Competitive Link Research
SECTION VI
Identifying Primary Competitors
Link Search Methods
Identifying Primary Competitors
Link Search Methods
We’ve just discussed how to ask the search engines where they think the valuable links are, but now it’s time to find out where your successful competitors are actually getting the links that are putting them at the top of the SERPs.
Identifying Primary Competitors:
As Sun Tzu said so long ago, “Know thy self, know thy enemy.” In order to compete for search results in your niche you need to know a couple of things: 1. Thy Self, i.e. the terms you want to rank for; 2. Thy Enemy, i.e. the sites that are already where you want to be for those search terms.
You should start your link building campaign by sitting down and listing the top 20 or so (do as many as 50 if you want) most competitive search terms and phrases that you want to rank for. You may want to look at tools such as the SEOmoz Keyword Difficulty tool or the SEO Book Keyword Suggestion tool to help you create your list.
Once you have this list, search the terms at Google, Yahoo! and MSN, paying attention to the top 20 results at each. Make note of sites that consistently rank in the top 20 for your terms. Pay extra-special attention to those sites that consistently rank in the top five: they are thy enemy. Now, let’s get to know them…
Link Search Methods:
Keeping with the Sun Tzu theme, let’s say your site is www.suntzu.com and a couple of your Holy Grail search phrases are ‘land war in Asia’ and ‘Chinese general’. Your competitive research has shown that two of your arch nemeses are www.generaltsao.com and www.chairmanmao.com. How will you recruit their forces for your own quest of SERP domination? Gather intelligence on what they’ve got that you want.
First, find out where their links are coming from. You can perform direct link searches at Google, Yahoo! and MSN, although Google is essentially useless because they intentionally give incomplete link data. Yahoo! and MSN tend to list more important links ahead of less valuable ones and, thus, the top 100-200 links are the really powerful ones you want to focus on.
To check direct links for www.generaltsao.com, you would perform the following searches:
These searches, Google notwithstanding, will show you all of the inbound links to the site you’re searching for.
On Yahoo!’s standard engine as well as MSN, you can search for keyword-embedded links: those that use particular anchor text in links to your competition. You can run these searches for any or all of your key terms/phrases:
Yahoo! and MSN also allow searches for extension-specific links and direct-path-to-inclusion links. The former are links with a specific type of domain extension such as .edu or .gov. The latter are links to pages where you can easily add your site for inclusion in a directory or list of some kind:
You can also search for hubs that carry lots of information and links about your area of focus. These sites are often easier to get links from as they already mention several of your competitors. Both Yahoo! and MSN allow multiple-competitor link searches which will identify pages with links to both (or all) of your competitors, but not you:
* Both searches show pages that link to both generaltsao.com AND chairmanmao.com, but NOT suntzu.com
If you’re desperate for something (anything) from Google; you can perform some clever, normal search queries to get an idea of domains linking to your competitors:
By applying several of the various link search methods outlined above, you should be able to get a very good idea of your competitors’ in-links and where you’ll need to focus your efforts in order to vie for top rankings in competitive search terms.
Now that you know what links are, why they’re important, how engines use them and how to find good targets for them; it’s time to talk about how to actually get them. The rest of this guide will discuss the various avenues for acquiring links from the sites that will benefit your traffic and rankings.
Identifying Primary Competitors:
As Sun Tzu said so long ago, “Know thy self, know thy enemy.” In order to compete for search results in your niche you need to know a couple of things: 1. Thy Self, i.e. the terms you want to rank for; 2. Thy Enemy, i.e. the sites that are already where you want to be for those search terms.
You should start your link building campaign by sitting down and listing the top 20 or so (do as many as 50 if you want) most competitive search terms and phrases that you want to rank for. You may want to look at tools such as the SEOmoz Keyword Difficulty tool or the SEO Book Keyword Suggestion tool to help you create your list.
Once you have this list, search the terms at Google, Yahoo! and MSN, paying attention to the top 20 results at each. Make note of sites that consistently rank in the top 20 for your terms. Pay extra-special attention to those sites that consistently rank in the top five: they are thy enemy. Now, let’s get to know them…
Link Search Methods:
Keeping with the Sun Tzu theme, let’s say your site is www.suntzu.com and a couple of your Holy Grail search phrases are ‘land war in Asia’ and ‘Chinese general’. Your competitive research has shown that two of your arch nemeses are www.generaltsao.com and www.chairmanmao.com. How will you recruit their forces for your own quest of SERP domination? Gather intelligence on what they’ve got that you want.
First, find out where their links are coming from. You can perform direct link searches at Google, Yahoo! and MSN, although Google is essentially useless because they intentionally give incomplete link data. Yahoo! and MSN tend to list more important links ahead of less valuable ones and, thus, the top 100-200 links are the really powerful ones you want to focus on.
To check direct links for www.generaltsao.com, you would perform the following searches:
- At Yahoo! Site Explorer: ---------- linkdomain:generaltsao.com
- At MSN: ------------ linkdomain:generaltsao.com – site:generaltsao.com
- At Google (pointless): ------------ link:www.generaltsao.com
These searches, Google notwithstanding, will show you all of the inbound links to the site you’re searching for.
On Yahoo!’s standard engine as well as MSN, you can search for keyword-embedded links: those that use particular anchor text in links to your competition. You can run these searches for any or all of your key terms/phrases:
- At Yahoo!: linkdomain:generaltsao.com “Chinese general” – site:generaltsao.com
- At MSN: linkdomain:generaltsao.com “land war in Asia” – site:generaltsao.com
Yahoo! and MSN also allow searches for extension-specific links and direct-path-to-inclusion links. The former are links with a specific type of domain extension such as .edu or .gov. The latter are links to pages where you can easily add your site for inclusion in a directory or list of some kind:
- Y! or MSN: linkdomain:chairmanmao.com site:edu
- Y! or MSN: linkdomain:chairmanmao.com “submit site”
You can also search for hubs that carry lots of information and links about your area of focus. These sites are often easier to get links from as they already mention several of your competitors. Both Yahoo! and MSN allow multiple-competitor link searches which will identify pages with links to both (or all) of your competitors, but not you:
- At Yahoo!: linkdomain:generaltsao.com linkdomain:chairmanmao.com
- At MSN: (linkdomain:generaltsao.com linkdomain:chairmanmao.com)
* Both searches show pages that link to both generaltsao.com AND chairmanmao.com, but NOT suntzu.com
If you’re desperate for something (anything) from Google; you can perform some clever, normal search queries to get an idea of domains linking to your competitors:
- At Google: generaltsao.com -suntzu -site:generaltsao.com
- At Google: generaltsao chairmanmao –suntzu
- At Google: chairmanmao -suntzu -site:chairmanmao.com
- At Google: generaltsao "Chinese general" -suntzu -site:generaltsao.com
By applying several of the various link search methods outlined above, you should be able to get a very good idea of your competitors’ in-links and where you’ll need to focus your efforts in order to vie for top rankings in competitive search terms.
Now that you know what links are, why they’re important, how engines use them and how to find good targets for them; it’s time to talk about how to actually get them. The rest of this guide will discuss the various avenues for acquiring links from the sites that will benefit your traffic and rankings.
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