7 Best Backlink Checker Tools – Free & Paid Options (Compared)

Do you want to see where your backlinks are coming from? Or check on a competitor’s backlinks?

Backlinks can help boost your search rankings and increase your traffic.

In this guide, we’ll compare the best backlink checker tools that you can use to audit your site’s backlinks as well as a competitor’s backlink profile.

What Are Backlinks and Why Are They Important?

A backlink is a link to your website from another website. In the eyes of search engines, backlinks are a bit like votes for your site. The more links you have, the higher your site is likely to rank in search engines.

Not all backlinks are created equal, though. The best backlinks are ones from big, respected websites. Backlinks from spammy or suspicious websites can be actively harmful to your site.

After installing a WordPress SEO plugin like All in One SEO or Yoast and following the best practices, the next step is to think through your backlink strategy.

There are a lot of ways to get backlinks to your site, but the process always starts with using a backlink checker to check existing backlinks for your site and your competitors.

That being said, let’s take a look at the best tools to track backlinks of any website.

1. Semrush

Semrush is our top recommendation for a backlink checker. It’s one of the best keyword research tools on the market, and it has lots of powerful tools to let you analyze backlinks.

To use the backlink features, login to Semrush, select ‘Backlink Analytics,’ and type in the name of the domain you want to investigate. You’ll then see lots of information about the domain and its backlinks.

If you want to dig into more details on any section of this overview, just click the link beneath that section to view the full report.

You can use Semrush to check your site’s links, which could help you pinpoint any issues such as low-quality links. In fact, Semrush makes this easy for you by letting you see how many total links a page linking to you has. If the page has hundreds of links, that can indicate a spammy website.

When it comes to competitors’ backlinks, you can use Semrush to see which high-authority sites are linking to them, what keywords they are ranking for, and so much more. This can give you a whole list of sites to target for your own backlink building.

Price:

Semrush costs from $119.95/month and goes all the way to $449.95 per month.

You can get an exclusive 7-day free trial by going through our link to Semrush. If you want step-by-step instructions on how to get this deal, check out our Semrush coupon code page.

2. All in One SEO (AIOSEO)

All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is the best SEO plugin for WordPress. Over 3 million professionals use the plugin, making it super easy to optimize your website for search engines without requiring technical knowledge or hiring an expert.

AIOSEO offers a Link Assistant feature that helps you check internal backlinks on your website. Internal backlinks or internal links, help connect one post or page with each other.

With AIOSEO Link Assistant, you can create better internal links and boost your WordPress SEO score.

It helps identify orphan pages with no internal links and offers recommendations to create internal links. There’s even an option to bulk add internal links automatically with just one click.

Plus, the Link Assistant shows linking opportunities from different blog posts and pages. This helps save time and ensures that you don’t miss out on creating an internal link that could benefit your site.

Other than that, AIOSEO also lets you audit outbound links on your website and ensure that there are no broken links.

Pricing:

AIOSEO pricing plans start from $49.50 per year. However, the Internal Link Assistant feature is available in the Pro version and will cost you $199.50 per year.

Each premium plan comes with a 14-day money-back guarantee. There’s also an AIOSEO Lite version which you can use for free.

3. LinkMiner

LinkMiner is explicitly designed to check backlinks. It’s a tool from Mangools, so you’ll need a Mangools account in order to use it.

As with other tools, LinkMiner lets you filter links by nofollow, deleted, new, and lost.

One handy feature you’ll want to try is the ability to ‘favorite’ backlinks so that you can come back to them easily. This could be a great way to make a shortlist of competitors’ backlinks to target.

You could also use this feature to keep track of any of your own backlinks that you want to fix. For instance, you could create a list of lost backlinks that you want to concentrate on recovering.

While LinkMiner isn’t as fully featured as SEMRush, it is a great option if you’re on a tight budget.

You’ll likely want to use it in conjunction with Mangools’ SiteProfiler to view details like a site’s total backlinks and top referring domains.

Price:

You can take a free 10-day trial without entering any credit card details. After that, you’ll need to pay $26.91/month.

This fee covers all Mangools’ tools. These are LinkMiner, KWFinder, SERPChecker, SERPWatcher, and SiteProfiler. It’s a great budget option.

4. Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is a tool from Neil Patel. The main tool offers keyword research features, but there’s also a Backlinks tool that you can use to view details of your site’s backlinks.

Ubersuggest has similar features to the other tools we’ve been looking at. For instance, it can show you new backlinks, backlinks you’ve lost, which backlinks are marked as nofollow, and more.

You can use the free version to see this information, but you’ll only get details of a small number of backlinks for each domain. You need to upgrade to the paid version of Ubersuggest if you want everything.

