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Competitors’ backlinks analysis is an integral part of growing a link profile of any website. Improving backlinks quality and quantity will increase organic search ranking. There are many strategies to find competitors’ backlinks. In this guide, I will show you how to find your competitors’ backlinks for free.
Unfortunately, most useful backlink audit tools are expensive, and the free ones hold limited functionality. Also, not every small business can afford to buy all the link building tools, especially if a business is new with limited funds. That’s why I have mentioned mostly free backlinks analysis tools.
Check out my latest link-building techniques if you need to step up your link-building game.
Table of Contents
Why Should You Perform a Backlinks Analysis?
You can do backlink audits for different purposes. Sometimes, you may have to find backlinks your competitors create to rank higher in the search.
Alternatively, a backlink audit can sometimes help if a website is affected by a Google algorithm penalty. You can remove harmful backlinks with this simple tutorial.
Tools to Perform a Competitors Backlinks Analysis
Here are some of the best free & paid backlinks analysis tools to find competitors’ backlinks. It will help you develop a better link building strategy.
However, none of these mentioned tools is perfect. There are some pros and cons of each backlink tool. You can use these tools to find relevant data and understand your competitors’ backlinks. Use them to research and improve your backlink strategy.
1. BacklinkWatch (Free)
BacklinkWatch is a free backlinks audit tool. Adding a competitor’s website URL will give you a lot of top backlinks. However, this audit won’t be as comprehensive as any paid tool.
If you are tight on the budget, you can get some data from your competitors. You can get top referring domains, backlinks, OBL, and PR.
2. Google Search (Free)
You can use Google search to find some backlinks. However, it is not a recommended method since Google long ago stopped showing backlinks using the search operator: link:domain.com .
If you can’t afford any link building tool, you can use this search operator on Google: link:domain.com Replace the domain with your competitor’s URL.
3. SEOquake (Free)
It is a stand-alone browser plugin available on Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Opera. It is an entirely free plugin and can give you valuable data to improve SEO.
To do a backlink audit, you may need to create and connect an account on Semrush. After that, You can search your competitor’s backlinks, top referring domains, trust score, etc.
4. Semrush (Paid)
Semrush is one of the best competitor analysis tools but a little expensive. You can find accurate SEO data, including competitors’ backlinks. Semrush is a paid tool. However, they offer a free trial with limited functionality.
Semrush gives you valuable backlinks information, anchor texts, referring domains, referring IPs, trust scores, and more.
The Process of Finding Competitors’ backlinks
The simple way to find competitors’ backlinks is through manually searching competitors and their keywords. You should consider these points when performing a competitor’s backlinks analysis.
Find Out Top Competitors
The first thing you need to do is find out top competitors. The easiest way is to search your top keywords on Google and find out as many top competing websites from those searches.
You can download search results by using SEOquake. Keep all these competitors’ websites in an excel file.
Top Referring Domains
Now use any of the backlink audit tools to collect backlink intelligence. Look for their top referring domains; these could be websites from which they get the most backlinks. Either they have some partnership with the site owner or have created those backlinks themselves.
Collect all these domains and keep them in an excel sheet in 1 column.
Anchor Text Competitors are Using
Now collect all the anchor text they are using to create backlinks. It will give you complete data on which keywords they are targeting to improve ranking in search.
Finding your competitor’s anchor text usage can identify easier keywords for your SEO campaign.
Backlinks Pattern
Check backlinks and the strategies they use to build links. Find one method that your competitors most use, and utilize it. Let’s say if all the competitors made backlinks through guest posting, you should also make such backlinks.
Reach out to those bloggers through email, social networks, or local events. First, develop relationships by doing favors or helping them. After a while, you can send them your article idea.
Pages Getting Most Backlinks
Find the top pages on each competitor’s website that get the most backlinks. It’s vital to develop a better content strategy as well. You can find out the top pain points of your audience, and you can use that information to provide better and more engaging content that your competitors failed to produce.
Competitor backlinks information can help your own website’s SEO strategy. You can use some of those websites to get backlinks. However, this advice doesn’t work for most websites as some industries use extreme SEO tactics and create their private blog networks (PBN) for link building. You can still find websites, anchor texts, and keywords your competitors are targeting, which you can use in your SEO campaign.
You can also use these social media competitor analysis tools to spy on your competitors’ social strategies.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.