Link building has always been a crucial part of SEO. But now in the era of AI search, it plays an even bigger role.
Earning placements and links from the right sources can influence how search engines and AI systems discover, trust, and eventually recommend your brand.
But not all link building tools are equally useful for this new landscape. Below are five tools that can really help you increase visibility in AI search.
How We Evaluated These Tools
Every tool in this article is one we personally use to build links and improve AI visibility for our clients.
This isn’t a roundup of everything on the market. It’s the working stack behind our own results.
Between January and August 2026, we’ve secured over 120 high-quality backlinks for our own site and clients.
Those include links from DR 80+ sites like Forbes, Backlinko, SE Ranking, Moosend, Writesonic, and more.
As our clients appear in more places across the web, their visibility in AI Overviews and AI Mode also increased:
- Checkstep saw a 294.7% increase in Google AI impressions (from 2,702 in May to 10,664 in August)
- Decentriq saw a 92.7% increase in Google AI impressions (from 24,995 in May to 48,167 in August)
- HR Datahub saw a 445.91% increase in Google AI impressions (from 13,223 in May to 72,181 in August)
- And the list goes on
Here are the link building tools we use.
Best Link Building Tools for AI Search in 2026
| Tool | Use Case | Starting Price |
| ListBrew | Running AI citation outreach campaigns | Free 50 credits, then $49/month |
| Semrush AI PR Toolkit | Securing placements in top media outlets already cited by AI | From $149/month |
| MentionMatch | Answering journalist and writer requests | Free |
| Alertmouse | Turning unlinked brand mentions into links | Free; paid plans start from $120/year |
ListBrew
- Use case: Running AI citation outreach campaigns
- Pricing: Free plan with one-time 50 credits; paid plans between $49/month and $199/month
ListBrew is a tool we developed here at Position Digital to help our outreach team find prospects and secure backlinks for our clients.
It runs the full link building workflow in one place, so we don’t need to invest in a prospecting tool, an email finder, and a sending platform separately.
There are several link building campaigns you can run, but ListBrew’ main use case is AI citation outreach: finding pages that already rank in Google and LLM answers, and get your brand listed there.
Once you’ve found the right opportunities, use ListBrew’s bulk contact finder to discover the right contact information of the author or editor.
The AI-powered email personalization and outreach tools will then help you send tailored pitches to each opportunity and track replies in a single dashboard.
Key features:
- AI citation discovery. Find relevant listicles, roundups, comparison pages, and alternatives articles already being cited by major AI platforms in your industry.
- Prospect filtering. Prioritize opportunities using metrics such as domain strength, traffic, content type, and AI visibility status.
- Integrated contact finder. Find relevant writers and editors for each target domain, including names, email addresses, and LinkedIn profiles, using integrations with Hunter.io and Apollo. You can also add contacts manually.
- Built-in outreach. Turn prospects into placements without leaving the platform. Use AI to create personalized pitches, send emails at scale, and track opens, replies, and conversions from a single dashboard.
Best for
Solo founders and small teams who want listicle and citation placements without buying three separate tools.
The free plan gives you 50 one-time credits with no card, and paid plans run from $49/month (Solo) through $99/month (Pro) to $199/month (Agency), so you can start small and scale the credits as the campaign grows.
Not ideal for
Teams that want a mature, everything-included enterprise suite. ListBrew is still a young product, and some features are earlier in their development.
Semrush AI PR Toolkit
- Use case: Securing placements in top media outlets already cited by AI
- Pricing: 7-day free trial available; paid plans between $149 and $279/month
If you’re already a Semrush user, I highly recommend buying the AI PR Toolkit add-on. It’s very useful for finding and earning coverage in the outlets AI engines actually cite.
Simply enter your topic and this tool will show you all relevant media sites in that space. You can then target the ones already getting cited by LLMs, find the journalist’s email address, and send a personalized pitch.
