Competitor Backlink Analysis – How can it help your Link Building?

Don’t believe anyone who says otherwise, developing a proper, successful link building strategy is not a walk in the park. The web may seem like a honey-coated sugar cube from the outside. However, in reality, it’s more or less a “kill or be killed” kind of world (excuse the grime expression). Frankly speaking, “you do you” is not really a concept that’s applicable to the harsh world of SEO and digital marketing – and skipping out from doing Competitor backlink analysis will bluntly mean that you are going to be choosing to miss out on everything from having great site traffic levels, better conversion rates, and even success itself.

Not one to complicate things, I would typically describe competitor backlink analysis to be precisely what it sounds like – involving a process where you are going to dig deep into your competitor’s backlink strategy and adapt the best things about them to be your own. Things that are giving them an upper hand, things like their unique link sources, ideas for content, and even the likes of anchor texts and server qualities.

Still not convinced? Allow us to explain more!

Competitor backlink analysis is the holy grail of link building – here’s why

Accept the fact that not all backlinks are created equal, and a single link from a world-renowned website will be worth more than a dozen, if not hundreds from sites that are less popular and commands next to no traffic. Sure, this may seem quite unfair at a glance, especially if you are a guy who is just starting in this game. In Google’s defense though, it had never been about the number of backlinks you have under your belt – the sheer quality of the links is what has always mattered.

The better the quality of your links are, the better will be your chance at having a site with massive traffic, greater conversion rates, better engagements, and frankly, better profits.

Competitor backlink analysis – back linking made easy

Target the victims, competitors

Assuming that, you have already got the keywords prepped and ready. The next step is to find other sites that also use them. While it’s true that you may have already known who your biggest competitors are, keyword research can often throw up surprising results that you may not have known otherwise – especially, if your business is all but limited to the web.

Look at others, what their link-building strategies are, the things that are working for them, and what their target niches are. Do your keywords line up with actions that you want your visitors to take? If not, it may be time for you to rethink your current backlinking and SEO strategy.

As far as competitive backlinking is concerned, determining where your competitors are standing with their own keywords game is the first step you have to take before grabbing those awesome, valuable links for yourself.

Check out & analyze their backlinking ID’s

To put it simply, your backlink profile is what carries all the information regarding the various links scattered throughout the web pointing toward your website. Think of it as a hub for your entire web linking actions. Every single link that you make destroys or maintains; you can have a pretty good overview of all of them through this particular window.

Generally, the more the number of domains connected to your site, the better its performance going to be. And if your competitors are outranking you on a regular basis (despite all your efforts), it may be happening because they have a stronger backlink profile, with better and more unique domains.

In my opinion, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. And heeding by this rather dubious saying, I think you’ll do better with your SEO game if you make an effort to find out how they are stronger and do the same with your backlinking profile.

Roll up your sleeves boy; it’s time to dive in!

Now that you have all your competitor’s backlink data at your fingertips, you will then need to get into the actual analyzing process and pick out things that are going to be useful for you (and omit the ones that don’t matter to you).

To make the whole thing a bit more bearable, I suggest that you use tools like “Monitor Backlinks” which can keep you up-to-date on the number of backlinks your competitors are getting on a regular basis. Furthermore, these tools can also help you track your competitors on a per-client basis, meaning that you can analyze them individually – quite handy if you are into simultaneous tracking.

While it’s true that you can see every single thing about your competitor’s backlinking game, I suggest you keep a stronger lookout for links with higher citation and trust flow levels, as these are the ones that directly attribute to a site’s actual trustiness and sheer levels of power.

It’s a never-ending process, literally!

Contrary to popular belief, a competitor’s backlink analysis is not something that you could hope to end in a fortnight. It’s pretty much a never-ending process. The world of SEO is always changing, with new strategies being developed every day, old ones being thrown out and new players wading in. Therefore, don’t be alarmed when I say that if not properly maintained, you will miss out on some very lucrative opportunities to find some better, newer link prospects.

Keeping a tab on these kinds of quick changes is what that’s going to give you an edge in this ruthless game. Let’s say that your competitor has a newly broken link to an article and you have similar content that could easily take its place, using this opportunity you can easily get their client to root for you by furnishing them with your solution first.

Sure, this may seem like a big waste of time in the beginning. However, choosing to spend a great deal of time on your backlink analysis can prove extremely beneficial to the success of your SEO strategy.

With this process at hand, you can not only get a better glimpse into how others are doing with their keywords game, but you can also find better avenues and sources for getting awesome backlinks.

As a rule of thumb, never hesitate to reach out to those people giving links to your competitors, chances are that they also wouldn’t have any problem linking to more excellent content – as long as you can offer it.

Conclusion

Aside from just giving you a bird’s eye view of your competitor’s various backlink strategies, this particularly handy process can also allow you to have a deeper access to their base metrics which can be used to monitor and track critical benchmarks such as referral domains, site trust flow funds and even their backlink concentrations.

Indeed a miracle program, the competitor backlink analysis is very special in the sense that rather than just leaving your nose-deep under research, it can actively help you concoct an effective link-building strategy right out of the gate. Want to know the awesome part? Every single thing is done at the expense of your competitor. How crazy is that!

Sure, it may sound sneaky. It is. However, since it can work like a charm and can help massively with your online biz (and as long as it is not used against you), do we need to care about its nature, how it’s being done, and other such frivolities? I don’t think so!