How to Steal Your Competition’s Backlinks (And Then Outrank Them)

How to Steal Your Competition’s Backlinks (And Then Outrank Them)

How to Steal Your Competition’s Backlinks (And Then Outrank Them). The good news is that you can use your competitor’s site as a model to eventually surpass them in the search results and win the traffic race. They won’t have enough strong, replicable links to provide any insight. They’ve probably received many of their links serendipitously over the years by delivering a decent product and sticking around long enough. Pull up an account and begin by entering your domain name. Once your website’s data pops up, select “Domain Analytics” and then “Organic Research” to find the “Competitors” link. Now the table in the middle of your screen will list out who your biggest SEO competitors are based on the industry, same topics, and more. For example, based on the earlier graph, we can already tell a few things: NeilPatel.com and QuickSprout.com are neck and neck WordStream and Kissmetrics are just ahead, with Moz way out in the lead And Backlinko is coming up fast behind us If I wanted to catch Moz, it’s probably going to take awhile (if ever). You can do this in SEMrush and many other tools, but I want to show you how to replicate the process in a few different examples, so you realize that it’s not about the tools at the end of the day. We’re going to use Open Site Explorer to try and reverse engineer what our competitors are doing.

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Are you tired of your competitors outranking you?

You’ve spent time optimizing your site but it still isn’t turning up as high as you thought it would (or should).

What does the competition have that you don’t?

How are they making a killing over your site when it comes to search results?

The answer?

Typically it comes down to ideas and backlinks – lots of backlinks.

The trick is that these can’t be bought or borrowed. You have to earn them.

The good news is that you can use your competitor’s site as a model to eventually surpass them in the search results and win the traffic race.

Here’s how to find out what your competitors are doing, reverse engineer their tactics, and then blow them away with better execution.

Who Are You Competing with for Links?

It isn’t who you think it is.

That might sound wrong, but stick with me for a second and I’ll explain.

If you have a brick and mortar location, you’re probably thinking of the guy or gal down the street. If you’re online, you’re leaning towards the 800-pound gorilla in the space.

Neither is going to help you much in this case.

With the first one, their online footprint is often too small to help you. They won’t have enough strong, replicable links to provide any insight. They’ve probably received many of their links serendipitously over the years by delivering a decent product and sticking around long enough.

On the other end of the spectrum, you have the huge products or companies in the industry.

Simply put: You often don’t have the resources, brand awareness, or credibility to pull off the same links that they might.

Massive brands are like magnets for good links, and many times you’ll struggle even to get noticed by the same people.

So you need a different approach.

In the beginning, it takes a little more thought and effort to figure out who is a good competitor to benchmark against. And then second, how can you go after the same links at scale.

I’ll show you how to do both of those things right now.

One of my favorite tools to start with is SEMrush. Pull up an account and begin by entering your domain name.

Once your website’s data pops up, select “Domain Analytics” and then “Organic Research” to find the “Competitors” link. (You can see that on the upper left-hand corner of your screen.)

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Now the table in the middle of your screen will list out who your biggest SEO competitors are based on the industry, same topics, and more.

Then the graph right above the table will visually help you figure out who’s bigger, smaller, and where you are in relation.

They do that by comparing your estimated organic search traffic and number of organic keywords sending you traffic.

Keep in mind that these are estimates. SEMrush obviously can’t look into someone’s Google Analytics account and know for sure. But they’ve built their own toolset to replicate what a search engine’s process might look like.

That’s fine because at this point you’re just looking for a general range of competitors. For example, based on the earlier graph, we can already tell a few things:

  1. NeilPatel.com and QuickSprout.com are neck and neck
  2. WordStream and Kissmetrics are just ahead, with Moz way out in the lead
  3. And Backlinko is coming up fast behind us

If I wanted to catch Moz, it’s probably going to take awhile (if ever).

But now with a little knowledge, I can position myself against WordStream and keep an eye on what Backlinko is up to so that I can continue to climb.

Now let’s head over to Moz and use their Open Site Explorer to pull up the link profile of each competitor.

You can do this in SEMrush and many other tools, but I want to show you how to replicate the process in a few different examples, so you realize that it’s not about the tools at the end of the day.

We’re going to use Open Site Explorer to try and reverse engineer what our competitors are doing. Not just the link per se, but the stuff going on in the background that generated those links for them.

For example, are there any obvious trends that stick out? Is their content longer than yours? Are they using more images or maybe fewer images?

These are the kinds of components you will want to imitate – and exceed eventually.

Let’s continue picking on Backlinko as one of our top competitors listed earlier. I’m coming for you, Brian!

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