When trying to market your product, you must understand how the competition markets theirs. This article will show some of the best practices for reverse engineering competitor backlinks and creating local content to beat them out. Why is it that my competitors are outranking me? When I advise businesses and website owners, this is a typical question I hear all the time. Despite spending so much time creating content and putting on-page SEO first, they are still outranked by direct competition. What makes this is possible? More than that, your on-page SEO activities are considered by Google’s algorithm. Therefore, backlinks are essential in determining your ranking position. Some of you already know this, so you’ve been putting effort into your link-building plan. But it hasn’t been enough to propel you to the top of the rankings. If you recognize this situation, it’s time to reverse engineer your competitors’ backlinks. This procedure will assist you in determining why other websites rank higher than yours. It all may boil down to their connection profile. You may take actions to gain backlinks on those similar websites and perhaps steal those links from your rivals once you know where their backlinks are coming from. To those who haven’t done this before, terminology like “reverse engineering” and “backlinks” may appear complicated or daunting. But it’s not all that difficult.
Steps to achieving a better score using “reverse engineering”:
1. Perform keyword research.
Before you do anything else, you must first discover the keywords you are competing with. To get a competitive advantage, you’ll need to develop a lengthy list of terms and phrases. I’m not going to spend a lot of time here describing how to discover the best keywords. For a more in-depth look at this technique, check out my comprehensive guide on keyword research. However, I will say this: long-tail keywords should be prioritized.
Long-tail keywords account for 70% of all searches on the internet. The conversion rates for these keywords are likewise higher. For example, rather than simply “marketing,” you should concentrate on keywords like “small business content marketing.” Because you’ll be using these search keywords to identify your rivals in the following stage, you’ll need to undertake keyword research first. It’s a struggle you don’t want to wage over a single term like “marketing.” There are several keyword research tools, resources, and recommendations available. However, here’s a short trick that you can use right now. Type your long-tail term on Google and scroll down to find similar results.
As time goes on, you may use these connected searches to your benefit. It’s a shortcut that I use often.
2. Determine who your competition are.
After you’ve completed your keyword research, you’ll need to figure out who you’re up against. You may be surprised by the answers. When I consult with companies, they often tell me their rivals when we first begin working together. However, when I investigated, I realized that they are competing with totally other businesses. For example, let’s pretend you run a physical bicycle store in a small town. It’s very evident that if there’s another bike store across the street, they’re your competitors. When doing business online, though, things aren’t always that simple. So go to Google and start typing in the long-tail keywords we discovered before.
For this example, I used “small business content marketing.” Bypass the advertising and websites such as Wikipedia. If you’re selling actual goods, I will avoid big-name retailers like Walmart and Amazon. Do you have a rivalry with them? Sure, but you won’t be able to outrank them using their backlinks. It’s just not possible. Continue scrolling to see the rest of the results. I’d suggest making a spreadsheet to list your rivals’ URLs. This is the most effective method for staying organized. Examine the top 10-20 results. Then repeat the procedure for all of the keywords and search phrases connected to them. Remove any duplicates from your spreadsheet, but mark any sites ranked for multiple keywords with a star. When analyzing their link profiles, such companies will undoubtedly be a top focus. This is a successful method, although it does need some human labor on your part. You may use software like SimilarWeb to assist you if you like to utilize technology to your advantage. They feature a variety of tools that you may utilize to analyze your competitors. One of these capabilities is the ability to identify competitors.
3. Examine the link profiles of your competitors.
So, based on the search results from your keyword research, you’ve compiled a list of your top rivals. It would be best if you examined the link profiles of such websites. You’ll need to employ software to assist you with this. There are several programs accessible online, but SEMrush is one of my favorites. This prNext, you appeal to me because of its versatility. You will, however, have to pay to utilize their tools. Plans start at $83 per month if you pay every year. You may, however, register a free account and examine ten sites every month for free. To begin, use the “Backlink Gap” tool.
Look for the “Gap Analysis” option in your dashboard menu on the left side of the screen. Backlink Gap is a tool that can be found here. You’ll now want to add your rivals’ domain names to the mix. I emphasized it across the top of the screen in the image above. I did type in the five websites we saw previously in the Google search results. One of the most valuable features of this tool heck which backlinks your rival’s share.
