E-Commerce Link Building: 10 Proven Strategies to Grow Traffic & Sales in 2026

An effective link building e-commerce strategy will help you grow organic traffic, leads, and revenue by much more than 100%. 

Here is a real-life example. The WEDEX team helped an e-commerce project in the designer lighting and fixtures niche achieve +1,469% organic traffic growth and +1,100% sales growth in two years, thanks to consistent link building through Collaborator. To be precise, they built 120 anchor article links with an average link price of $41 USD.

Is guest posting the only way to get high-quality backlinks for e-commerce websites? No, it isn’t. There are many other link-building strategies to get valuable links and build a rich and natural backlink profile. We’ve gathered the proven ones in this article.

• Builds SEO authority by getting quality backlinks to products, categories, and brand pages.
• Strong backlink profiles improve search rankings, traffic, and sales.
• Effective across all e-commerce niches and business sizes.
• Direct link-building tactics: guest posting, outreach & digital PR, fixing broken links, converting unlinked mentions, and sponsor links.
• Content-based tactics: link-worthy content, FAQ sections, customer reviews, and product roundups.
• Indirect tactics: influencer collaborations, brand ambassadors, and affiliate programs.
• Success is measured by rankings, traffic, and backlink growth.
• Results typically appear in 30–90 days; consistency is key.
• Focus on quality and diversity of backlinks over quantity.

E-commerce link building is a search engine optimization technique aimed at improving the search engine ranking of an online store. It involves obtaining a number of quality links to the product, brand, category, and other pages of the store website that signal to search engine algorithms that their content is valuable.

Link building for an e-commerce site is a way to "make" the Internet talk about your product or service. It's to "convince" search engines of the reliability of your online store.

Click here for a more detailed explanation of link building definition👈

E-commerce Backlinks: What They Are and Why They Matter

E‑commerce backlinks, also known as inbound links, are links from third-party websites that lead to your online store and signal its authority to search engines. They make up the backlink profile of a website. 

The stronger the backlink profile, the higher the chances are that Google and other search engines will consider an e-commerce site authoritative and rank it closer to the top in search results. That does matter as online e-commerce businesses meet a number of challenges:

• Competition for the same products in the e-commerce sphere is intense. If you do not produce something unique, be prepared for a savage rivalry.
• Most niches are dominated by large global marketplaces, such as Amazon, eBay, and Walmart, which have massive marketing budgets.
• Highly developed paid promotion methods. The first page of Google search results is occupied by AI Overviews, PPC, merchants, and others. So, it would be best if you pumped SEO to be on page 1.

Being visible online does matter and will be even more important for business success in the near future. According to Statista research, e-commerce accounted for more than 23% of global retail sales in 2025. Experts predict that by 2030, online shopping will make up a quarter of all retail sales worldwide.

Yes, any e-commerce website benefits from implementing effective link-building strategies.

By building quality backlinks, online businesses get:

• improved brand awareness;
• more potential customers see and visit the online store;
• increased sales and profit.

Despite changes in the SEO landscape driven by the rapidly growing popularity of AI models, 52% of e-commerce brands use digital PR to earn high-quality backlinks, according to Reboot research based on an analysis of nearly 100 e-commerce websites. Typically, these are large brands, while small brands are far less likely to leverage this link building tactic for SEO growth.

Which E-commerce Niches Use Link Building: Real-Life Examples

Link building works for all e-commerce niches, whether it’s a local monopolist or a global seller in a specific niche, like grooming products or something like that. Whatever the business size or geography, all of them need high online visibility to reach their potential buyers.

To see if it’s really true, we’ll analyze the changes that have occurred in the backlink profiles over the last two years.

Analysis Methodology:

We analyzed the backlink profiles of seven e-commerce websites of different sizes and niches:

• One large online store offering various products worldwide, with traffic exceeding 350 million
• Six smaller e-commerce websites from different niches, each with at least 1 million monthly visitors, according to Ahrefs

We focused on:

• The number of backlinks added during the last month
• Organic traffic during the last month
• The total number of backlinks acquired over the past two years

All data is accurate as of January 2026.

