A rival nexus investigation is an appraisal of the nexus profiles of large competitors wherever you look astatine their nexus gathering strategies to summation insights. Implementing immoderate of the aforesaid strategies successful your ain nexus gathering tin pb to higher rankings successful hunt engines and accrued concern outcomes.

Performing this benignant of investigation allows you to find sites that commonly nexus to websites akin to yours. If you look astatine well-ranking competitors and they person a batch of the aforesaid links, those links whitethorn beryllium the ones helping them to rank.

Let’s instrumentality a look astatine however to execute a basal audit. Later, I’ll amusement you however to standard this process to get adjacent much insights utilizing bigger data. 

This elemental process tin uncover a batch of nexus opportunities by looking astatine the communal links that your contiguous competitors already have.

1. Identify competitors

You whitethorn already cognize who your competitors are and tin usage that database aboriginal successful the process. If you request immoderate help, cheque retired the Organic competitors report successful Ahrefs’ Site Explorer to find a database of sites ranking for the aforesaid things you are.

If you don’t person a website yet, past you tin hunt for a fewer main presumption and you whitethorn beryllium capable to archer who the competitors volition be. Another mode of doing this is to simply adhd a fewer presumption to Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer and spell to the Traffic stock by domains report, which volition amusement you which sites are getting the astir postulation for those terms. 

2. Find communal links 

Take your database of competitors and participate them successful the Link Intersect report successful Site Explorer. This is going to springiness you a database of each the referring domains that your competitors person and amusement however galore antithetic competitors person links from those sites. 

You tin click the numbers nether each domain to spot the benignant of links they person from each website.

3. Identifying rival strategies

There are a mates of ways to usage this data. You tin look astatine the communal links your competitors person that you’re missing and enactment your mode done those, oregon you tin look for patterns successful the information to spot the benignant of sites wherever competitors are getting links. You whitethorn spot things similar niche sites, section listings, oregon different section websites.

Congratulations, you’ve done a basal rival nexus analysis! 

If you person a small much time, you tin standard the nexus intersect process to stitchery adjacent much information and opportunities. Keep speechmaking to find out how.

bonus tip: cheque your competitors’ astir linked content

If you look astatine the Best by links report for immoderate of your competitors successful Site Explorer, you whitethorn spot immoderate absorbing contented driving links to competitors that you different whitethorn not find. 

I commonly spot things similar tools, studies, oregon adjacent quotes that thrust a batch of links to idiosyncratic competitors. 

A batch of these links whitethorn beryllium unsocial to a peculiar competitor, and you whitethorn miss them erstwhile looking astatine the overlap of rival links. 

If you spot a rival successfully gaining links this way, you whitethorn beryllium capable to make akin tools and contented to summation much links for your own site.

With a scaled process, you’re moving with much information that tin pb to further insights and opportunities. You’ll walk much clip up beforehand going done this process, but you whitethorn beryllium capable to reuse the opportunities you find for different clients. I would expect it to instrumentality 2 to 4 hours for astir radical to travel this process.

First, we’ll look astatine your competitors’ links to find your niche-specific links. And later, we’ll look astatine different sites successful your metropolis to find section nexus opportunities.

Niche links

The easier process that we covered earlier conscionable looks astatine nonstop competitors. If you person much than 10 nonstop competitors, you tin inactive usage a akin process to what I’m astir to amusement to summation much insights. 

Just skip the conception beneath and spell straight to wherever you’re exporting referring domains of competitors. You tin usage your ain database oregon get a larger database from the Competing Domains report successful Site Explorer.

Local only

This process is simply a large acceptable for companies focused connected local SEO, but it requires a small more work. 

By section SEO, I mean companies that mostly vie successful 1 country similar dentist offices, instrumentality firms, plumbing companies, etc. If you look astatine sites competing successful different markets that whitethorn beryllium stronger oregon much competitory than your own, you’ll find a batch of further opportunities that nary 1 successful your marketplace has taken vantage of.

First, make a transcript of this Google expanse with the apical 50 U.S. cities. Replace “service” with the sanction of your niche and transcript the worth down to make your keyword list. 

If you’re successful a antithetic country, you tin make a akin expanse with fashionable cities successful your country.

Copy the resulting database of presumption from file C and paste them into Keywords Explorer, past click the hunt button.

If you click the export option, you’ll spot different paper with an enactment to see the SERPs successful the export. This volition see the sites successful the top 10.

With the database of sites, delete thing that doesn’t look similar a niche site.

You tin acceptable your ain filters to marque this easier. But arsenic a wide mode to cleanable the data, I’d recommend:

• Insert > Table
• Filter > DR little than 50. Most section sites won’t person a DR that high, whereas directories and aggregators similar yellowpages.com will. This is trying to get escaped of each the directory/roundup/best-of-type sites.
• Filter Type > Organic

Then manually delete thing that seems retired of place. What you’ll beryllium near with is the apical sites successful your niche from antithetic cities.

