Competitor Backlink Analysis: Benchmarking for Better SEO

You know that backlinks are crucial for ranking well in search results. But how does your site compare to competitors when it comes to backlinks? Doing a competitor backlink analysis allows you to benchmark where you stand and identify opportunities. In this guide, we’ll walk through exactly how to analyze competitor links from start to finish. You’ll learn which tools to use, metrics to focus on, and strategies to implement based on insights uncovered. With a solid process for evaluating competitor backlinks, you’ll gain an edge in your search optimization efforts. Let’s dive in and start benchmarking for better SEO through competitor link analysis.

What Is Competitor Link Analysis?

Link analysis is the process of investigating the backlinks pointing to your competitors’ websites. By analyzing your competitors’ link profiles, you can gain valuable insights into their SEO and content strategies. This helps you benchmark your own efforts and make improvements to rank higher in Google.

Identifying Key Competitors

The first step is determining who your key competitors are. These should be websites ranking above you for your target keywords. Use tools like Ahrefs, Moz, or SEMrush to analyze the top 10 ranking pages for your focus keywords. Look for sites frequently ranking in the top spots across keywords. These competitors likely have an SEO advantage you can learn from.

Analyzing Their Backlinks

Look at the quantity, quality, and sources of your competitors’ backlinks. Do they have a large number of high-authority backlinks from reputable websites? These links likely contribute to their high rankings. Examine the anchor text of their backlinks as well. The anchor text, or clickable text, of links pointing to a page provides context for both search engines and users. Having a high percentage of anchor text relevant to the target keyword can boost rankings. If your competitors have better anchor text optimization, you’ll want to improve your own.

Finding Link Building Opportunities

Analyze where your competitors’ backlinks are coming from. Are many of their links from authoritative sites in your niche? Guest blogging, resource link roundups, and influencer outreach are all ways you may be able to get links from similar websites. Look for gaps where you can outreach for high-quality backlinks your competitors don’t have yet. The more unique, authoritative links you can build over time, the more you can outrank your competitors.

Competitor backlink analysis provides actionable insights to enhance your SEO and content strategies. By regularly analyzing how your competitors are gaining and using backlinks, you can make incremental improvements to your own link building and start moving up in the rankings. The key is turning insights into practice, outperforming your competitors link by link.

How to Identify Your Main Competitors for SEO

To improve your SEO rankings, you need to know who your main competitors are. These are the other websites ranking for similar keywords and competing for the same traffic and customers as you. Identifying your top competitors is key to developing a winning link building strategy.

Analyze Your Keywords

First, make a list of your most important keywords and search phrases. These should be terms that drive a lot of traffic to your site and are relevant to your business. Search for these keywords on Google and see which other websites show up on the first page of results. These sites are your primary competitors for those terms.

Check Their Backlinks

Now take a look at your competitors’ backlinks using a tool like Ahrefs, Moz, or SEMrush. See how many total referring domains and backlinks they have. This will give you an idea of the volume of links you need to compete with them. Also, analyze the types of sites that are linking to them. Are they high authority websites in your industry? News sites? Forums and blogs? This can reveal opportunities for you to get similar links.

Compare Domain Authority

A domain’s authority is a measure of its power and influence on the web. Websites with higher domain authority tend to rank higher in search results. Compare your own domain authority to that of your competitors to gauge how much you need to improve to reach their level. While increasing your domain authority will take time and effort, it is achievable by building more high-quality backlinks and on-page optimization.

Track Their Rankings

Use a rank tracking tool to monitor your competitors’ rankings for your target keywords over time. See which terms they rank highest for and how their rankings change from month to month. Their upward or downward trends can help determine the effectiveness of their SEO strategies and link building campaigns. You may even spot opportunities to outrank them for some keywords if their rankings start to slip.

Keeping a close eye on your major competitors is key to developing an SEO strategy that will push you ahead of the competition. Analyze what’s working for them and look for ways you can build links and authority even faster to gain ground in the rankings. With diligent tracking and continuous improvement, you’ll be outranking them in no time!

Performing a Competitor Backlink Audit

To get a better understanding of your competitors’ link building strategies, perform a competitor backlink audit. This helps determine what’s working for them so you can implement similar tactics. It also reveals potential link building opportunities you may have missed.

Find Your Competitors’ Backlinks

Use a backlink checker tool to find all the backlinks pointing to your competitors’ domains and top ranking pages. Export the data to analyze the backlinks in depth. Look for links from high-authority domains, especially in your niche. See if there are any patterns in the types of sites that link to them.

Assess Link Quality

Not all links are created equal. Evaluate the quality of your competitors’ backlinks to determine which you should emulate. High-quality links from authoritative, relevant sites will have the biggest impact. Check the domain authority and page authority of sites linking to your competitors. Also consider the anchor text used and if the links appear natural or forced. Focus your efforts on building similar high-quality links.

