Ecommerce link building is the work of earning relevant links that lift an online store's commercial pages, the category and product pages that sell, as well as its blog. It's one of the harder kinds of link building for one reason: the pages a retailer most wants to rank are the pages publishers are least inclined to link to. A blog post is easy to cite. A “women's running shoes” category page isn't.
This page is for retail and ecommerce marketers who can rank their content but struggle to move the pages that convert, and who want links that read as earned coverage.
Different page types need different links
You can't link-build a store as one undifferentiated site. Each page type earns links differently, and a campaign should plan for that:
| Page type | How it earns authority |
|---|---|
| Homepage | Brand mentions, press coverage and partnership links. The easiest target, but rarely the page that needs to rank. |
| Category / PLP | Hardest to earn direct links to. Built indirectly through data stories and buying guides, then strengthened with internal links from the linked asset. |
| Product / PDP | Occasional natural links from gift guides and “best of” roundups. Otherwise supported by internal links from category pages. |
| Blog / guide | Where editorial links land most easily. Its job is to attract authority and pass it on to the commercial pages. |
What you get
Every placement is editorial coverage on a site with its own readers. We don't use PBNs or link networks, and we don't rent links. For retail, we build around the hooks newsdesks already run:
- Price and trend data stories. How prices in your category have moved, what shoppers are searching for, what's selling out. We build these from public price and search data, and can use your own sales figures if you'd like to share them. Consumer and trade press cover retail data, and it points naturally at the category page behind it.
- Buying guides and expert advice. Useful “how to choose” content that earns links and then passes authority internally to the matching category page (internal links vs backlinks explains how that works).
- Seasonal hooks. Campaigns timed to the retail calendar (Black Friday, Christmas, summer sales) when newsdesks are commissioning shopping coverage.
- Gift guide and roundup inclusion. Placement in editorial “best of” features on relevant titles, where a product page can legitimately be the link target.
- Unlinked-mention and broken-link reclamation. Turning existing press that names your store into links, and replacing dead links on resource pages with your live page.
How it works
- Pick the commercial pages. You tell us which category, product or guide pages matter most, and we match each campaign angle to the page that best helps a reader. The publisher makes the final editorial decision.
- Choose the hook. We decide whether a data story, a buying guide, a seasonal angle or a roundup suits your range and the time of year.
- Build and pitch. We create the story and take it to consumer and trade journalists we work with.
- Place and route. Coverage goes live linking to the strongest target page available, and we suggest the internal links that carry authority to pages publishers won't link to directly.
- Report. Every placement, publication, link attribute and target page is tracked in your dashboard.
What we avoid in retail link building
Some tactics still circulate in ecommerce SEO, and search engines have learned to discount or penalise them. We don't use them:
- Paid links and undisclosed paid reviews. Buying links that pass ranking credit is against Google's spam policies, and undisclosed paid product reviews carry the same risk.
- Coupon and voucher-directory spam. Cheap, repetitive and a visible footprint across a profile. Some referral value, almost no authority value.
- Mass press releases. Wire releases sent out at scale rarely earn an editorial link, and journalists treat them as noise.
- Attention-only stunts. A stunt with no connection to what you sell can earn coverage that links to the homepage and does nothing for the pages that convert.
When ecommerce link building isn't the right fit
If your store sells the same dropshipped catalogue as a hundred others, there's little for a journalist to link to, and your effort is better spent on differentiation and product content first. If your margins can't support an ongoing campaign, a smaller, focused push beats a thin spread. And links won't rescue a store with weak product pages, slow load times or no reviews. They help a store that already converts; they won't create conversions on their own.
Pricing
Retail campaigns run through our backlink packages: £4,500 for 10 placements or £7,500 for 20, paid once per campaign or monthly if you prefer. To talk through which category pages to target first, book a call, or see how link building pricing works.
Related
- Digital PR backlinks, the data and seasonal formats behind these campaigns
- High authority backlinks, what separates a strong link from a weak one
- Buying backlinks safely, why coupon and paid links carry risk
- How to measure link building ROI
- SaaS link building, the same product-page problem for software brands
- All services
FAQs
Why is it so hard to get links to category pages?
Journalists link to things that are useful or newsworthy, and a bare category page is neither. BuzzStream's State of Link Building survey shows where link builders aim: 68% prioritise blog posts and only 41% try to earn links to product pages. We earn coverage with a story or a guide, then send that authority to the category page, either with a direct link where the publisher allows it or through internal links from the page that did get linked.
Are coupon and voucher links worth pursuing?
Most coupon and deal-directory links carry little ranking value and look manufactured at scale. They can drive some referral traffic, but we wouldn't build a backlink strategy on them. Editorial coverage on a relevant publication does far more, and it avoids the footprint that paid deal pages leave across a profile.
How do seasonal campaigns fit retail?
Retail has a calendar journalists already write to: Black Friday, Christmas, back to school, summer sales and Valentine's Day. Pitching price trends or buying advice ahead of those peaks works because it answers a question the newsdesk is already planning to cover.
Can you link to individual product pages?
Sometimes. In a gift guide or a 'best of' roundup, a product page is the natural link target. More often the lasting authority goes to a category or guide page, which is usually the page that ranks for the high-volume commercial terms, so that's where the investment tends to pay back.
Is digital PR better than guest posts for retail?
For lasting authority, usually yes. Guest-post marketplaces are dominated by weak sites: in research published in January 2024, BuzzStream classed 85.3% of guest-post sites as low quality (DR under 40 and under 10,000 monthly visits). A consumer-press placement built on a retail data story or gift guide carries more weight and reads as earned coverage.