Amazon Backlink Profile — Global E-Commerce Giant

Let’s look at an example of a large, well-known website. Below, we show and describe the qualitative indicators of the Amazon site.

What we see here:

• More than 352 million users access the site, partly thanks to 38.1 billion backlinks. It is organic traffic
• The site has a 96 DA rating; again, backlinks cannot be underestimated here
• Thanks to a great number of authoritative backlinks, Amazon can save its advertising budget

Of course, almost 40 billion backlinks haven’t appeared in a day or even a month. It’s an ongoing effort if you want to get ahead of the competition.

Specsavers Backlink Profile – UK’s Major Eyewear & Eye Care Retailer

Specsavers.co.uk has been a family-owned and operated provider of eye and ear health products and services for four decades. This retailer can be found in the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.

As you can see in the screenshot below, the website has continually grown its backlinks over the last two years. Over the past month:

• Backlinks from 438 referring domains were removed from the website’s backlink profile
• Total number of backlinks for all time: 28.7M
• New backlinks (last month): +58.6K
• Organic traffic change (last month): +80.3K

Chewy Backlinks Profile — US Pet Products Supplier

Chewy.com is an American online retailer of pet food and other pet-related products, including pet supplies, medications, and veterinary products, which are delivered to customers’ homes.

Let’s analyze this site’s backlink profile:

• The website was cleaned of links from 81 referring domains
• Total number of backlinks for all time: 31.9M
• New backlinks (last month): +76.2K
• Organic traffic change (last month): +502K

George at ASDA Backlink Profile — UK Online Clothing and Homeware Retailer

George at ASDA is the clothing and homeware section of the UK supermarket chain ASDA, offering fashion items for men, women, and children online and in-store.

As you can see in the screenshot below, the number of backlinks was continually growing.

• 530 referring domains were added
• Total number of backlinks for all time: 6.2M
• New backlinks (last month): +25.6K
• Organic traffic change (last month): +149K

AboutYou Backlink Profile — German Online Fashion Retailer

AboutYou.de is a German online fashion store that sells clothing, shoes, and accessories from a wide range of brands. The website allows users to browse products by category and brand and place orders through a standard e-commerce checkout process.

According to Ahrefs’ overview, the backlink profile was cleaned of a number of links from April to October 2025, and since then, the number of backlinks has been growing.

• 366 referring domains were added
• Total number of backlinks for all time: 198M
• New backlinks (last month): +438K
• Organic traffic change (last month): +16.7K

Galaxus Backlink Profile — Swiss Multi‑Category E‑Commerce Store

Galaxus.ch is a Swiss online store that sells a wide range of products, including electronics, household items, sports gear, and toys. The site is part of Digitec Galaxus AG and allows customers to browse and purchase products online.

They cleaned their backlink profile of over 1,000 backlinks and gained over 1 million new links in a single month.

• 1.3K referring domains were added
• Total number of backlinks for all time: 41.8M
• New backlinks (last month): +1.1M
• Organic traffic change (last month): +82.7K

Matas Backlink Profile — Danish Health and Beauty E‑Commerce Store

Matas.dk is the online store of Matas, a Danish health and beauty retailer offering cosmetics, skincare, perfume, vitamins, and personal care products.

The website allows customers to browse and purchase products online, with delivery options and links to the company’s physical stores.

Here we also see a continuous growth of backlinks over the last two years.

• 41 referring domains were deleted
• Total number of backlinks for all time: 2M
• New backlinks (last month): +13.5K
• Organic traffic change (last month): +49.6K

Let’s explore which e-commerce link-building types you can use to support that ongoing effort. For your convenience, we’ve divided them into three categories:

Direct E-Commerce Link Acquisition

Direct e-commerce link acquisition focuses on earning backlinks through proactive tactics such as guest posting, digital PR, broken link recovery, unlinked brand mentions, and sponsorships. These strategies help online stores get authoritative, relevant links that strengthen SEO performance, brand visibility, and trust.

1. Guest posting

Among all known link-building strategies for e-commerce, the guest posting tactic is comprehensive. Guest blogging opportunities are excellent for e-commerce websites because you can get a backlink to your website and perform several other tasks.