Identify Link Building Opportunities

Look for sites that link to your competitors but not to you. These represent potential link building opportunities. Reach out to those sites and pitch them to earn a backlink of your own. You already know they link to resources in your industry, so you have a good chance of getting placement. You can also see if your competitors have built links that you’ve yet to uncover, then work to build links from those domains as well.

Learn From Their Strategy

Study how your competitors built their links to determine the tactics they used. Did they rely primarily on guest blogging, influencer outreach, resource link building, or another strategy? See if you can spot any trends in the types of content or outreach that led to the most high-quality links. Borrow the strategies that fit with your own link building plan to boost your results. Staying on the cutting edge of competitors’ strategies will keep your own link building efforts on point.

Competitor backlink analysis provides valuable insights to enhance your SEO performance. Use it to build better links, strengthen your link profile, and outrank the competition.

Benchmarking Your Backlinks Against Competitors

When analyzing your competitors’ backlinks, compare their link profiles to your own to identify areas for improvement. Look at the quality, quantity, and sources of their links versus yours. This benchmarking process will highlight where your link building strategy needs strengthening.

Link Quality

First, evaluate the quality of your competitors’ links. Do they have a higher percentage of links from authoritative domains? Are more of their links from sites with a high domain authority or page authority? If so, you’ll want to focus your efforts on earning links from similarly authoritative and trusted sources.

Link Quantity

Next, compare the total number of backlinks for your top competitors versus your own site. Having a larger link profile, in general, signals to Google that a site is more authoritative. If your competitors significantly outrank you in total links, it’s time to ramp up your link building outreach and earn more high-quality backlinks. Even earning a few dozen or hundred more quality links can help boost your rankings.

Link Sources

Finally, analyze where your competitors’ links are coming from. Do they have links from a wider range of authoritative sites, like educational institutions, nonprofits, or industry publications? Are they earning links from the same types of sites you’re targeting or different ones? Look for opportunities to expand into new link sources, like HARO, expert roundups, or guest blogging on authoritative sites in your field. The more diverse your link profile, the more natural it will appear to Google.

Benchmarking your backlink profile against leading competitors is key to optimizing your SEO strategy. See where they’re ahead of you in quality, quantity, and sources, then make improvements to your own link building campaigns. Over time, with consistent effort, you can build a link profile that rivals or even surpasses your competitors.

Using Link Analysis Data to Improve Your SEO Strategies

Find Your Competitors’ Most Powerful Backlinks

See which sites are linking to your competitors and check their authority and relevance. Reach out and try to get links from similar high-quality sites. You may even uncover opportunities from sites already linking to you that you can optimize further.

Discover Link Building Tactics

Study how your competitors are building links to get ideas for your own link building campaigns. Are they focusing on guest blogging, broken link building, resource link building or earning high-quality editorial links? Look for patterns in the types of sites they’re getting links from. Their strategies may work for you too.

Benchmark Your Link Profile

Compare metrics like the number of referring domains, anchor text, follow/nofollow links and link types (editorial, directory, etc.) for your site versus your competitors. See where your link profile is lacking and make a plan to improve and diversify your links. Checking your competitors’ backlink profile is the best way to get insights into what’s working in your industry.

Find Link Opportunities

Look for valuable, authoritative sites that link to your competitors but not to you. Reach out and pitch them to earn a link. See if any broken links pointing to your competitors can be redirected to your site. Check their resource link sections and pitch to be added or optimize any existing links to your site. Explore their guest blogging link opportunities as well.

Improve Your Internal Linking

Study how your competitors link internally between their content. Do they link to related content or additional resources? Make sure you’re linking to your most important pages and see if there are any opportunities to improve the internal linking on your own site. Internal links not only help search engines crawl your content, but they also help readers navigate your site.

Analyzing your competitors’ backlinks is a key part of any SEO strategy. Use their data to boost your own link building efforts, improve your on-page optimization and strengthen your overall search rankings. While spying on the competition may feel sneaky, it’s one of the best ways to gain valuable insights to help your business succeed.

Conclusion

So there you have it. Backlink analysis takes some time and effort, but it’s one of the most useful things you can do as an SEO. Knowing who links to your competitors, and why, reveals tons of opportunities. You’ll find broken links to pursue, relevant sites to connect with, and clever link-building tactics to “borrow.” Heck, you might even uncover a link network you never knew about before! Point is, studying your competitors’ backlinks pays off big time. It leads to insights and ideas you’d never discover otherwise. So carve out a chunk of time this month to do some competitor link analysis. Pull up a spreadsheet, fire up your favorite backlink analysis tool, and dig in. Your future search engine rankings will thank you.