If you’re eager to take your link-building game to the next level, you’re in the right spot! We’ve got all the details you need on competitive backlink research.
Backlinks are incredibly powerful. In fact, top spots on Google’s search results get 3.8 times more backlinks than other positions. So, how can you use backlinks to improve your rankings?
One of the smartest moves in digital marketing is to analyze your competition. Knowing their link-building strategies can give you a major edge in your own SEO efforts.
By studying your competitors’ backlink profiles, you can refine your off-site SEO tactics and enhance your own backlink strategy.
Keep reading for practical tips on how to conduct a competitive backlink analysis and how to use what you learn to strengthen your backlink profile.
So, what exactly is this analysis all about?
Definition of competitor backlinks analysis
Competitor backlink analysis is all about checking out the link profiles of your main competitors. By looking at who links to their sites, you can find out what kinds of websites are linking to them. This also helps you understand how many and how good their backlinks are, and what strengths and weaknesses their backlink profiles might have.
This kind of analysis is really useful because it opens up new opportunities for you to get similar backlinks. In short, it helps you build a more effective link-building strategy for your own website.
So, how does analyzing your competitors’ backlinks actually help your link-building plan?
7 benefits of analyzing competitor backlinks
Do you still question why you should put effort into this procedure and why it is necessary? Let’s examine the main benefits of competition backlink analysis in more detail:
✔ Uncover new link-building opportunities
Analyzing the backlinks of competitors makes room for possible link-building opportunities. It offers useful details about reputable websites that link to your rivals.
With this information at your disposal—which you can obtain by using a backlink checker—you can devise outreach strategies for link-building with the aim of collaborating with those trustworthy sources and thus raise the authority of your website.
✔ Improve your backlink profile
It’s difficult to overstate the significance of competitive backlink analysis and backlinks in achieving your link-building objectives. This is due to the fact that these actions eventually raise the caliber of your backlink profile.
It also aids in monitoring competitor activity and identifying patterns in their link-building tactics. Subsequently, you must develop well-thought-out strategies for utilizing the data gathered to increase the scope of your link-building initiatives.
✔ Expand link-building strategies
You may find out which backlink building strategies work best and what kinds of content and websites perform well in search engine results by backlink tracking competition websites.
By observing what they are doing differently, you might devise fresh methods to incorporate into your link-building plan.
✔ Find and bridge link gaps
You can find holes in your backlink profile by researching your competitors’ backlink strategies. Then, you can create a more focused outreach plan to obtain backlinks from these sources. This is among the greatest methods for locating backlinks that your rivals have established and developing a fresh approach.
It’s crucial that you avoid trying to imitate your rival’s strategies at this point. Instead, in order to create a distinctive link-building plan and ultimately outrank your rivals, you must employ the information you have gathered about their backlink profiles.
✔ Identify top-performing content
Gaining knowledge about the most effective content marketing strategies used by other websites is an additional fantastic advantage of backlink tracking. You’ll discover the subjects, styles, and kinds of content that appeal to your intended audience. Subsequently, you can apply the data to improve your efforts to establish links.
However, how?
Find material that is worthy of links and has drawn in high-quality backlinks first. You can learn which kinds of websites are most likely to link to your domain as well as the kinds of content that work best to draw backlinks in the following stage. With this information at your disposal, you may improve the efficacy of your efforts by implementing strategies and fine-tuning your link-building approach. Finally, remember to get in touch with these websites and ask them to include a link to your work. perhaps even release a guest post?
✔ Avoid threats
You may monitor the evolution of your rivals’ backlink profiles and spot any abrupt increases or decreases by routinely examining their backlink profiles. This method allows you to recognize and steer clear of risks to your own backlink profile, which is fantastic.
In essence, you are attempting to avoid the mistakes that your rivals are making by trying to learn from them. It is possible to avoid such techniques and build a more natural, high-quality backlink profile by recognizing toxic or irrelevant backlink profiles.
✔ Learn niche trends
Lastly, by keeping an eye on the most recent trends and advancements in your market, you may identify backlinks and adjust your methods. Additionally, you can learn about fresh approaches to link-building and utilize them as models to refine your own. You may improve your backlink strategy and perhaps obtain a competitive edge by being strategic.
How to analyze competitor backlinks in 4 steps
If you’ve already come to the conclusion that studying competitor backlinks is a good idea, you might be searching for practical ways to put this knowledge into practice. Fear not—we are here to provide strategies for efficiently analyzing the backlinks of competitors.
Step 1: Find your main competitors
It might seem obvious, but the first step in a successful competitor backlink analysis is figuring out who your competitors are.
When you start this process, you’ll need to look at both domain-level and page-level competitors.
Let’s break down each type:
Domain-Level Competitors
These are the websites that compete with you across their entire domain. They usually target the same audience and cover similar topics. They’re your direct competitors because they go after the same SEO keywords and market as you do.
