Backlinks, or inbound links, are crucial to search engine optimization, but sometimes it is difficult to know how to begin acquiring them. Which websites should you approach to help you rank better in the search results?
In these situations, research into the backlinks of other successful websites is a necessity. Once you research, you can begin to prioritize who you should contact to begin building your backlinks. To do this, however, you need to learn how to spy on your competitors to make backlinks easy.
Why Are Backlinks Important in SEO?
If you are unfamiliar with backlinks, you might be wondering what they are, and why they are so crucial to your website’s search engine rank. In short, a backlink (or inbound link) is a link back to your website on an outside source.
High-quality backlinks are one of the ways search engine algorithms determine where to place a website in the search results. In this case, a high-quality backlink refers to a backlink from a source the search engine algorithms consider authoritative and trustworthy. Furthermore, algorithms examine inbound links to determine a website’s relevancy to the search results, which will determine how a result is ranked. Therefore, most experts consider backlinks to be one of the most important factors in SEO.
See Competitor’s Backlinks
One common hurdle to finding high-quality backlinks is knowing where to begin your search. With so many websites on the web, it might seem impossible to know which ones will be best for your SEO, and among those websites which ones are willing to help. Here is where some corporate espionage is helpful.
Competitors in your field will, no doubt, have built a collection of quality backlinks, and you can see which websites will yield the best results for you.
How do I Spy on my Competitors Backlinks?
If you are worried seeing your competition’s inbound links will require unethical tactics, you can lay your fears to rest. There is a simple process to seeing backlinks your competition has acquired.
Do note, however, that you will need to download or purchase a tool (such as Open Site Explorer) to do this, so make sure you acquire it from a reputable source. The tool should allow you to look at the website’s link profile (list of links directing to the competitor’s website).
Once you have the tool, examine the external links leading to the website.
The tool you downloaded should have options to analyze the quality of each link, so next look at each link’s Domain Authority, Page Authority, and Spam Score. Alternatively, if the tool has the option to sort by Domain Authority, set it to sort by highest Domain Authority to see the best links.
How do I use my Competitors Backlinks?
Once you have found some high-quality links, you should have a good idea of who you should contact for backlinks. Before you contact them, you need to figure out how to obtain an inbound link from the high-quality websites you found.
Build Relationships with the Websites
When you contact the websites, you should take a more elegant approach than just bombarding them with messages, emails, phone calls, etc. In fact, you should never ask for them to give you a backlink out of pure charity.
The trick here is finding a way to make the acquisition of backlinks from these websites mutually beneficial. For example, consider collaborating on an article, or, if you are in similar industries or fields, give each other a shout-out. Be sure, however, not to mention your competition, or ask them to stop supporting your competitors.
From there, continue to build your relationship with the websites. You might receive benefits from them you did not expect.
Once you begin spying on your competition’s backlinks, you will see acquiring backlinks is easier than you ever expected.