Your key to strategic link building is backlink gap analysis.<\/b><\/p>\n
Backlink gap analysis is a form of competitor analysis<\/a> that will help you:<\/p>\n In this post, we\u2019ll cover how to perform an SEO competitive backlink gap analysis that will help you boost your site\u2019s authority<\/a> and win on the SERPs.<\/p>\n Competitor backlink gap analysis is the process of comparing your backlink profile<\/b> to those of your top competitors. The goal is to understand gaps in your backlink profile so that you can uncover valuable link building opportunities and compete on the SERPs.<\/p>\n A comprehensive backlink gap analysis will help you understand which links are crucial to acquire in your industry, which are easy to obtain, and what content to create to obtain them.<\/p>\n Here are four benefits to performing a backlink gap analysis:<\/p>\n Your organic rankings don’t exist in a vacuum. Tens of thousands of sites (sometimes millions) compete for the top spot on any given SERP, and there are many factors that determine which will be chosen for the top spots.<\/p>\n Search engines consider quality backlinks as endorsements, and the greater your authority, the more likely your site will rank for queries in your niche.<\/p>\n Now, we know search is competitive. If your competitors have a lot of quality backlinks pointing to their content and your site doesn\u2019t, they\u2019ll have a distinct ranking advantage over you, even if you have better content.<\/p>\n Backlink gap analysis will help you identify the backlinks you need to build topical authority<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sometimes, it\u2019s hard to know where to start when building out a link building strategy and finding high-quality prospects.<\/p>\n Long gone are (or should be) the days of sending out a bunch of cringy LinkedIn DMs to anyone who has the word \u2018Content\u2019 written somewhere<\/i> on their LinkedIn profile.<\/p>\n Instead, professional SEOs use competitor backlink gap analysis to solve this. With banklink analysis, you can create a targeted prospect list. After all, if sites link to your direct competitors\u2019 content, they are likely to link out to yours, too – this should see your response rates increase dramatically.<\/p>\n Backlink gap analysis will help you to prioritize tasks within your link building efforts and make sure you\u2019re working efficiently – because we all know no business has unlimited resources.<\/p>\n As a data-based process, it will help you find and reach out to the biggest and most profitable opportunities first. It will allow you to go after sites that are highly relevant and authoritative, ensuring you focus on the backlinks that are likely to deliver the most impact.<\/p>\n Sometimes, competitors’ backlinks come from content types you haven’t yet explored. Backlink gap analysis can reveal these formats or topics that are highly valuable to your audience. Websites naturally want to link out to high-value content, and this will help scale your link building efforts.<\/p>\n Here are the four basic steps to performing a backlink gap analysis:<\/p>\n Identifying the right competitors is crucial – get this wrong, and all your hard work will go to waste.<\/p>\n SEO competitors<\/a> are different from regular business competitors because they\u2019re competing for visibility on the SERPs. Even sites that are not in your industry could be competing with your SEO content<\/a>.<\/p>\n For instance, Wikipedia ranks at the top of search results for almost any niche yet is dedicated to none of them.<\/p>\n Think about your SEO competitors in two ways:<\/p>\n Your direct SEO competitors<\/b> consist of businesses that serve a similar organic audience to you. When doing competitor backlink gap analysis, you should look for domains<\/b> that link to these competitors.<\/p>\n SERP competitors<\/b> compete with your content on any given SERP for a set of specific keywords, and to outrank them, you must analyze the specific links<\/b> pointing to these pages.<\/p>\n Google is a great place to find SEO competitors. If you are looking for direct SEO competitors<\/b>, try searching your head terms<\/b>.<\/p>\n A head term generally represents your topic as a whole. For example, if you have a website dedicated to parenting, your head term will be parenting<\/i>. If you cover more than one topic on your site, you might have more than one head term.<\/p>\n If, on the other hand, you want to find SERP competitors<\/b>, simply Google your target keywords<\/b>, eg. \u2018how do solar panels work<\/i>\u2019. Pick the top URLs ranking on those SERPs and look at what links are pointing to them.<\/p>\n While this is a quick method that generally works well, it\u2019s important to understand that some SERPs are more volatile than others. If you Google a keyword, the results you are seeing today might not be the same as tomorrow. This means you must pick stable competitors to analyze. The Similarweb <\/b>Rank Tracker<\/b><\/a> tool solves this elegantly by showing you how the top 10 results are progressing over time.<\/p>\n Above, we are tracking the keyword \u2018milwaukee<\/i>\u2019. As you can see the results below position #5 are highly volatile. For this keyword, your top competitors are the URLs in the top five positions.<\/p>\n A data-driven approach to finding competitors will help you see your entire competitive landscape<\/a>, and cut down hours<\/i> of Googling time.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s explore how to do this using the Similarweb Organic Competitors<\/b> report. To get started, drop your domain into the tool and scroll down to the Organic Competitors table. Below you can see the organic competitors for parents.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n The tool brings a list of sites that have overlapping keywords. This means, as we mentioned above, they might not all be in the same industry as you are – which is made clear in the Industry column.<\/p>\n Since parents.com is in the Children\u2019s Health niche, we can filter all other industries out with the Industry filter<\/b>.