Link Building Tactics for Ecommerce

Google has said publicly, repeatedly, that links are one of the top three ranking factors. For ecommerce specifically, where you're chasing transactional queries like 'buy running shoes' or 'best standing desk', you're competing against sites that have been building authority for years. On-page optimisation is the entry fee. Links are what actually separate page one from page two.

Ranking factor studies from Ahrefs, Semrush, and Backlinko consistently show that Domain Rating (DR) and the number of unique referring domains correlate more strongly with rankings than almost any on-page variable. That doesn't mean on-page doesn't matter (it does), but for competitive ecommerce terms, you will not outrank a DR 70 site with a DR 20 site just by writing better product descriptions.

Journalists at publications like Wirecutter, The Strategist, Good Housekeeping, and vertical trade magazines write 'best [product category]' roundups constantly. A single dofollow link from Wirecutter can push your DR by 3-5 points and send referral traffic that converts. These links are not easy to get, but they are achievable with the right approach.

Start by finding who has already covered your product category. In Ahrefs Content Explorer, search for 'best [your product category]' and filter by domain rating (DR 40+) and published in the last 12 months. Export the list. Find the author names on each article, then find their email or Twitter/X handle. Now you have a targeted press list.

Send product samples whenever possible. A journalist who has physically tested your product is ten times more likely to include it than one who only read your spec sheet. Budget product samples as a marketing expense — it is one of the highest-ROI line items in link building.

Guest posting has a bad reputation because most people do it badly. They pitch generic content to any site that accepts guest posts, regardless of relevance, and the links they get are low-quality. Done properly, pitching genuinely useful content to relevant, high-authority publications, guest posting still works and produces links that move rankings.

If you sell running shoes, your target publications are running blogs (Runner's World, iRunFar, Believe in the Run), podiatry sites, sports medicine blogs, and fitness magazines. Pitch an article that is actually useful to their readers: '5 Signs Your Running Shoes Are Causing Your Knee Pain' is more likely to get accepted than '5 Reasons Our Running Shoes Are Great'.

• —Find target publications using Ahrefs Content Explorer filtered by DR and traffic
• —Read 3-4 recent articles on the site before pitching — match their tone and depth
• —Pitch a specific article title and a 2-sentence summary, not a full draft
• —Include a link to one writing sample that proves you can actually write
• —Negotiate a contextual link in the body, not just an author bio link
• —Follow up once, after 10 days, then move on if there's no response

If you stock other brands' products, those brands often have a 'Where to Buy' or 'Authorised Retailers' page on their site. These are highly relevant links, same industry, often high DR, and most ecommerce stores never pursue them. Send a short email to each brand's marketing or partnership team and ask to be listed. The conversion rate on these requests is surprisingly high because you're already a customer.

The same logic applies to any formal partner relationship: payment processors that feature merchant case studies, fulfilment partners with customer spotlights, software vendors with integration directories. Every tool or service you use as a business is a potential link opportunity if they have any kind of partner or customer page.

Resource pages are curated lists of links that someone in your niche maintains for their audience — 'Best Resources for Home Bakers', 'Recommended Gear for Cyclists', and so on. They exist in almost every niche and they actively want to link to quality sites. Find them using Google searches: intitle:"resources" "your niche", or intitle:"useful links" "your niche". Filter by checking DR in Ahrefs and only pitch sites with DR 30 or above.

Broken link building is more time-intensive but produces high-quality links. The method: use Ahrefs to pull the broken outbound links from competitor sites or high-authority sites in your niche. When you find a broken link pointing to content similar to something you have (or could create), email the webmaster, tell them the link is broken, and offer your page as a replacement. Response rates are higher than cold outreach because you're solving a real problem for them.

Link building that happens once is better than nothing. Link building that happens every month compounds into a serious competitive advantage. The stores that dominate competitive categories have usually been building links consistently for 2-3 years, not just sprinting for 6 months.

Set a monthly target of 5-10 new referring domains, which is achievable for most ecommerce businesses without a full-time link builder. Assign ownership: one person tracks outreach, follows up, and reports results. Use a simple spreadsheet or a tool like Pitchbox or Hunter to manage it. Review your DR monthly in Ahrefs and track ranking positions for your target keywords. The feedback loop tells you whether your efforts are working.

• —Set a monthly goal: 5-10 new referring domains minimum
• —Run one Digital PR campaign per quarter around a new product or original data
• —Maintain a live prospect list in a spreadsheet — always have 20+ targets ready
• —Check Ahrefs monthly: DR trend, referring domains count, new vs lost links
• —Kill tactics that aren't converting after 3 months and double down on what works