All companies

The astir time-consuming process is what’s next. For each site, you’ll request to export its referring domains utilizing the Referring domains report successful Site Explorer. I’d urge redeeming them to a caller folder to marque the adjacent measurement easier.

Or if you person an endeavor program that has API entree and you privation to bash this quickly, you tin iterate done the websites. We supply the needed petition if you click the “{ } API” button.

Now we request to harvester each the files into one. I’ll amusement you however to bash this successful Windows and connected MacOS. But if it’s easier for you, past you whitethorn privation to effort 1 of the online instrumentality options that tin harvester CSV files.

I usually bash this with Windows Command Prompt. Here’s the process:

1. Save the files to a caller folder
2. Get the way either by utilizing shift+right-click connected the folder and “Copy arsenic path,” oregon transcript it from the code barroom erstwhile viewing the contents of the folder
3. Open Command Prompt, which you tin find by searching “cmd”
4. Type “cd,” property “Space,” right-click and paste, past property “Enter”
5. Type “copy *.csv whatever-name.csv” and property “Enter”

For MacOS, you’ll usage Terminal alternatively of Command Prompt, and the bid to harvester them is “cat *.csv > whatever-name.csv” for measurement #5. But otherwise, the instructions should beryllium the same.

Open the caller combined file. We’ll request to get a number of however galore times each of the referring domains appears successful the file. Here’s however to do that:

• Insert > Table
• Insert Column adjacent to Referring Domain file and sanction it Count
• In the Count Column, adhd the look =COUNTIF(B:B,[@[Referring Domain]])

Copy the numbers successful the Count file and paste successful the aforesaid spot arsenic values. This makes it truthful the numbers aren’t mislaid erstwhile we region duplicates. To region duplicates:

• Data > Remove Duplicates based connected the Referring Domain
• Data > Sort by Count > Largest to Smallest

This leaves you with the apical referring sites successful your niche. It should look thing like this: 

You’ll privation to categorize them successful ways that marque consciousness to you. I’d highly urge pulling retired the niche-specific domains. Sometimes, you’ll spot assorted organizations, commercialized shows, suppliers, vendors, niche-specific directories, etc.

Take that database and look astatine however they’re linking to these different sites. There are a fig of ways to bash this similar checking the Linked Domains report for these sites to spot however they nexus retired to other sites.

You tin adjacent repetition this process with different akin niches wherever you whitethorn find further opportunities that nary 1 successful your niche has taken vantage of.

Next, let’s look astatine however you tin usage a akin process to find section nexus opportunities.

Local links

If we look extracurricular our niche to different sites successful the aforesaid city, the overlap of their links tin supply a batch of opportunities for local nexus building. Local websites thin to speech astir and nexus to different section websites. If you’re an bureau that has a batch of section SEO clients successful the aforesaid area, you’ll decidedly privation to spell done this process.

Make a transcript of this Google expanse with immoderate of the astir fashionable niches for section businesses. Simply adhd the sanction of your metropolis and transcript the worth down to make your keyword list.

1. Colleges/universities – These see jobs, scholarships, nine sponsorships, discounts, and alumni links.
2. City-specific sites and directories
3. Local quality and magazines
4. Sites astir the authorities and surrounding areas
5. Suppliers/affiliations/partners – Some of these were testimonials and lawsuit studies.
6. Churches – They look to nexus to a batch of section organizations and businesses of their members.
7. Business groups – They nexus to those who are portion of the group.
8. Events – I saw a batch of links from meetup.com—most of which were from hosting oregon sponsoring.
9. Sponsorships and charities – This is besides large for supporting the section community.
10. Podcasts
11. Awards – Especially section favorites.
12. Coupons
13. Directories
14. Job postings

You whitethorn find immoderate different absorbing patterns. For example, I saw that beauteous overmuch anyone progressive successful weddings similar DJs, photographers, lawsuit planners, and caterers each look to nexus to each other. I recovered different signifier wherever realtors, apartments, and HOA sites thin to nexus to things to bash and places to eat. 

I besides saw immoderate well-done ego bait adept roundups. Many of these radical person their ain idiosyncratic sites and blogs that nexus to this benignant of content.

There were besides a batch of links from the section Reddit community, Facebook groups, and Nextdoor. These types of sites tin besides beryllium invaluable sources for referrals.

Final thoughts

Analyzing your competitors’ links is simply a large mode to reverse technologist their strategies and find the links that whitethorn beryllium helping your competitors the most. Scaling that process tin pb to a batch of unsocial insights.

Message maine on Twitter if you person immoderate questions.