how does this translate to backlink acquisition?

Well, adding something new to the SERPs is integral to securing backlinks – particularly those that are high quality and most effective in boosting rankings. For instance, referring domains are less likely to link to an ecommerce website that’s offering the same or at least similar to other websites found within Google’s search results.

How do I get ecommerce backlinks?

I don’t want to sound all doom and gloom, though. Let me reassure you that with the right approach, ecommerce site owners can most definitely secure high-quality backlinks.

And it’s within your best interests to do so.

Why?

Well, many startups, small to mid-sized, and large ecommerce stores use paid ads to bring in traffic. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with this approach. It’s a proven and legitimate way to increase site traffic and conversions. The problem being, as ecommerce has become so popular, it has resulted in the cost of placing ads on the SERPs or social media platforms to become progressively more expensive.

This has only been exacerbated by the recent COVID pandemic. In fact, large retail giants like Walmart have seen a huge increase in online sales during this period. To be exact, a 74% increase in sales. And although most of the world is past many of the COVID restrictions that led to this spike in online sales, it’s not a trend that’s likely to go away anytime soon.

Online consumers have most definitely fallen in love with the conveniences of online shopping.

So where does this leave you?

Well, if you can pull ahead of the competition in one way or another, you’d do it right?

Of course. But how? I think you know what I’m about to say, by focusing on good SEO practices like building high-quality backlinks.

How to do link building for ecommerce sites

Okay, enough talk, number crunching, and references to graphs. It’s time to put the theory of ecommerce link building into practice.

What are some examples of link building strategies for Ecom sites?

Here’s some effective link building tactics for ecommerce brands:

1. Create Link-Worthy Content

Perhaps when you first started out in ecommerce, you may not have considered that one day you’d be a blogger. But this is the reality of running any website, no matter the industry. A website blog remains one of the most important SEO assets a website owner can invest their time and money into.

Why?

A blog gives your website greater opportunity to rank for a wider range of keywords, it creates a stronger level of trust with your customers, but, most importantly, high-quality, well-written content creates a ton of opportunities to secure backlinks.

There are a few reasons high-quality content attracts backlinks. First, high-quality content is likely to be more informative or educational than other content on the web. People will naturally want to share information that is valuable and helpful. Additionally, high-quality content that is well written, well-curated, and well-researched makes it a credible source of information, so they will link to it from their own websites.

2. Leverage Video Marketing

Backing up high-quality written content, video-based content is also a powerful means of securing backlinks. This type of medium can be used to back up the content on your blog, category, and product pages, but it can also be a great way to breathe life into your brand.

Not only that, but videos help to better engage your audience and keep them on your site for longer and help to improve your site’s ranking on search engines.

In order to make the most of the videos as a means of acquiring backlinks, however, there are a few things you need to keep in mind:

1. Foremost, you need to make sure that your videos are of high quality. This means ensuring that they are well-produced and interesting to watch.
2. Create video content that is relevant to your target audience. This will help you attract viewers who are interested in your content.
3. Add links or embed your videos into your website and other online properties. This will help you direct traffic back to your site and increase the number of backlinks you have.
4. Alongside using your curated videos to add depth to blog content, be sure to upload your videos to high-quality video hosting sites, such as YouTube and Vimeo. This will give you exposure to a larger audience and help you build backlinks.
5. Share your videos on social media sites and other online platforms. This will help you reach a larger audience and generate more backlinks.

3. Stock Unique Products

We touched on this earlier. In the ecommerce space, unique products can be hard to come by, but if you can, stock products that aren’t found in your competitor’s ecommerce stores.

Why are unique products important to link building?

The more unique and novel products that a business stock, the higher the chance of acquiring backlinks. This is because websites are more likely to want to share information about interesting and new products.

This can help online businesses to differentiate themselves from competitors. Something that’s very important in a high-competitive market.

Offering a unique selection of products gives customers a reason to visit a specific website rather than a competitor’s. In addition, stocking unique products can help boost sales by providing customers with items they cannot find anywhere else.

Summary

As an ecommerce site owner or ecommerce specialist, it’s super important you don’t sleep on the importance of backlinks. They could single-handedly be the secret ingredient you need to take your ecommerce store from zero to hero.

If you are still uncertain of where to start your ecommerce link building journey, Loganix is the perfect solution. We offer a variety of backlink building services that will help you achieve better results with minimal effort. With our trusted and experienced team, you can be sure your ecommerce website will get the attention it deserves.