The 5 Best Lead Finder Tools for Backlink Building Campaigns

Intro

Being discoverable is the single most important thing for a business, and link building is an effective way to spread the word about your brand. The process is similar to generating direct customer leads: you need to find companies and websites from the right industries and offer them some useful information or insights to use in their content.

To generate the best leads in the most efficient way, you need tools with effective filters and big contact databases, so you can find lots of relevant options in record time. Here are some of the best options out there.

What Exactly Is Backlink Building?

Backlink building, otherwise known as link building, is a way to spread links to your website across the internet. It provides a way for potential customers to "run into" your brand, even if they aren't searching for it directly.

By working with high-ranking blogs and websites on Google, you can bring in lots of visitors even if your own website isn't ranking well yet. This happens a lot for startups and new businesses since it takes some time for Google to start noticing and rewarding your efforts.

It's also a good way to target niche audiences by earning backlinks on websites that are relevant to very specific use cases for your product. For example, a company selling paint remover could find success by earning backlinks on websites related to figurines because one niche use for paint remover is carefully removing marks from pre-painted figures or fixing mistakes when painting figures.

Top 5 Lead Finder Tools for Backlink Campaigns

Here are some of the best tools for helping you find and earn opportunities for backlinks.

1. Instantly

Instantly gives you access to over 450 million leads, using AI to help you filter and find the right ones for you. Because backlink campaigns are functionally very similar to email marketing (just with different kinds of email copy), you can easily use Instantly's email outreach tools to contact backlink prospects and send out tailored studies and insights.

Supersearch will help you find the best leads and you can use the AI Web Researcher to research the websites of prospects, helping you to quickly discover what they care about and what kind of value you can provide to earn your backlink.

Because Instantly can also take care of your email outreach and marketing needs, it provides great value for money. Why pay for a whole new tool just for backlinks if it isn't necessary?

2. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is a tool built specifically for link building, with a database of over 17 billion web pages. It helps you find both content ideas and link prospects, including guest blogging opportunities and low-competition topics. You can also search for unlinked mentions of your brand, allowing you to reach out and provide a quick link.

The robust set of features is perfect for bigger businesses with a heavy focus on link building, but at the same time, it's probably a little bit too robust if you're just starting out. That said, Ahrefs does offer an inexpensive Starter plan for people who only want access to the core features.

3. Moz Pro

Moz Pro helps you keep track of your overall backlink profile, showing just how many backlinks you have, how often they're clicked on, and how they're affecting your Google ranking.

You can also check out the same information for your competitors, providing you with valuable insight into where they are finding the most success.

It's also easy to find and fix broken links, so the backlinks you've already earned can stay useful for as long as possible. It’s used by big businesses with millions of backlinks under their belt, but you don’t have to be huge to take advantage of it. Even a few backlinks will be easier to manage with tools like this rather than trying to keep track of them manually.

4. BuzzStream

BuzzStream offers features for finding and researching new prospects and personalizing email outreach. It focuses on real human relationships and interactions, providing you with a super-streamlined workflow so you can spend your time where it's most effective.

For example, when you write an email to your contact, you can see your past communications, their personal information, and the company's recent posts so you can easily write friendly and relevant messages. You can set up follow-up reminders and tasks to make sure you're always staying up to date with various projects and keeping things as friendly and professional as possible.

5. Semrush

Semrush is a well-known SEO tool that offers quite a few features related to link building. You can view analytics, audit backlinks, and use the backlink-building tool to find new sources and instantly pinpoint the best people to contact for a backlink opportunity.

You can also keep track of your backlink profile to make sure your earned links don't disappear or break. With contact information all stored in one place, you can quickly reach out if a link gets removed.

There's also a Backlink Gap tool to help you pinpoint sites your competitors work with that you have yet to make a deal with.

Final Thoughts

Because backlink building is all about finding the right people and sending personalized messages to them, it's possible to do the job with either a general lead-generation and email outreach tool or a specialized link-building tool.

The right option for you likely depends on the size of your business, the resources you have, and how much focus you want to put into link building. We think Instantly is a great all-around product that can help you find backlink opportunities and take care of your other lead generation and email outreach needs at the same time.

When you need specific tools to check out your backlink profile, sites such as Moz and Semrush provide limited searches for free, so you don’t need to get an additional subscription.