• You tell a potential client about your expertise.
• Improve SEO and other qualitative site indicators.

We have already written an overview of the best link building tools and how to buy backlinks safely. Each of them will help you to implement the guest posting strategy more quickly and efficiently. For example, with the help of Collaborator, you quickly select the best sites to place the link and agree on placing your expert article.

Here's an example of a website available in Collaborator's catalog where you can have a guest post about the choice of accessories for gamers from your online store published.

Here, you can also find relevant websites for distributing your marketing press releases.

2. Outreach and Digital PR (Media Relations)

A single backlink from a highly authoritative, niche-relevant website is far more valuable and impactful than dozens from irrelevant, low-DA domains. So, when prioritizing your e-commerce link-building efforts, remember that digital PR — particularly distributing your content on authoritative news media — isn’t just about media coverage, but also about boosting your SEO.

For instance, you can get an e-commerce brand link from an authoritative online news platform. Below is an example of a brand mention of Studio Roslyn and an e-commerce brand link to Vancouver-based jeweler Olive & Piper placed in an article on the Vancouver Sun website.

Digital PR is a unique resource that you can create based on your experience: 

• infographics;
• surveys;
• unique statistics;
• roundups;
• industry overviews;
• etc.

It can also be any other activity that might interest journalists: events, relevant rallies, etc.

Outset can be something other than a daily thing! It should be a study that can be safely published in Forbes or Nasdaq.com. For example, this is a monumental study from Grandviewresearch.com.

Take advantage of this e-commerce SEO link-building strategy — create unique and incomparable content that interests the media. But if you are not sure that you have enough expertise to conduct such research, use the idea we will discuss below.

3. Broken Links

This e-commerce link building strategy resembles Brand Mention, but we are looking for references with broken links here. The goal is to correct errors in your backlink profile by checking for broken links that you have previously placed on other websites. 

Recovering links can be even more important than acquiring new ones. Monitor your competitors, and you'll see that many are losing organic coverage due to various issues.

The backlinks building tools we have mentioned repeatedly — Ahrefs and MOZ — will help you find such links.

4. Brand Unlinked Mentions

Each product or service is useful, unique, and has its target audience. But not all the materials that are written about you have your link. It means that you are almost guaranteed to have an ambassador who, on social networks or in their blog, mentioned your brand but did not specify a link. Or left an old irrelevant reference to your website.

Find references without links with Content Analyzer BuzzSumo.

After you find references to your brand, check for the absence of a link and contact the content owner.

5. Sponsor Links

Sponsor links are always available on partners' websites. So, become sponsors of conferences and other events to improve your link profile.

Just take a look at the Formula 1 sponsor block on their website. There are many e-commerce brands, from Lenovo, Puma, and Louis Vuitton to American Express and Nestle. Each logo is clickable, with a link to the sponsor’s website.

Content-Based E-Commerce Link Building Types

Content-based e-commerce link building focuses on creating assets that naturally attract links, such as useful guides, FAQs, and customer reviews. By answering real user questions and publishing genuinely helpful content, online stores can earn backlinks organically while improving search visibility, trust, and user experience.

1. Link-Worthy E-commerce Content

Any helpful content you can create is your personal effective communication tactics for e-commerce brands. Because you can make:

• practical tips and guides about your product and service;
• overviews;
• TOP lists award.

2. FAQ Sections

The FAQ section allows you to solve three major SEO tasks for your site quickly:

• You can organically use more keywords to improve SEO performance.
• You answer specific users' questions.
• As a result, Google and other search engines can use your FAQ section to place your site link closer to TOP-3 search results.

The advantage of this strategy is that it allows you to compete with strong competitors who spend money on advertising.

To choose correctly and write questions for the FAQ, you have some proven ways.