<\/p>\n If the results are still not direct competitors, you can filter the results further with the Website Type<\/b> and Search Type<\/b> filters. The more granular you filter the results, the closer they will be to your business.<\/p>\n Now, we\u2019ve covered how to find your competitors, it\u2019s time to take a look at what backlinks your top competitors have to truly understand where your backlink gap<\/b> is. This process is similar if you are looking at direct SEO competitors<\/b> or SERP competitors<\/b>.<\/p>\n Before looking at your competitors\u2019 backlinks, you need to get your own backlink data using a tool like Similarweb Backlink Analytics<\/b><\/a>. Then, you can go ahead and do the same with your top competitors.<\/p>\n To work out where your backlink gaps are, download the lists into Excel and compare the results, as you search for links that your competitors have that you don\u2019t.<\/p>\n A referring domain is a website that has at least one hyperlink pointing to one or more pages on your website, so by analyzing them, you can uncover many link opportunities<\/p>\n The number of referring domains indicates how many unique websites are linking to your site<\/b>. Generally, links from a diverse set of authoritative and trustworthy domains carry more weight in search engine algorithms. If your backlinks come from a variety of reputable sources, it can positively impact your site’s credibility and authority.<\/p>\n The Similarweb Referring Domains report <\/b>will show you all of your referring domains, and you can apply the same process as above.<\/p>\n Make sure you\u2019re prioritizing your link building efforts by focusing on the highest quality domains, indicated by a high \u00a0Domain Trust Score (DTS.)\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n Definition<\/i>: Domain Trust Score or DTS is a metric designed to tell you how authoritative a domain is – the higher a domain\u2019s authority, the more valuable it is to your site.<\/p>\n Time is one of your most important resources, but also one of your more scarce resources. Prioritization is crucial to working efficiently, so make sure you\u2019re focusing on the right links.<\/p>\n Make sure to focus on:<\/p>\n Links that appear on the majority of your competitors should be your top priority. If they are willing to link out to your competitors consistently, they are likely to link out to your site. What\u2019s more, if they link to all of your competitors, they might be a major factor in competitors\u2019 SEO success.<\/b><\/p>\n Focus on links that come from sites that are relevant to your industry. There are two advantages to relevant links:<\/p>\n When building links, it\u2019s more important to focus on quality rather than quantity. This means focusing on the links with the highest Page Trust Score (PTS) <\/b>in the Similarweb Backlinks report<\/b>. PTS is a metric designed to tell you the strength of the page where the backlink comes from.<\/p>\n The quickest way to do that is to sort the data so that it shows the results with the highest PTS first. To do that, click PTS at the top of the table.<\/p>\n After going through the steps outlined above, you\u2019ll have all the data you need to create a successful link building plan – and now it\u2019s time to put that plan together following these three steps:<\/p>\n Before jumping in and reaching out to link prospects, it\u2019s important to first plan your efforts.<\/p>\n\n
What is backlink gap analysis?<\/h2>\n
Why is backlink gap analysis important?<\/h2>\n
1. Makes your site more competitive on the SERPs<\/h3>\n
2. Helps you find link opportunities<\/h3>\n
![\"Spammy](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Spammy-link-building-requests-on-LinkedIn.png\")
<\/p>\n3. Prioritize your efforts<\/h3>\n
4. Identify content gaps<\/h3>\n
How to do a backlink gap analysis in 4 steps<\/h2>\n
1. Identify your competitors<\/h3>\n
![\"Wikipedia](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Wikipedia-ranking-at-the-top-of-Google.png\")
<\/p>\n\n
How to find your competitors on Google<\/h4>\n
![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Google-SERPs-for-the-keyword-how-do-solar-panels-work.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"Similarweb](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Similarweb-Rank-Tracker-showing-top-10-results-over-time.png\"){kind=tracking}
<\/p>\nHow to find your competitors using competitive data<\/h4>\n
![\"Similarweb](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Similarweb-Organic-Competitors-report.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"Organic](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Organic-Competitors-report-showing-sites-in-the-Childrens-Health-niche.png\")
<\/p>\n2. Analyze your site and your competitors<\/h3>\n
![\"Backlink](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Backlink-report-in-Excel.png\")
<\/p>\n3. Analyze referring domains<\/h3>\n
![\"Similarweb](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Similarweb-Referring-Domains-report.png\")
<\/p>\n4. Prioritize your link opportunities<\/h3>\n
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Links that occur frequently<\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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Links that are relevant<\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n
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Links with high authority<\/h4>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"Similarweb](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Similarweb-Backlinks-report-1.png\")
<\/p>\n Create a link building plan based on your link gap<\/h2>\n
1. Planning<\/h3>\n
![\"Similarweb](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Similarweb-showing-referring-domains-and-backlinks-over-time.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/New-vs-Lost-links-report-in-Similarweb.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"Performance](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Performance-Over-Time-in-the-Similarweb-Rank-Tracker.png\"){kind=tracking}
<\/p>\n![\"Similarweb](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Similarweb-Keywords-report.png\")
<\/p>\n