The Competitions' Links

They have inbound links. We have inbound links. How can we get some of the traffic that goes to the competition? Links are only part of the traffic-building puzzle. How the competitions’ sites are optimized for keywords, how bot-friendly their site structures are (i.e., if bots can follow all the links easily), and the effectiveness of their advertising are also factors. By studying the links to competitors’ sites, we can learn from and emulate them:

• What directories they’re listed in
• What other sites and types of sites link to them
• What types of content are linked to the most
• What customers are saying about them

How to find out what sites are linking to the competition

Some commercial SEO packages can produce lists of inbound links of other sites, for example:

• SEO Elite
• SEO ToolSet

The above packages offer more than being able to find inbound links. On the other hand, if the competitions’ inbound links are all that we’re after, we can find the same information at no cost.

In Google, type link:www.example.com with the competition’s domain in place of example.com. Google does not provide good results for backlink searches, however. The results are typically far from complete.

Yahoo has recently upgraded its Site Explorer, which provides a much more comprehensive list of backlinks than Google does. It also allows users to check backlinks for specific pages and not to display results from the domain being explored.

Tattler (link to zip file) and Back Link Analyzer are free, downloadable programs that look up backlinks.

Directory links

Some directories are free, and others have a charge to be listed in them. Quality directories often appear near the top in search results for relevant terms and can bring in a good amount of traffic. Beware of directories that are little more than link farms, though.

DMOZ is a particularly good directory to be listed in because its results are reproduced at numerous other sites. A search for the competitions’ backlinks will turn up links to industry- or field-specific directories and (if relevant) local directories.

Other types of inbound links

The types of inbound links will vary depending on the type of site linked to. A search may produce links to the competition from sites in these categories, among others:

• Related services or products
• Related content areas (perhaps to specific pages)
• Authority sites such as government sites, educational institutions, or community information sites
• Media links: articles about an individual or the company or their products or services
• Press releases
• Advertisements
• Forum and blog comments and reviews

The first three categories are sites that we may try to get links from, either one-way or reciprocal. We may want to try to interest reporters in our sites or write our own press releases. We might choose to advertise on the same sites as the competition. Before we contact webmasters, though, it’s a good idea to look up the domain registration details — the competition may own some of the sites that these backlinks come from.

Types of content linked to

Links to specific pages indicate specific interests. What content on those pages makes them worthwhile to link to directly? Are they informative articles that stand on their own? Do they have key information? What is their focus? When we know what types of content other webmasters want to link to, we can work on creating our own content to help fill that need.

Customer commentary

Customer commentary happens naturally. If we’ve been in business for a while, some people have probably talked about us online. By reading what people say about us and about the competition, we can see what people like and don’t like about our products and services as well as ways to improve what we offer.

Inbound links from quality sites help bring us more visitors via those sites, and they help improve our position in search results. Having links from a variety of types of sites is better than from just one type of site. If almost all of our links come from directories, for example, it’s possible that bots will give the links less weight in this context. A variety of types of inbound links is probably the most beneficial for search engine optimization and traffic building.