It doesn’t stop there. The tool also allows you to schedule automated follow-ups, track email analytics, and monitor media mentions you’ve successfully secured over time.
Key features
- AI-cited media database. Find the outlets and journalists whose coverage shows up in LLM answers for your topics.
- In-platform outreach. Send personalized pitches from your own authenticated domain and track opens, clicks, and engagement.
- Media monitoring. Measure the coverage you earn and see how it moves your brand’s visibility.
Best for
Existing Semrush users. It’s also great for medium and large companies looking for a full-suite SEO and GEO platform, not just a link building tool.
Not ideal for
Solo founders on a tight budget.
Semrush is a serious investment. If earned media is the only feature you need, there are other tools that will get you started for less.
MentionMatch
- Use case: Answering journalist and writer requests
- Pricing: Free
MentionMatch is a journalist request platform that connects B2B writers with expert sources.
The model is simple. Writers post what they need a quote on, you respond with a genuinely useful answer. If they use your answer, you’ll earn a mention and a link.
With this tool, our team members managed to get featured as an expert in publications like HubSpot and Ahrefs.
It’s a great way to increase your AI visibility for two reasons:
- You’re earning mentions on domains that LLMs already trust. Large publications like HubSpot are frequently cited by AI search engines, so securing placements on these high-authority domains can strengthen your AI visibility.
- You’re building the authority signals AI search relies on. By contributing genuine expertise to relevant articles across the web, you’re building your reputation as a trusted source, which can influence how AI engines perceive and cite your brand.
Key features
- Free and easy to start. You just need to subscribe and wait for the right opportunity to contribute your insights.
- Requests from B2B writers at established publications. You’ll find plenty of requests from people writing for the likes of HubSpot, so the placements carry real authority.
- Every request shows the requesting site. So you can judge the opportunity before you spend time on it.
Best for
Founders and marketers with genuine subject-matter expertise who can write a genuinely useful answer fast.
Not ideal for
Anyone hoping to automate their way to coverage. MentionMatch rewards a real human giving a real opinion, and low-effort pitches get ignored by the writers who use it.
Alertmouse
- Use case: Turning unlinked brand mentions into links
- Pricing: Free for up to 10 mentions per day; paid plans between $120 and $1,200 per year
Alertmouse is a brand monitoring tool that catches when someone mentions you online without linking to you, which is one of the easiest links you will ever build.
Someone has already written about you; you are just asking them to make the mention clickable.
But even without a link, brand mentions are still valuable for your GEO efforts. Ahrefs’ study of 75,000 brands found that branded web mentions are among the strongest drivers of AI visibility.
With Alertmouse, you can analyze:
- Web mention volume. See how many organic mentions you earn per week or month, which is a blunt but honest read on whether your brand is well known enough yet.
- Source patterns. Track which types of sites and pages mention you, whether that’s Reddit, LinkedIn, news sites, product pages, or editorial content. You can then use these patterns to identify similar sites and content worth pitching.
- Competitor tracking. See where your competitors are earning mentions and identify opportunities to get your brand mentioned in the same places.
Key features
- Filtered, prioritized alerts. It cuts the spam and noise older tools like Google Alerts drown you in.
- Boolean modifiers. You can zero in on exact-match brand mentions and exclude the junk.
- Competitor tracking. This enables you to spot where a rival is earning mentions that you could chase too.
Best for
Well-known brands that want to convert brand mentions into links.
Not ideal for
New and small companies with little to no online footprint.
If nobody is mentioning you yet, there are no unlinked mentions to reclaim, and your effort is better spent on the discovery tools higher up this list.
Let’s Build Links That Matter
If you run a SaaS company and you want to earn backlinks that actually impact your AI visibility, partner with Position Digital.
With the help of ListBrew, our SaaS link building services are designed to help your brand get featured in the relevant software listicles, tech review sites, SaaS blogs, and news sites that AI already cites.
Contact us today, tell us your goals and let’s build the right plan!
