Running a small business isn’t easy, and many moving parts exist. Before you even begin your marketing efforts, you must create your off-page SEO strategy. But, before even going that far, you need to know about your competition so that your business can get equipped with the tools and tactics necessary to be more effective. In this article, we have highlighted the importance of competitive link analysis in your off-page SEO strategy.
An off-page SEO competitive link analysis will give you the information you need to evaluate your competitors, so you can get a jump start on your links and plan ahead. You must understand the importance of link analysis in order to grow your business. The research is there to allow your business to identify the strengths and weaknesses within the competition, giving you the necessary insight into techniques and tools being used. Looking at the competitor’s strengths and weaknesses is a proven method to improve your business. It serves as a roadmap to show you the way up to ensure that your company knows how to use links and generate sales. The competitive link analysis gives you tools to figure out how to outrank those in similar businesses and industries. Keep reading to learn more about its tools and importance of link analysis for your off-page SEO strategy.
1. Benefits of a Competitive Link Analysis
The best SEO tools can help you gain more insightful data to make your marketing efforts more effective. After all, the goal is to increase web traffic and drive sales through your strategies. Read our blog on HOW TO USE LINK-BUILDING AND CONTENT MARKETING TO BOOST YOUR WEBSITE TRAFFIC and increase your search rankings.
A couple of the most helpful SEO tools for competitive analysis are Moz and Ahrefs. There are benefits to using each of these alone, but advantages if you can utilize both. Your business needs to look at many things to help determine what kind of stance to take in opposition to the competition.
2. Number of Broken Links
Broken links deter the value of your product and services for a user, making your SEO suffer. You need to have as few broken backlinks on your site, more specifically, less than the competition. It is crucial to understand the importance of link analysis as you can use your analysis to pull a lit of broken backlinks from your competitor to perform link building. Read our blog on SMART WAYS TO BUILD CREDIBLE BACKLINKS FOR WEBSITE SEO and learn more about how you can build credible backlinks to boost your website traffic.
3. Number of Followed Inbound Links
When managing an SEO project, links are a way to get the top ranks with Google. The more links, the better you have at ranking at the top. So, if you want to boost your SEO efforts, your link analysis can provide you with a comparison with competitors to see how many backlinks refer to your site. You can then add more backlinks if you need to ensure that you are above the competition. Read our blog on BACKLINK AUDITS: HOW TO ANALYZE BAD BACKLINKS to learn more about the importance of link analysis.
4. Domain Authority
Domain Authority (DA) helps your brand look at your overall rank compared to competitors. In this, the websites are ranked on a scale from 1 to 100. It would be best if you viewed the ranking of their sites first so that you can be sure your score ranks among them. The importance of link analysis can not be emphasised enough. Don’t be so concerned with ranking high, but strive for the highest rank within your business realm. For example, some DA ranges for your industry could give rankings such as 38, 43, 51, and 46. You should drive initiatives and create strategies that put you in the upper 40s for your ranking to have a top-tier rank among them. Read our blog on HOW TO DO URL OPTIMIZATION FOR HIGHER SEARCH ENGINE RANKINGS to learn more about the effective techniques that can help you increase your search engine rankings.
5. Link Distribution
Healthy and organic link distribution is a key element of your SEO Analysis strategy. Link distribution in your competitive analysis will let you know if any spam links or competitor links are involved within your paid or link-building tactics (which you don’t want). Thus, it is crucial to understand the importance of link analysis to take appropriate measures for better off page SEO strategy. Read our blog on TOP 8 FREE LINK BUILDING SOURCES FOR SEO EXECUTIVES to know about free link-building resources to boost your website traffic.
When examining the competition, you should note some of their top links and how they are distributed within their content and digital advertising. Look for patterns in their coverage, discuss and bring up all the questions surrounding their linking, and then work to find ways you can distribute links more efficiently.
6. Link Intersections
Your business needs to look at how many domains are linking to the competition and not you- this will give you multiple opportunities to get links and coverage with other domains. The fields provide your brand with more visibility and conversion capabilities. A competitive link analysis lets you see exactly where those opportunities are so you can focus your messaging strategy and efforts.
7. Link Content
Content is another aspect of your competition to watch. Finding out how link-worthy the content is within other brands’ blogs or articles can give you ideas for where to put links more seamlessly within your own content. Read our blog on HOW DOES SEO CONTENT WRITING FUNCTION and understand the importance of link content. Evergreen or newsworthy content is typically more link-worthy and can include the following:
- Help guides
- In-Depth guides
- Authoritative blog posts
- Surveys
- Original data analysis
Linkworthy content is meant to show expertise within your business field; you want to be authoritative but not salesy or promotional-driven. Set up a rating system to understand what makes content more link-worthy. Then, you’ll have a good idea of what content you should strive for (and don’t forget to include the links).
8. Competitor Information Tracking
Your competition’s data needs to be organized so you can access it quickly and create a way to compare them side by side. A simple spreadsheet will work to help you color-code and rank the competition. Keep the ones who are the most competitive at the top so that you can look at their off-page SEO efforts through PPC ads on Google Ads. Read our blog on HOW DOES PAY PER CLICK MARKETING WORK? and learn more about how play per click marketing is done.
Your business should take note of what they’re doing that is working and what they aren’t doing. You can monopolize on advantage if you see that it’s not being done. You can jump on the opportunity and get links and promotions before the competition has a chance.
9. Analyzing The Competition
Once you’ve set your goals, identified the competition, and have a way to review insights, you can start your analysis. You already know that to up the ante, you need to look more closely at your business links to help improve your SEO.
What helps you further is utilizing a competitive link analysis for your off-page strategy. Seeing what other top-rating companies are doing helps your team to work at creating an impactful off-page SEO strategy that will surely put you in line with, if not above, the competition.
