In the hyper-competitive world of ecommerce, simply having a beautiful Shopify store isn’t enough. To truly dominate search results and drive consistent, high-converting organic traffic, you need authority. And in Google’s eyes, that authority is largely measured by your backlink profile—the collection of links pointing to your store from other reputable websites.
Link building for an ecommerce store has unique challenges, as product and category pages are inherently less “linkable” than a comprehensive guide. However, by focusing on strategic, white-hat tactics, you can build a powerful link profile that will elevate your entire store.
Here are the six best link building strategies every Shopify store owner should implement.
1. Create and Promote Linkable Assets (The Cornerstone Content)
Product pages and transactional content rarely earn natural links. To overcome this, you must create content designed specifically to attract them. These are known as linkable assets.
What to Create:
- Original Data and Research: Conduct a survey on a niche topic related to your products (e.g., “The State of Sustainable Packaging in 2025”) and publish the results. Journalists and bloggers love citing original data.
- Comprehensive Tools/Calculators: Develop a free, interactive tool like a “Sizing Guide Calculator,” “Interior Design Color Palette Generator,” or a “Cost-Savings Estimator” related to your product. These provide immense value and are frequently linked as a resource.
- Ultimate Guides: Produce the single, most comprehensive guide on a core topic in your niche (e.g., “The Ultimate Guide to Brewing Craft Beer at Home” for a home-brewing supply store).
The Strategy: Once built, aggressively promote these assets to relevant industry blogs, news sites, and resource pages. Links to these authoritative pages will naturally boost your overall Domain Authority, which benefits your entire store.
2. Leverage Influencer Marketing and Product Reviews
For ecommerce, the most direct path to high-quality, relevant links is through product seeding and reviews from influential bloggers, niche publications, and industry experts.
The Strategy:
- Target Niche Reviewers: Identify micro-influencers and bloggers whose audience perfectly matches yours. Offer them a free product in exchange for an honest review. Many will naturally include a link back to your product page or category page within their review article.
- Utilize Press Platforms: Services like Press Loft specialize in connecting ecommerce brands (especially in home, fashion, and gift sectors) with journalists and bloggers looking for products to feature.
A link from a trusted product review site in your niche is a powerful signal of relevance and trust to search engines.
3. The Broken Link Building Tactic
Broken link building is a highly effective, white-hat strategy where you help website owners fix their site while earning a link for your own.
The Strategy:
- Find Broken Links: Use SEO tools to find resource pages, “best of” lists, or general blog posts in your niche that contain broken external links (links leading to a 404 error).
- Offer a Replacement: Reach out to the site owner politely, point out the broken link, and suggest your superior, relevant content (an article, guide, or even a product/category page) as a perfect replacement.
This is a win-win: the site owner improves their user experience and SEO, and you get a high-quality, contextual link.
4. Guest Posting on Niche Blogs
Guest blogging remains a powerful strategy, provided your focus is on quality, not quantity. The goal is to contribute genuinely valuable content to non-competing, authoritative blogs in your vertical.
The Strategy:
- Find Relevant Sites: Search for phrases like “your niche” + “write for us” or “your competitor” + “guest post” to find blogs that accept contributions.
- Pitch Unique Ideas: Don’t pitch promotional content. Pitch a unique, helpful topic that aligns perfectly with their audience.
- Earn the Contextual Link: Include one or two highly relevant links back to your Shopify store’s educational content or a valuable category page naturally within the body of the article.
This strategy not only secures a link but also positions your brand as a credible voice in the industry. If you are struggling with in-house resources for this, you might consider reaching out to leading Shopify SEO experts in the USA who specialize in scaling these precise kinds of authority-building campaigns.
5. Convert Unlinked Brand Mentions
It’s common for media outlets, bloggers, and industry sites to mention your brand or products without actually linking back to your store. This is low-hanging fruit for link building.
The Strategy:
- Monitor Mentions: Use tools like Google Alerts or dedicated mention tracking software to find every time your brand name is mentioned online.
- Request the Link: If a mention is positive and highly relevant, simply reach out to the author or editor with a friendly email. Thank them for the mention, and politely ask if they could turn the mention into a clickable link for their readers’ convenience. Since they already chose to mention you, the conversion rate for this tactic is often very high.
6. Strategic Digital PR Campaigns
Digital Public Relations involves creating an event, story, or piece of data designed to be inherently newsworthy, then pitching it to journalists. This is one of the most effective ways to earn high-authority links from major news publications.
The Strategy:
- Create a News Hook: This could be a unique product launch, an annual data report (e.g., “The Top Trending Home Decor Styles of the Year”), a charitable initiative, or a commentary on a current market trend.
- Target Journalists: Use platforms like HARO (Help A Reporter Out) or specific media databases to find journalists actively writing about topics related to your hook.
- Offer Exclusive Commentary: Position yourself as the expert source. For a fashion retailer, this might mean offering a quote on “the collapse of fast fashion” to a major lifestyle magazine, which includes a link back to your ethical sourcing page.
By treating your link building as an exercise in earning trust and authority—not just collecting links—your Shopify store will build a sustainable, powerful SEO foundation capable of outranking even the biggest competitors.

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