Competitor link building is vastly overlooked, yet can generate some simple, easy and quick win. Here's my tips fresh from BrightonSEO

1. Laura Hogan
@lauralouise90
RICEMEDIA
How to use your
competitors for
freeeeee links
http://www.slideshare.net/lauralouise90

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in april i focused on getting you the big
links without spending a penny.

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missed it?
http://bit.ly/lhbrighton418

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today we’re going to
build on that…...

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it’s all about using and
beating your competitors

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first of all we need to
go back to basics

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we have two types of
competitors in seo

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ranking
anyone in the
top 10 or even
top 20
business
what we monitor
might not be seo
focused

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here’s a quick tip with
your business competitors

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information on your
competitors is readily
out there

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so, what can you do?

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broken link
building
build on
research
hashtags
backlink
analysis
reverse image
search

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broken link
building

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fixing a 404 helps
both you and the site
in question

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and if your competitors were
silly enough to throw away a
good link opportunity
let’s capitalise on it!

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use
screaming
frog to find
inlinks
which 404

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don’t forget
to use
include or
exclude to
make your
crawl more
manageable

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contact the site and suggest
they link to you instead

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get the content created…. if
you don’t already have it

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watch the referral traffic
come in...

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here’s something similar
we’ve been doing with HEWI

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couldn’t get the website
redirected

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so instead, we’ve been
finding all the broken links
and getting HEWI added in

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30+ links
and still more to contact

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reverse image search

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an oldie, but a goodie

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….and you don’t need
any tools

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download a competitor’s
graphic that did well and drag
and drop it into google images

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you’ll then see serp results of
sites which covered it

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get in touch and ask them to
feature your material

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here’s one we made
earlier…..

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54 referring
domains

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we were making a luxury and
housing price list, so looked
at who covered Ben’s

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we got in touch with
the journalist

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they loved our index and
we’re now making a special
version for them.

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build on research

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there’s so much research and
thought leadership already
published

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and a lot of it is out of date

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get in there first
and update it

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once you’ve created an up to
date version, outreach to
those that covered the original
use majestic to find the sites.

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a tactic we’re currently
trying is to create a uk
version of us data

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we took all the data from the
client’s analytics and we’re
comparing it with the us data

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169 links to thredup’s piece
which we can now target

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not a single
penny spent

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hashtags

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i’ve been using this
strategy for years

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it’s a really easy sneaky
way to get your
competitor’s blogger list

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start with
looking at
new links
on majestic

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then literally google the
hashtag

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it’s so simple

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found 25 pretty solid
opportunities for a
homeware client

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let’s not forget the
basics

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backlink
analysis

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my favourite for this
is semrush gap analysis

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not only do you get the
domains, you get exactly
where the link is

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this means you can
understand the context
of the link

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but even a list of 10-20
gives you something to
bite into

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majestic’s new index is
perfect for frequent
analysis

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you get a quick view of
press and priorities

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without having to sift
through links you’ve gone
through before

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make life even easier by
setting up alerts for
competitors

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take advantage of
broken links

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build on data and
research

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use their performing
assets and hashtags

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but most importantly

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don’t overlook basic
backlink analysis

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