Backlink analysis – Competitor analysis
It is extremely important for the operator of a website to keep track of the backlinks. This tells you who is linking to your website and whether the linked pages are relevant and up-to-date. Backlink analysis can answer these questions. But not only with regard to your own website, but also the websites of your competitors. After all, the competition may be linking to pages that would benefit your own website.
What is the aim of the competitor analysis?
Keeping an eye on the competition with a backlink analysis has more than one goal:
- Rebuild links
As soon as you realize that the competition is linking to pages on which you would like to be linked yourself, the replication can be very efficient. Especially as soon as the thematic content of the pages matches the content of your own website.
- Identification of strategies
On closer examination of the competing websites, their marketing strategies quickly become clear. This is a great advantage if you come from the same industry and have roughly the same company size. This allows you to draw up plans and strategies for your own marketing campaign. Nevertheless, you should not lose sight of the relationships.
- Identifying strategies without success
A close analysis of the competition will always reveal links that were created because of an intentional campaign. However, if this campaign produces few links, care should be taken not to make the same mistakes. It can still be an incentive to use this strategy, only better thought out, for your own website.
- Be inspired by the competition
The failed campaigns of competitors in particular serve as an incentive to better implement the ideas. How can you get more links with a better campaign or with a simple change to your website? The analysis of competing backlinks provides inspiration for your own campaigns!
Procedure of a backlink analysis
It is worth taking a systematic approach, especially if the competition has been active on the web for a long time and can convince with significantly more backlinks.
1) Step – Identify the competition
Who is a direct competitor and who is an indirect competitor?
Which influencers are there in the industry?
Who else ranks for the same keywords as my own website?
2nd) Step – Collecting the data
As soon as the competition, as well as influencers or non-branch websites, have been identified, the backlinks are determined with the help of certain tools (backlink analyzers, link research tools, etc.).
Finally, there is the option of manually sifting through the collected data. However, this would take an enormous amount of time and is not recommended, especially for large amounts of data. Another option would be the sorting function, which is significantly more time-saving.
Excel or Google Docs can also be used. The links are processed. Similar to the link research tools according to the desired metrics. Finally, you receive a list which you search through manually and sort according to the strongest links. The objectives mentioned above are also included.