How can you identify link gap opportunities between your website and a competitor?

If you want to improve your website's ranking and authority, you need to build high-quality backlinks from relevant and trustworthy sources. But how do you find out which websites are linking to your competitors and not to you? This is where link gap analysis comes in handy. Link gap analysis is a process of identifying and targeting the websites that link to one or more of your competitors, but not to you. By finding these link gap opportunities, you can create a list of potential link prospects and reach out to them with a value proposition. In this article, we will show you how to identify link gap opportunities between your website and a competitor using some simple tools and techniques.

1 Choose a Competitor

The first step is to choose a competitor that you want to analyze. Ideally, you should pick a competitor that has a similar niche, audience, and content strategy as yours, but ranks higher than you for some of the keywords that you are targeting. You can use tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, or Moz to find out who your main competitors are based on organic traffic, keywords, and domain authority. You can also use Google to search for your target keywords and see which websites rank on the first page.

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Dmytro Shevchuk

SEO Expert with 9 years experience in diverse niches ➡️ SEO consulting, Link building, content marketing, digital PR, technical SEO, eCommerce, onpage/offpage SEO 📈
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To choose a competitor for link gap analysis: 1. Define your niche and target audience. 2. Identify competitors in your industry through research. 3. Analyze competitor relevance, authority, and performance. 4. Assess competitor link profiles using SEO tools. 5. Select key competitors closely matching your business. By focusing on relevant, authoritative competitors, you can effectively identify link gap opportunities to enhance your website's backlink profile and search engine rankings.

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Mohamed Jubair

12 years of hands on experience on SEO | Results Oriented SEO Professional | LinkedIn 19K+ Followers
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To identify link gap opportunities with competitors, use SEO tools to compare backlink profiles. Look for authoritative sites linking to competitors but not to yours. Evaluate content on those sites and develop a targeted outreach strategy. Create compelling content to attract links from these domains. Build relationships for ongoing link-building efforts. Monitor progress and adjust strategies accordingly for effective results.

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Matheus Adami

SEO Specialist | Journalist
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With some tools like SEMrush and Ahrefs it is possible to identify several gaps. I use SEMrush a lot to measure the gap in ranked keywords between my client and my competitors. This also applies to backlinks. It is possible to measure the number of quality backlinks and, most importantly: clean toxic backlinks.

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2 Find Their Backlinks

The next step is to find out which websites are linking to your competitor. You can use the same tools that you used to identify your competitor, or you can use other tools like Majestic, Link Explorer, or Ubersuggest. These tools will show you a list of domains and pages that link to your competitor, along with metrics like link type, anchor text, and domain rating. You can export this list as a CSV file for further analysis.

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3 Compare with Your Backlinks

The third step is to compare your competitor's backlinks with your own backlinks. You can use the same tools that you used to find your competitor's backlinks, or you can use other tools like Linkody, LinkResearchTools, or SEO SpyGlass. These tools will allow you to upload both your and your competitor's backlink lists and compare them side by side. You can filter the results by various criteria, such as domain authority, relevance, and freshness. You can also use the site: operator in Google to check if a specific website links to you or not.

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4 Identify Link Gap Opportunities

The final step is to identify the link gap opportunities that you can pursue. These are the websites that link to your competitor, but not to you, and have high domain authority, relevance, and freshness. You can sort the results by these metrics and select the ones that are most suitable for your niche and content. You can also look at the anchor text and the context of the link to see how your competitor earned it and what value they provided. You can then create a list of link gap opportunities and prioritize them based on your goals and resources.

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5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?

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Himanshu Katiyar

SEO Consultant @ SPH Media | Ex - Olx Group, HT Media
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Identifying link gap opportunities transcends merely keeping up with competitors. Two underutilised strategies include: 1. Industry Research Engagement: Identify authoritative publications in your niche. Contribute infographics or research aligning with their content. Cultivate relationships with influencers who can endorse and link to your valuable content. 2. Prioritise Link-worthy Content: Avoid relying solely on tactics like "ego baiting." Focus on high-quality, informative content—industry reports, data-driven studies, or innovative tools—that naturally attract links. Implementing these strategies organically attracts backlinks, positioning your website as a trusted thought leader in your niche.

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How can you identify link gap opportunities between your website and a competitor?

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1 Choose a Competitor

2 Find Their Backlinks

3 Compare with Your Backlinks

4 Identify Link Gap Opportunities

5 Here’s what else to consider

Search Engine Optimization

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