Ubersuggest’s other tools can analyze traffic and help you come up with keyword and content ideas.

Price:

Ubersuggest’s free version can give you a good sense of what the tool can do. To do any serious backlink analysis, you’ll want the Pro version, which costs $29/month or $290/year if you pay upfront.

There’s a 30-day “no questions asked” money-back guarantee.

5. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is another powerful keyword research tool. Like SEMRush, it’s easy to use. It’ll give you an overview of your chosen domain, and you can drill down to look at lots of details of backlinks.

Ahrefs also makes it really easy to see backlinks that you’ve lost. These are links you once had that have now vanished. Perhaps the website owner deleted the page that linked to you, for instance.

You can also identify backlinks that are broken. These links point to your site, but using a broken URL that lands on your 404 page. You might need to contact the site owner to fix them.

You can also use Ahrefs to examine internal links on your site. You can filter these to check for internal links you’ve accidentally nofollowed, so you can fix those.

Price:

You can take a 7-day trial of Ahrefs’ Site Explorer for just $7. After that, it’s priced from $99/month. If you pay for the year upfront, it’s $82/month.

6. Moz Pro

Moz Pro, the suite of SEO tools from Moz, includes their Link Explorer tool.

Link Explorer can give you a detailed link profile of your site, which you can compare with the profile of up to 4 competitors. This lets you figure out what they might be doing differently from you.

It also has a handy tool called Link Intersect, where you can see which sites are linking to your competitors but not to you. These sites are great ones to target for building links.

Like the other tools we’ve looked at, Moz also lets you see what backlinks you’ve lost. This gives you the chance to try to get those links replaced.

As well as the backlink tools, you’ll also get access to all Moz’s other SEO tools. These include Campaigns to track and analyze your site, Rank Checker to evaluate your search engine performance, and more.

Price:

Moz costs from $99/month ($79/month paid upfront annually). There’s a 30-day free trial, though, which gives you full access to all their tools.

7. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is designed to let you analyze your content and your competitors’ content. It’s a great way to come up with topic ideas, but you can also use it to help you with your backlink strategy.

You can simply type in a keyword or a domain name to see the most popular content for that keyword, or the most popular content on that domain. You can then click the link icon next to any of the results to see the backlinks for that piece of content.

You can even type in the URL of a specific piece of content and see just the backlinks that point to that. This could be a great way to see which sites are linking to your competitors’ top posts.

Their straightforward Backlinks tool lets you find the pages linking to a specific URL or domain. This is an easy way to see your competitors’ backlinks at a glance.

You can easily filter the backlinks to view ones from various periods of time between the past 24 hours and the past 5 years.

Price:

The basic version of BuzzSumo is free. For in-depth backlink analysis, though, you’ll need to upgrade to BuzzSumo Pro. It costs $99/month, or $79 if you pay annually.

There’s a 30-day free trial available, too. You don’t need to enter any credit card details for this.

Which Is The Best Backlink Checker Tool?

Any of these backlink checkers could help you build your site’s backlinks and rank more highly in search engines. Some of them offer a lot more helpful information than others.

Our top recommendation is SEMRush. It is one of the best SEO tools on the market and helps you grow your business. On the other hand, if you want a detailed overview of internal backlinks and want to improve your internal links, then we recommend All in One SEO (AIOSEO).

If you’re on a tight budget, though, LinkMiner and Ubersuggest are good value. And OpenLinkProfiler is completely free.

We hope this article helped you learn about the best backlink checker tools. You might also like to take a look at our ultimate guide to WordPress SEO for beginners and our tips on how to increase your blog traffic.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post 7 Best Backlink Checker Tools – Free & Paid Options (Compared) first appeared on WPBeginner.

June 24, 2022 at 03:30PM

How to Add Multiple Locations Schema for Local Business in WordPress

Are you managing a local business website that have multiple physical locations?

In that case, you would need to add local business schema markup for multiple locations on your site, so Google and other search engines can display detailed information about your various business locations.

In this article, we’ll show you

how to properly add local business schema markup for multiple locations in WordPress to improve your SEO.

Why Create Local Business Schema Markup for Multiple Locations?

Schema markup or structured data is HTML code that provides more details about your content to search engines.

By adding schema markup to the source code of your WordPress website, search engines can easily find the extra information and display it in the search results as featured snippets. For instance, you can show FAQs in search results, add Google Maps in WordPress, display recipes, and more.

If you have multiple business locations like retail outlets, restaurants, or regional offices, then you can display them on Google and Bing search results through schema markup.

