Ranking on SERPs can be much work. Keywords and Links are the most critical parts of the puzzle. If you want to rank, you cannot do without any of these two variables.

To a considerable extent, links are the basis of Google’s Ranking Algorithm. Apart from their ranking benefits, backlinks can do a lot to promote your brand by familiarizing your target audience with it.

Backlinks also establish you as an authority in your specific niche.

This is why the struggle for backlinks in the SEO world is real. Companies pay SEO experts thousands of dollars monthly for link building services. But the thing is that get backlinks are not that difficult. You can always steal backlinks from your competitors that rank higher than you.

In this post, I will show you how this can be possible.

How to Get your Competitor’s Backlinks

In the hustle for backlinks, there is a very viable source webmasters fail to search. They are (you guessed it) backlinks used by competitors. In this section of the blog, I will show you just how to do this using a few tools.

Identify Who Your Competitors Are

You cannot steal backlinks from your competitors if you do not know who they are. Let me state this: The most prominent brands in your industry are not always the competitors you should focus on when it comes to SEO.

Your target should be the ones that are at the top of the SERPs. They are the ones you are to be targeting. Don’t get me wrong: if they are the best in your industry and happen to be at the top of the SERPs, then they are your competitors. But if this isn’t the case, then they aren’t your SEO competitors.

You can use tools like Rank Tracker to find out who your competitors are. Here is a step by step guide on how to do it.

Step 1: Compile a list of keywords that you will probably rank for

Step 2: Create A new project for your website and type in your website address

Step 3: Add the list of keywords that you have compiled and click next.

Step 4: Select your preferred search engine and Finish.

Step 5: Click on Preferences, then Competitors

Step 6: A screen called competitor management will pop up.

Step 7: Click on the Suggest Button at the top of your screen

Step 8: A screen showing all the keywords you searched for will pop up. You can add or remove them if you want.

Step 9: You get a list of your websites competing for the keywords that you have identified.

Identify the Backlinks that Your SEO Competitors Have

Using SEO SpyGlass, you can find some backlinks that you can actively pursue. Here is a Step by Step guide on how to do it.

Step 1: Create a new project in SEO SPYGlass and input your website URL

Step 2: Select SEO PowerSuite is your preferred backlink source

Step 3: Put a limit on the number of backlinks that you want to see. You can decide not to put a limit if you’re going to. (Note that, the max is 40,000).

Step 4: The application will search through its database for all the backlinks that your domain has.

Step 5: Go to the Domain Comparison Module. A pop-up box will appear. Enter the URLs of the SEO competitors you have previously identified and click OK.

You will then get a list of the backlinks of your competitors in a tabular format

Identify Websites That Are Likely To Link To Your Website

By now, you have a vast backlink summary to sort through. You have to focus on websites that are most likely going to link your site. The backlinks you should pursue are the ones that have linked to at least two of your competitors.

Here is a step by step guide on how to do this:

Step 1: Click on Link Intersection on the left side of the screen

Step 2: Backlink data on the sites that you specified will be collected. This may take a while. When the data is collated, you will see all the different websites that link to your site.

However, keep in mind that this is not the goal. The endgame is to see the websites that will link to your competitors’ websites.   To do that, click the Potential backlink domains tab and a list of all the domains linking to your competitors’ website will be shown to you.

Inquire About Getting A Backlink to Your Website

Now that you have a comprehensive list of your competitors’ backlinks, you can now figure out how to get those backlinks to work for you. Reaching out to those website owners seems to be the only viable thing.

You will have to get their contact information. There is a straightforward way to do this.

Using SEOPowerSuite’s LinkAssistant software, getting their contact info should not be a hassle at all. Here is a step by step guide on how to use the software to gather their contact info.

Step 1: Create a new project for your website on the software

Step 2: Click on the Add button located at the top left of the main Prospects module. A new window will pop up.

Step 3: Enter the domains of the backlinks you got using SEO SpyGlass into the empty box on the new window.

Do not check the box marked ‘Add these URLs as your current backlinks’ but keep the Enable expert options box checked. Click next.

Step 4: On the new window, only make sure the ‘Try to acquire contact information’ box is checked. The software will try to find an email address of all the domains. It may take a while, but once it is finished, you can select the domains you will like to keep. Once you pick them, click Finish.

You will get a list of the emails belonging to those domains. All you have to do now is to email the new prospects that play a massive role in helping your competitors rank using keywords.

Conclusion

All of this might seem like so much work. However, it can go a long way in upping your SEO Adelaide game and helping you rank on SERPs.