Tuesday, 14 April 2015

Using Competitive Links To Inform Your SEO Strategy

To beat your competitors, you must first understand their methods. Columnist Casie Gillette discusses the value of competitive link data.

When I was growing up, my parents bought me every Nancy Drew book that existed. I loved the mysteries, the characters, and of course the fact that Nancy was an independent woman — something that I aspired to be. Of course, I also loved Scooby Doo, so I think it was more the mystery part… but, I digress.
Why am I telling you about my childhood reading and viewing habits? Because it might help explain why creating an SEO competitive analysis is one of my favorite things to do. The simple fact is, I love solving a mystery! And, as an SEO, one of the toughest mysteries you can solve is, “Why are they outperforming me?”
Copying your competitors is not the way to grow a business — but learning the whys and whats of your competitors’ marketing strategies can help you better understand the industry and the audience, and maybe even save you time and money.
For agencies, a competitive analysis, focused specifically on links, offers a quick way to get a complete view of your client’s competitors and can help inform your SEO strategy on a singular and broad level. Let’s take a look at how!

Start Gathering Link Data

I’d be remiss if I didn't start by discussing data collection. Back in the day, you could simply perform a site: search and get a full list of links pointing to your competitors’ sites. Unfortunately, that’s no longer the case, and tools have become a necessity.
Whether you use a backlink tool like Open Site Explorer,SEMRush, Majestic, Ahrefs, or any other link-specific tool out there, the goal is to collect as much backlink data as you can for each competitor to give yourself the fullest picture.


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