For example, if you search for McDonald’s locations in Florida, Google will show you a featured snippet with the different destinations and a map with pinned locations.

Creating multiple local business locations with schema markup helps improve your website SEO rankings.

Since the featured snippets are placed right at the top of the search results, it helps you to increase your click rate in search. That means more organic traffic and more conversions.

That being said, let’s take a look at how you can create local business schema for multiple business locations in WordPress.

Creating Multiple Locations Using Schema Markup

The easiest way of setting up local business schema markup in WordPress is by using the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) plugin. It’s the best SEO tool for WordPress that’s used by over 3 million website owners and professionals.

AIOSEO removes the need for any technical knowledge or hiring an expert to boost your search engine visibility.

For this tutorial, we’ll be using the AIOSEO Pro license because it includes the Local SEO addon which is what you need to dominate local business SEO. It also other powerful features like the redirection manager, advanced sitemap, link assistant, and more. If you’re on a budget, then you can use the free version of AIOSEO to get started with SEO optimization.

The first thing you’ll need to do is install and activate the AIOSEO plugin. For more details, please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you’ll see the setup wizard. Go ahead and click the ‘Let’s Get Started’ button.

After that, follow the onscreen instructions in the setup wizard to configure the plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to properly setup AIOSEO in WordPress.

Next, you’ll need to head over to All in One SEO » Local SEO from your WordPress dashboard and click the ‘Activate Local SEO’ button.

Once the Local SEO addon is active, you’ll see different Location Settings.

Go ahead and click the ‘Multiple Locations’ toggle to enable the option. This will add a new menu in your WordPress admin panel called Locations.

After that, you can scroll down to the ‘Advanced Settings’ section.

Here you can see the permalink AIOSEO will use to show your multiple business locations and location category. If you wish to use a custom link, then simply check the ‘Use custom slug’ box and enter your permalink url structure.

Next, you can also switch on the ‘Enhanced Search’ option, which will include your business locations in your WordPress site search results.

When you’re done, don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button.

Next, you can go to the ‘Opening Hours’ tab and configure the times for your local businesses.

By default, the ‘Show Opening Hours’ option will be set to Yes. If you don’t want to show opening hours, then simply click the toggle to No.

After that, you can scroll down and change the labels for when your business is open or closed.

There are also options to change the opening and closing timings for specific days or set it to open 24/7.

Note: The opening hours will be used across all the locations you add in WordPress. However, you can disable them for specific locations in the content editor.

AIOSEO also lets you integrate Google Maps with your WordPress website which helps show your local business on Google Maps. For more details, you can see our guide on how to add Google Maps in WordPress.

Next, you’ll need to add your multiple business locations in WordPress.

Adding Multiple Business Locations in WordPress

When you enable the Multiple Locations option in AIOSEO, a new ‘Locations’ option will appear in your WordPress admin panel.

To add your local business locations, simply go to Locations » Add New from your WordPress dashboard.

Next, you’ll need to add your location details in the WordPress content editor. Here you can add a title for your business location, which can be the location name.

Under the title, you can add more details or description about your location. You can also create location categories from the settings panel on your right.

After that, simply scroll down to the AIOSEO Local Business metabox.

In the ‘Business Info’ section, you can add your business name, select a business type (industry), add an image, enter the address for your location, business phone, payment info, area served, and more.

Next, you can switch to the ‘Opening Hours’ tab under the AIOSEO Local Business metabox.

AIOSEO will use the default settings automatically. However, you can disable the ‘Use Defaults’ option and then configure the opening and closing hours for your local business.

Next, you can go to the ‘Maps’ tab and configure how your local business will appear on Google Maps.

For instance, you can change map style and upload a custom marker to pin your location on the map.

When you’re done, go ahead and publish your location page.

Now you can simply repeat this process for other locations you want to add to your WordPress website.

We hope this article helped you learn how to create multiple locations in WordPress with schema markup. You may also want to see our guide on must have WordPress plugins for business websites, and our comparison of the best email marketing services for small business.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Add Multiple Locations Schema for Local Business in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.

June 23, 2022 at 03:00PM

Welcome WP Charitable to the WPBeginner Family of Products

Today, I’m extremely excited to share that WP Charitable is joining Awesome Motive, and they’re now part of the WPBeginner family of products.

WP Charitable is a top-rated WordPress donation and fundraising plugin. Over 10,000+ non-profit organizations and website owners across the world use Charitable to create fundraising campaigns and raise more money online. 

Introduction to WP Charitable – Quick Overview

WP Charitable makes it easy for non-profits and fundraisers to collect more donations worldwide. 

