Loading ...Using your competitors’ links to research your own link possibilities is an old search engine optimisation trick. Making use of the resources of your competitors may seem like an internet marketing disaster, but there is a lot you can learn from a close study of what your competition is doing. Part of the challenge, however, is determining which links to pursue for you and which links to leave alone.
The first step is gathering the link data in the first place, and it can be helpful to have a professional search engine optimisation company on board. Although there is a lot of information you can gather simply by studying your competitors’ websites, most of the time it is necessary to use specific tools to track down their link profiles. You can discuss link research with us at SEO Consult Australia. If you do not approach backlink analysis through a professional, you will probably need to acquire the software for your own use.
Sorting the links
Once you have the data, it’s time to sort the links. It’s important to sort links by domain, so that you can have a clear idea of how many sites have actually lent their support to each competitor. A lot of the links will be worthless to your search engine optimization campaign, but they can tell you a lot about your competitor’s SEO and internet marketing plan.
Some things to watch out for include:
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A large number of links from one source. This is a strong sign that the competitor owns the domain in question, which might seem to be knowledge of little worth. It does show, however, that the competitor’s link profile is built on very unsteady ground, making it a little easier for you to get ahead. These kinds of links may be devalued by the search engines in time.
If you want to confirm that a multiple-linking domain is owned by the competitor, it can be worth running a Whois on the link. If you find that the majority of your competitor’s links are from self-owned sites, you have grounds to report them to the search engines.
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Signs of paid links. Multiple links can also be a sign of paid links, which is another practice that is strictly frowned upon by the search engines and devalue links over time.
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Links from within the site. This is actually a sign of a smart competitor, if their site has a decent ranking. Internal links are of limited worth, unless your pages have a fair amount of clout by themselves. If a site manages to rank high but its link profile contains internal links, it’s likely because those pages have a lot of link power. Lots of internal links is a sign you need to step up your game with your content.
Once you have thinned out the list, you should be left with a list of links to research for your own use. Check that these links are reliable before you consider them for your site’s search engine optimization.
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Tags: content, Search Engine Optimization Campaign, SEO, SEO Consult Australia
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