You’re struggling to build strong backlinks to your website, and you can’t figure out why. You’re following all the rules, but you’re still not driving more traffic to your site. A big problem you might be having is a failure to analyze and learn from competitor links.
Building authority through backlinks is challenging because you’re still new, unvetted in your marketplace, and don’t have strong relationships yet. Fortunately, you can adopt a strong strategy to uncover, analyze, and leverage competitor links for better rankings. This article is here to help.
Let’s dive in.
Key Takeaways
- Competitor links are backlinks on authoritative websites that link to your competitor’s website.
- It’s important to know what your competitor is doing so you can evaluate their strategies and compare them to your own.
- You can take competitor links by offering better content and tailoring outreach messages to linking websites.
What Are Competitor Links?
Competitor links are the backlinks on authoritative websites that link to your competitor’s website. An example would be if you run a beauty products and services website, and your biggest competitor has a backlink in Vogue, Cosmopolitan, or Elle Magazine.
Likewise, you run a software company whose biggest competition has backlinks in Entrepreneur or CNET.
You want those backlinks because we know that backlinks are an essential driver of traffic to your website and a signal of credibility and authority.
How to Find Competitor Links
Now, how do you find them? Many business owners have no idea where to even start with building backlinks, much less how to find your competitor’s backlinks. The good news is those two missions can be one and the same.
Understanding which backlinks you should be aiming for often begins with looking at what backlinks your competitor has. Here’s where to start:
Use Backlink Analysis Tools
The number one approach to finding competitor links is to use a tool like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Moz, which can uncover competitor links for you in a flash.
To use any of these tools, all you have to do is enter the competitor’s URL in the search bar, filter the results, and identify which high-value links your competitors have.
Identify High-Value Links
But wait, what are high-value links? High-value links are those with relevance and domain authority. These can include well-known publications like CNET, USA Today, Vogue, or Vanity Fair, or another company linking to them.
When you find those links, look for patterns among them.
- Does your competitor have a guest post on this publication that links back to their site?
- Are those backlinks broken? This would mean that when you click on the link, it no longer leads to their web page.
- Are their backlinks found on resource pages?
These are all opportunities for you to jump in and provide better content and more authority or expertise for those publications, essentially ousting your competitor.
Analyze Competitor Strategies
Now that you’ve found your competitor’s backlinks, start your analysis. You’ll want to examine the anchor text to see what the context is around the link. If your competitor is used as an expert or resource, you could step in and showcase yourself as a more worthy resource.
Look at what type of content they’re linking to and what type of content the backlink is found in. How could you position your content as superior? Could it be written better? Can you provide more value to the publication’s readers?
Explore the linking pages in depth to see how you could provide a stronger link for the publication than your competitor is providing.
When you understand your competitor’s approach to gaining backlinks from high-value publications, you can outcompete them, offering more value. This means better guest posts, PR, and partnerships.
Strategies to Capture Competitor Links
Once you identify and analyze what your competitors are doing, you can come up with a strategy to overtake your competitors and take their links, highlighting you as a strong leader in your area of expertise and lending authority to your own site. Here’s how:
Replicate Their Backlinks
The first and most obvious approach to take your competitor’s backlinks is to approach those publications linking to your competitor’s site and personalize a pitch to them. Outline why you would be a better resource for them and for their readers.
Note: You want to make sure your content actually provides better value, and then show them.
Outreach to Provide Value
Next, work with outreach partners like Reporter Outreach to secure media backlinks. This will provide you with valuable quotes to secure high-quality links.
Then, when you approach your competitor’s backlink providers, you can show that you already have a strong reputation with other backlinking sources.
Broken Link Building
But what can you do with those broken links you found? When you identify broken links through tools like Ahrefs, make sure you have content to replace those broken links. Then, when you reach out to the publications, offer your content as a much better replacement to the linking website.
Leverage Resource Pages
If one of the backlinks you find is to a resource page, you don’t even have to edge out the competition. You can simply reach out to the owner of the resource page and offer your content and expertise as a valuable addition to their page.
Tools & Services to Help Build Quality Backlinks
When it comes to building quality backlinks based on your competitor’s reach, you have two strong options, and you can use both in tandem:
Backlink Analysis Tools
Ahrefs, SEMrish, and Moz all offer you the opportunity to discover your competitor links and assess their quality.
Reporter Outreach
Reporter Outreach simplifies the process of securing competitor-level links through tailored outreach. This service helps you build authority and credibility, which will stand out when you reach out to your competitor’s backlink providers.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Still, backlinks can be tricky. You don’t just want to get any old backlinks onto your website. At best, it does nothing for your website. At worst, it can bring down your credibility and even your ranking on Google. Here are a few common mistakes to avoid:
Overlooking Relevance & Quality
Irrelevant or low-quality links won’t provide long-term value because Google simply doesn’t put much weight on those. Also, having links affiliated with low-quality websites could potentially even lower the quality of your own website.
Using Generic Outreach
You don’t want to send a copy/paste outreach message to publications asking for backlinks. They get dozens if not hundreds of those each day. Personalized communication and targeted pitches are key to getting noticed and selling these publications on the value you will add to their site.
Ignoring Competitor Patterns
Failing to study competitor strategies and link sources leads to missed opportunities. You have to know your competition, especially if they’re more successful than you. Even poorly executed strategies can help you learn what not to do. Always know what your competition is doing, and decide how to behave accordingly.
Why Use Reporter Outreach for Link Building?
Reporter Outreach is an excellent service to partner with to grow backlinks for your web pages. This highly reputable backlink partner offers:
- Outreach expertise for securing links from high-authority publications.
- Tailored strategies for healthcare, SaaS, and e-commerce businesses.
- Time savings while providing ethical, effective results backed by proven methods.
Final Thoughts
In the end, it is important to have a strategic approach to link building for your website. High-quality backlinks will help you rank higher on Google, help drive more traffic to your pages, and show readers that you’re an expert in your field.
To that end, a critical strategy for link building is to understand what your competition is doing, where they have backlinks, and how you might be able to compete. Explore services like Reporter Outreach for professional support and backlink outreach efforts.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How do I evaluate the quality of a backlink opportunity?
Look at factors like how relevant the linking is to your content, how high the site ranks on Domain Authority (or Domain Rating on Ahrefs), where your link will be placed on the page, whether the anchor text feels natural, how much traffic the site receives, and the general trustworthiness of the site.
Are there risks involved in targeting competitor links?
There are generally small risks for targeting competitor links, as you will simply be providing more value to the linking website.
What types of content are most effective for earning competitor backlinks?
You’re in a competition, so you want your content to have high authority, reputable sources, clean and comprehensive research, and interactive elements. You also want to make sure your content is data-driven, with infographics to support your data, is visually appealing, and provides unique value.
How-to posts and other posts that explain or guide a reader are great examples. Remember, you’re showing linking websites that your content is better than your competitors.
How do I approach outreach without appearing spammy?
When you’re drafting your message to the linking website, personalize it and add expert insights. Show how your insights are relevant to their site, how it will help their readers, and why you’d make a great partner.