To investigate these domain-level competitors, you need to check their backlink profiles. Ahrefs offers some great tools for this. Here’s how you can find your domain-level competitors using Ahrefs:
- Log in to your Ahrefs account.
- Enter your domain in the search bar.
- Click on “Organic Competitors” to see the results.
This will give you a solid start in identifying who you’re up against.
Page-level competitors are a bit different from domain-level ones. They might not be targeting the same overall audience or market as you, but they’re competing for backlinks on specific pages.
Here’s how to analyze them:
- Log in to your Ahrefs account.
- Enter the URL of the specific page you want to investigate.
- Select “Exact URL” to see who’s competing for backlinks on that page.
This helps you understand which pages are vying for links and how you can improve your own strategy.
After analyzing your domain-level and page-level competitors, make separate lists for each group. Then, come up with unique strategies to outshine these rivals.
Step 2: Analyze Competitor Keywords
Want to dive deeper into how your competitors are building their backlinks? Keywords are key to boosting your SEO.
Keywords are crucial for competitor backlink analysis and for shaping your SEO strategy. You probably already use several keywords in your link-building efforts. But to stay ahead, you need to find new, high-performing keywords regularly.
Here’s what you should do:
- Check out the anchor texts in the backlinks pointing to your competitors’ sites.
- See how these anchor texts relate to your own website and compare the keywords used.
- Look at important data like search volume and keyword difficulty.
Also, think about what users are searching for when choosing keywords, and focus on those that align with your link-building goals. This will help you find valuable backlinks your competitors have and refine your own strategy.
By researching your competitors’ keywords and their backlinks, you can spot gaps in your link-building approach and improve your strategy.
Also Read: Anchor Text Optimization in SEO
Step 3: Qualify Your Competitor Backlinks
Great job on finding and listing your main competitors! Now, it’s time to dig deeper and evaluate their backlinks.
Not all backlinks are equal, so you need to check each one. One useful tip is to focus on SaaS backlinks, which can quickly boost your site’s credibility and traffic. If you’re new to this, our SaaS link-building guide can help you learn how to qualify backlinks and improve your off-page SEO.
Here’s what to consider when qualifying competitor backlinks:
- Domain Rating (DR): This shows how strong a website’s backlink profile is. A higher DR means the site is more authoritative. Aim to get backlinks from sites with a high DR, as these can improve your search engine rankings.
- Anchor Text: Check what keywords your competitors are targeting with their backlinks. This can give you insights into their strategy.
- Link Gaps: Look for websites that link to your competitors but not to your site. This helps you identify potential backlink opportunities.
Step 4: Identify the Backlink Gap
A backlink gap is simply the difference between the quantity and quality of backlinks your competitors have versus what you have.
Here’s how to find it:
- Log in to Ahrefs.
- Click on “Link Intersect.”
- In the “Show me who is linking to these domains or URLs” section, add your competitors’ domains (like britannica.com and encyclopedia.com).
- In the “But doesn’t link to” section, add your domain (like Oxfordre.com).
- Click “Show link opportunities” to see where you’re missing out.
This will help you find where your competitors are getting backlinks that you’re not.
Examine the authority and relevancy of the websites that your rivals have backlinks from in the following stage. Next, make an effort to develop original outreach strategies to obtain backlinks from those domains.
How to build your own backlink strategy?
You performed a great job analyzing competitor backlinks and adhering to guidelines for rival backlink verification. However, you might be wondering what comes next and how to improve your link-building tactics using the data that has been gathered.
After this procedure, we will offer some strategies to help you create your link-building plan.
1. Set clear link-building goals
Before diving into your link-building strategy, it’s important to set clear goals and figure out what you want to achieve.
First, make sure your goals are realistic and that you have the resources to meet them. Decide how many backlinks you want and what quality you’re aiming for. Take a close look at your current backlink profile to see where you can improve.
Set some standards for what makes a high-quality backlink. Following these guidelines will help you build a strong backlink profile.
As you move forward, consider reaching out to bloggers or website editors who could be great sources for backlinks. When contacting them, highlight how your content can benefit their readers. Building genuine relationships in your industry will boost your chances of getting high-quality backlinks and hitting your link-building goals.
2. Check your website’s backlink profile health
Checking the strength of your backlink profile is a crucial step you shouldn’t overlook. A solid backlink profile is key to crafting effective SEO strategies for your website.
By regularly reviewing your backlink profile and conducting audits, you can boost your website’s authority and attract more organic traffic.
Here are a few things to focus on:
✔ Quantity of Backlinks: The number of backlinks is a major sign of a website’s popularity. Count how many backlinks you have, as this gives you a basic idea of your site’s reach.
✔ Quality of Backlinks: Quality matters more than quantity. High-quality backlinks from reputable sites can have a big impact on your site’s health.
✔ Relevance of Backlinks: Look for backlinks from sites that are in your industry and have content related to yours. These are more valuable for SEO.