One way:

• Go to the Ahrefs TOP Pages tab and find the site pages with the most keywords
• Copy these URLs and paste one at a time into the Organic Keywords tab
• In the "SERP features" field, choose the "People also ask"
• Next, export the questions to the CSV file and sort them using Excel

Another way:

• Identify the keywords you want to be closer to the TOP search results with MOZ Keyword Explorer
• Use the MOZ Keyword Suggestions to expand the list of keywords, including users' questions

• Enter search queries in Google and find the questions that users ask search engines
• Form a question and add an answer

3. Customer Reviews

Hostinger provides e-commerce statistics, according to which:

• 9 out of 10 consumers trust online reviews when making purchasing decisions.
• About 55% of consumers read at least four online reviews before making a purchase, while 44% check up to three.
• 72% of consumers use their mobile devices to read reviews, even when shopping in-store.

Most users are more attentive to negative feedback. So, you need to keep abreast of reviews and respond quickly to positive and especially, negative comments to retain your loyal customers and attract new buyers. You can also:

• Find the most popular review websites (TripAdvisor, Yelp, Foursquare, etc.).
• Ask your customers to provide feedback on your collaboration.
• Offer discounts for reviews or create a points system for detailed feedback.

It will help create a positive first impression for both new and regular customers.

Reviews on Golden Nile (Rug Store) on Trustpilot

Also, product feedback on other online portals is one of the easiest ways to build links to product pages and improve your backlink profile. In fact, in many cases, you don’t even need to do anything to make this happen — many websites publish roundups of top or best products. They rate or recommend these products and include backlinks.

These types of articles present a great opportunity for link insertions. To find them, use search queries like "best {your product type}" or "top {your product type} for {specific use case}." Then, reach out to the website owners and arrange to have your product included in their article with a backlink.

Indirect E-Commerce Link-Building Opportunities

Indirect link building uses influencers, brand ambassadors, and affiliates to promote your products and earn backlinks. Loyal customers or smaller influencers can share experiences, organize events, or join affiliate programs to attract new buyers and strengthen your link profile.

1. Influencers and Brand Ambassadors

Influencer marketing is not just about advertising with world-famous people on Instagram, such as Cristiano Ronaldo or Kourtney Kardashian.

You can now find smaller bloggers and influencers with audiences of 1,000 to 50,000 subscribers to review your product. Although they may not have millions of fans worldwide, these influencers can still help you enhance your link profile and attract new customers.

To find the most suitable bloggers to review your product or service, use BuzzSumo. You will find a list of bloggers on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, and other platforms. You will also be able to check coverage, audience engagement, and other qualitative indicators before entering service agreements.

As for brand ambassadors, their primary goal is to increase users' interest in your product or service. For you, their work will serve as an effective link-building tactic for e-commerce brands, helping to increase customer loyalty and build a strong link profile.

The easiest way to find an ambassador is among your most loyal clients. This could be the most active client from Viber, Telegram, or Reddit chats. Alternatively, you can offer the role to a satisfied customer who actively shares their experience with your product and services on social networks.

With the development of technology, young people are often willing to become brand ambassadors, even for free. They:

• develop online community (create and promote social networks, messengers, and channels);
• organize online and offline events;
• help users understand the benefits of your product or service.

2. Affiliate Program

You do not spend money on advertising — your client does it for you. Furthermore, you pay him a percentage of the purchase. In this way, you will interest customers to bring new customers.

The main sign that your e-commerce link building efforts are successful is an improvement in your website’s overall online performance. Additionally, when a page with backlinks starts ranking higher, it can also boost the performance of the internal pages it links to.

In general, noticeable results start to appear within 30 to 90 days, depending on the niche and competition level. In highly competitive markets, it might take up to 6 months to see significant movement.

Google’s major Core Updates — which typically roll out once a quarter (though Google has said they’re aiming for monthly updates) — often play a key role in when those improvements become visible.

Most importantly, link building is not a one-time fix — it’s an ongoing process that requires consistency.

E-commerce link building is a big driver of traffic, sales, and scalability. As competition tightens and search engines get pickier, a strong, varied, high-quality backlink profile may be just what your store needs to stand out from the crowd. 

From product reviews and guest posting to digital PR and targeted outreach, the best approach is to mix and match tactics and keep consistent. Just by implementing the right e-commerce SEO strategies, tracking results, and pivoting for your niche, you can not only get better search rankings but also build your brand authority, win loyal customers, and achieve sustainable e-commerce success in 2026 and beyond.