Competitor Backlink Analysis (In 5 Minutes!)

Competitor backlink analysis is a pretty straightforward process. And yet, most blog posts or explainers make it long-winded and unnecessarily complex.

Here’s a quick, no-nonsense approach to competitor backlink analysis.

Step #1: Open the Backlink Tool

Log in to your backlink tool. We use Semrush, since it emerged as the best tool in our backlink discovery test.

Once you’ve logged into Semrush, go to the left menu: SEO > Competitive Research > Backlink Gap.

Step #2: Enter Domains

The Backlink Gap in Semrush will ask you to enter domain names

The first domain is your domain, the website you are working on. The second and subsequent domains will be your competitor domain names. 

So, enter your domain and competitor domain(s) in the tool. 

For demonstration, I’m using prnews.io as my domain (it’s not), and collaborator.pro as a competitor domain. You can add multiple competitors as well.

Step #3: Find Prospects

Once you’ve added the domain names, hit the “Find prospects” button.

Semrush then shows you the list of backlinks you and/or your competitors have.

You can see the referring domain name, its Authority Score (AS), monthly traffic, and number of links from the referring domain to your site and the competitors’.

Step #4: Sort and Filter the Prospects

Next, you can sort and filter these backlinks on different parameters.

The best filter (pun intended) is the “Best” tab.

You get the “Best” tab by default. It sorts the backlinks by those that link to your competitors but not to you.

In essence, showing you the backlink gap.

You can further sort these referring domains based on their Authority Score (AS), monthly traffic, etc.

Step #5: Link Opportunities

You now have the list of referring domains that link to your competitors but not to you. 

So, each of these is a link opportunity.

With that list, you can go ahead and build those backlinks to your domain. This can be done in multiple ways.

First, manual outreach. You reach out to the site owners yourself and try to build a backlink. This in-house approach gives you full control, but can be time-consuming. And if you’re not familiar with link-building efforts, it can eat up a lot of cost and effort.

Second, hire an SEO agency or a link-building agency to build links for you from these link opportunities. You save time, but you’re outsourcing and have little control over the process.

Third, check guest-posting marketplaces to see if these link opportunities are readily available. The problem here is there are far too many guest-posting marketplaces (here’s them ranked), and it’s overwhelming to check whether the link opportunities are available on each of these marketplaces.

Fourth, use fatgrid tool to check whether these link opportunities are available on marketplaces. This automates the above approach and does it for you in one step. Plus, you can compare the link prices across different marketplaces!

Bottomline

Despite what others say, competitor backlink analysis isn’t that complicated.

You use tools like Semrush to find the backlink gap. List the links your competitors have but you don’t. They become your link opportunities.

Then, you use tools like fatgrid to check whether these links are readily available and how much they cost.

Quick, simple, and effective.

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