✔ Anchor Text Diversity: Using a variety of anchor texts helps search engines understand the context and relevance of your linked content.
Keeping track of these factors and maintaining a strong backlink profile will improve your search engine rankings, online visibility, and overall reputation. Regularly reviewing and updating your backlink strategy will help you address any issues and secure valuable, high-quality backlinks.
3. Replace broken competitor backlinks
Replacing your competitors’ broken links is a great way to boost your link-building efforts after analyzing the competition.
Here’s how to do it: Start by finding broken links on your competitors’ sites. Then, offer your own content as a replacement. This can help you drive more traffic to your site and gain a competitive edge.
While you’re checking out competitor backlinks, make sure to ignore broken links that lead to expired domains or error pages (404). Instead, focus on broken links that once pointed to content similar to what you offer. This way, your content can fill in the gap.
Create high-quality, relevant content to replace the broken links. Make sure it’s valuable and closely related to what the original link was about.
Finally, reach out to the website editors where the broken links are located. Offer your content as a replacement and highlight why it’s a good fit for their audience.
Remember, while planning carefully is important, this strategy is effective for gaining backlinks and attracting relevant traffic to your site.
4. Avoid spammy backlinks
Our second piece of advice is to stay away from link exchange programs, low-quality directories, and spammy backlinks. Either way, you risk damaging the reputation of your website. To avoid clicking on any dubious or spammy links, evaluate your backlink profile and keep a close eye on your backlink profile.
Rather, adhere to moral link-building tactics to protect the ranking and reputation of your website. Form reliable and sincere alliances with webmasters and bloggers. Make sure the backlinks flow smoothly within the context and are pertinent to your content. Preserve variety in your anchor text and refrain from using too many exact-match keywords.
5. Get included in listicles that mention your competitors
Find possibilities to be featured in listicles that reference your competitors in order to assess your strategies following competitor backlink research. Analyze these listicles’ relevancy and quality.
Once you’ve located those listicles, get in touch with the writers or website owners who created them. Present your knowledge and insightful writing to support your position.
6. Implement guest posting strategies
Using guest posting based on your competitor’s backlinks is a fantastic way to boost your link-building strategy. Here’s how it works: First, find blogs and websites where your competitors have guest posts but you haven’t. Then, you can use this info to pitch a guest blogging opportunity to those sites.
Check out the guest posts your competitors have published to find relevant websites that accept guest contributions. Make sure these sites are a good match for your content and audience. Also, consider the authority of these blogs to maintain a strong reputation.
Once you’ve found the right sites, don’t hesitate to propose a guest post. Craft a compelling pitch that highlights your expertise and explains the value your post will bring to their readers. This approach not only helps you earn valuable backlinks but also increases your website’s visibility.
7. Refine your content marketing strategies
If you want to boost your link-building efforts after analyzing your competitors’ backlinks, don’t underestimate the power of great content. Here are some tips to level up your content marketing:
✔ Fill in Content Gaps: Start by identifying topics your competitors cover that you don’t. Look at what kind of content gets the most attention on their blogs. Use this info to create original, high-quality content that fills these gaps and earns backlinks from trustworthy sites.
✔ Improve Content Quality: By studying your competitors’ backlinks, you can see what types of content are attracting links. Use these insights to enhance your content and add valuable elements. This will help you attract backlinks from new, reputable sources. Make sure to regularly track your backlinks to see what’s working.
✔ Refine Content Promotion: Analyzing competitor backlinks can also reveal which platforms and channels are effective for promoting content. Use this information to build a distribution strategy based on the most engaging channels and boost your content’s reach.
✔ Monitor Competitor Trends: Keep an eye on industry trends and new developments. Use this information to support your content marketing strategy and stay ahead of the curve.
Instead of copying your competitors, use the data to inspire unique, high-quality content that stands out. The more valuable and relevant your content is to your audience, the more likely other websites will link to it. Aim to provide even better content than your competitors to increase your chances of success.
8. Outreach and work on relationship building
After analyzing your competitors’ backlinks, one of the first things you should focus on is building a strong outreach strategy for link-building. Reach out to bloggers and website editors to find potential backlink opportunities. Make sure your outreach is personalized—highlight why linking to your content would be beneficial for their audience and how it adds value.
To help you get started, we’ve provided some tips and email templates to make your outreach more professional and engaging.
Emphasize the mutual benefits of the partnership and work on building genuine relationships with website editors. By maintaining these connections, you’ll create chances for effective link-building collaborations that can boost your website’s ranking.
9. Monitor and track results
Lastly, make sure to regularly check your backlink profile to see how your strategies are performing.
Keep an eye out for new backlinks, track your keyword rankings, and look for any broken or missing links. It’s also important to identify and get rid of any spammy or low-quality backlinks that could hurt your rankings.
By doing this, you’ll not only improve your link-building strategy but also build a stronger, more effective backlink profile.
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