Unlike other non-profit donation platforms, Charitable does not charge any transaction fees, so more money can go towards supporting your great cause.

Charitable is a top-rated WordPress donation and fundraising plugin because it’s both easy and powerful. It comes with all the features you need including fully customizable donation forms, ability to accept one-time or recurring donations, easy donation management dashboard, GDPR compliance, annual donor receipts, gift giving in honor of someone else, fee relief which allows donors to cover payment process fees, and more.

You can also use Charitable for peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns, and it even lets you create your own crowdfunding platform like GoFundMe or Indiegogo.

Charitable supports multiple currency and payment gateways, so you can accept donations from anywhere in the world.

The plugin has built-in payment integrations for Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.net, Braintree, Mollie, GoCardless, Paystack, Payfast, Payrexx, Windcave, and more.

You can also stay connected with your donors through the email marketing feature which integrates seamlessly with Mailchimp, MailerLite, Active Campaign, Campaign Monitor, Mailster, Mailpoet, and 5000+ other marketing automation platforms using either Zapier or Webhooks.

And if you’re a developer, WP Charitable comes with custom hooks, filters, donation fields API, and extensive developer documentation, so you can customize the plugin based on your project needs.

To celebrate this big occasion, we’re offering up to $100 off on WP Charitable.

Get the WP Charitable Plugin Now →  

You can also use the free version of Charitable to get started. 

Background Story – Why WP Charitable? 

As you know, every year I do a WPBeginner reader survey where I ask for your suggestions on what new tutorials we should write, plugins we should build, new features we should add to our existing plugins, and so on.

For the last three years, the number of requests from our non-profit users to build a beginner-friendly WordPress donation plugin has been increasing.

Our first response to the survey request was to create a discounted WPForms plan for non-profits that makes it easy for non-profit organizations to create online donation forms while also getting access to all the powerful features of WPForms form builder which is used by 5 million websites.

This was much appreciated by a lot of users, but some organizations still didn’t have a budget for a discounted plan.

So last year, we acquired WP Simple Pay, which as the name suggests is a simple online payment plugin that lets you accept payments using Stripe credit card, ACH, Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc. 

It even has a free version which solved the problem for a lot of smaller non-profit organizations that were on a tight budget.

The downside for a group of organizations was that it’s restricted to Stripe payment gateway only, and it lacked all the other powerful features that one would expect from a full donation & fundraising platform.

So after reviewing the 2022 WPBeginner reader survey results along with the WPForms user feedback, we decided that it was finally time for us to build a WordPress donations plugin that’s both easy and powerful.

We had two options, build from scratch or see if there was an existing solution in the market that we could simply acquire and add the features you all have been asking for.

Luckily, the timing aligned with the founders of Charitable, and we were able to make the deal happen where WP Charitable would join the Awesome Motive family of products.

The two co-founders will not be joining the team as they are focusing on other ventures instead.

I was able to convince one of the most highly respected and well-known WordPress developers, David Bisset, to join our team and lead the WP Charitable project.

David and I have known each other for nearly a decade. We both live in Florida, and we were co-organizers of the WordCamp Miami event.

I am excited to work alongside David as we work to build the best online fundraising platform for WordPress and the web.

As you know, at Awesome Motive, our mission is to help small businesses grow and compete with the big guys. Our software today powers over 20 million websites and helps shape the web for billions worldwide.

Along with our core mission, we believe that companies should be forces for good.

The WP Charitable plugin allows us to use our knowledge, experience, and resources to empower those who’re changing the world for good.

What’s Coming Next? 

Our work is just starting.

We have an extensive list of ideas and feature roadmap from the feedback that you, the WPBeginner audience, have shared with us in the survey.

I’m looking forward to making those ideas come to life.

This is truly going to be a game changer!

If you have suggestions on features you’d like to see in the WP Charitable plugin, then please let us know by sending us a message via WPBeginner contact form.

Lastly, I just want to say how humbling it is to have this opportunity to serve so many great organizations and make a positive impact in our world.

The impact WP Charitable will have on the world is part of YOUR legacy too.

WPBeginner and Awesome Motive would not be here without YOU, and I just want to say how much I appreciate all of you.

Thank you so much for your continued support of WPBeginner and me over the last 13 years.

And I look forward to continue serving you and the larger WordPress / web ecosystem for years to come.

Yours Truly,

Syed Balkhi
Founder of WPBeginner

P.S. Want us to acquire or invest in your WordPress business? Learn more about the WPBeginner Growth Fund.

The post Welcome WP Charitable to the WPBeginner Family of Products first appeared on WPBeginner.

June 22, 2022 at 07:01PM