You h in the image above have complete control over how the results are organized and filtered. In this case, the chart is sorted by the referring domains’ authority score. When creating a solid link profile, it’s critical to focus on websites with high authority ratings. See my tutorial on analyzing a link’s ranking potential for more detail on this subject. According to the graph, all five of these rivals have backlinks from GoDaddy.com. Because GoDaddy has a high authority score, it’s a site I’d add to my list. There is a slew of additional options for organizing and analyzing this data. To get a better perspective, you may look at the outcomes for the last three months, the previous year, or all time. Next, sort each column separately to determine which sites are sending the most backlinks to each of your competitors. SEMrush’s Gap Analysis tool is just the tip of the iceberg regarding what they have to offer. Finally, you may look at each competitor’s link profiles separately.
Return to the dashboard menu on the left-hand side of the screen. For the entire report, go to “Domain Analysis” and then “Backlinks.” I selected infusionsoft.com as an example since it was one of our Google results list sites. This is a high-level view of their connection profile. You can examine their total backlinks, referring domains, referring IPs, backlink categories, and the ratio of following links against nofollow links, among other things. If you keep scrolling through the page, you’ll find more in-depth backlinks look.
This report displays every backlink. You will find a wealth of helpful information here. Sort by page score, trust score, and the referring domain’s backlink’s display date. It even informs you what anchor text the backlink uses. If you click the arrows next to the source page URL, you’ll be sent straight to the page with that hyperlink. Make use of all of the sophisticated filters to your advantage. You may utilize this information to see whether these referring websites are worth pursuing backlinks. For examining rival link profiles, you may use tools like Ahrefs and Majestic in addition to SEMrush.
4. Creating your backlinks is a great way to save money.
After analyzing your rivals’ link profiles, you should have a list of potential websites to develop backlinks on. Then, all that remains is for you to find out how to get your links on those websites. This is another reason to use a spreadsheet to keep track of your notes. Not every link will have the same referring domain. As an example, you may have messages that look like this:
- Page A of Website A is a resource page.
- Blogs (Website B)
- Infographic on Website C
- Case study (website D)
You’ll also want to obtain the appropriate contact information on each web page. After that, all you have to do is send them an email with your proposal. It will be a relatively simple procedure for stuff. However, if you want to steal your compete at each web progenitor’s backlinks, this may become a little more complicated. Here’s an illustration of what I’m talking about. Assume that you discovered through your link profile research that one of your rivals has hundreds of backlinks on a single domain. All URLs were utilized for something comparable, such as a blog post statistic reference. However, you discovered that the research was conducted a few years ago. You may contact that website by sending an email that says something like this: Hey! I just finished reading your “XYZ” blog entry, and it was fantastic. It was incredibly instructive, in my opinion. However, I discovered that several of your figures are out of date. I just completed new research with updated findings. [insert a link to your website] Please feel free to use this as a reference since I believe it will bring more value to your site. My only request is that you attribute the source to my website.
As you can see from the wording and tone of this communication, it does not include naming the rivals or requesting the link’s removal. That’s simply a supposition. Depending on the sort of material you’re proposing, your messaging will change. It’s also feasible to get included on these sites without stealing your competitors’ links. With that said, it’s always a plus if you can get a link added when they’re removing one.
Conclusion
If you’re having trouble outranking your rivals, you may employ reverse engineering to create backlinks that have worked for them. Before you can accomplish that, you’ll need to do some keyword research to help you discover your competitors. After that, you may use tools to examine your rivals’ link profiles. Then, utilize that information to create backlinks on similar websites. If you play your cards well, you may be able to replace one of your competitor’s connections with one of your own. I strongly advise you to include this method in your link-building plan.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you reverse competitor backlinks?
A: To reverse competitor backlinks, you can try using a tool like a link reclamation that will take care of all the links for you. You need to find this program on your own, though, and decide if it’s worth paying for or not.
How can I spy on competitors’ backlinks?
A: You can spy on your competitor’s backlinks by going to their blog and then clicking the social media button.