In business, no matter how much work, time and effort you give to ranking up, there will always be a time when the competition outranks you. How can you stay ahead of the competition? Analyze and really get to know the competition.
One of the most important things that can improve your business rankings in search results is backlinks. And not just any backlinks, mind you, but valuable backlinks that can be gained from linkable assets. A linkable asset is any part of a website where people think the content on the page is compelling enough making it worth referring or linking to.
There are many ways you can get these valuable backlinks to boost your site. However, one of the easiest way to obtain these links are from your competitors’ linkable assets.
Here’s how to find linkable assets from your competitors.
Locate Your Top 3 Competitors
By finding your competitors, you can keep tabs on what they are up to. What makes them rank higher than you, or where may they outrank you one day?
There are plenty of tools you can use to locate your top three competitors in a niche. One of the most used tools for analyzing competitors is Ahrefs. This tool can provide you in-depth results about your business or your competitor’s.
Check and analyze their backlinks. What kind of highly authoritative sites are linking to them and why? What kind of assets do they have that made these reliable sites link to your competitors? Research their linkable assets such as case studies, PDFs or ebooks and find out.
Monitor and Analyze Their Social Media
Today, everyone has at least one social media account. Even businesses have incorporated social platforms into their businesses as well. Take advantage of this and monitor as well as analyze your competitor’s social media channels. You can use Buzzsumo as a tool to discover how your competitor’s content is faring in the social media world on a given day and at a given social media platform.
Identify their most famous and most shared content on social media. By doing so, it becomes easier for you to see what asset gained the most attention and is worth taken into account as a linkable asset.
Utilize Google Features
Google is one of the largest search engines used in the whole world. Moreover, it doesn’t just function as a search engine. It also hosts a wide variety of tools that are dependable and useful for everyone, may you be SEO or a simple business owner.
Here are two of Google’s tools that you can utilize to find valuable linkable assets from your competitors to boost your business.
Google Alerts
Google Alerts is more than just a tool that helps you with monitor any of your brand mentions. You can also use this to alert you to all activities that your competitor is involved in. Google Alerts will notify you if your competitors have been recently mentioned or obtained a link.
Moreover, you can use Google Alerts to study the competition and get some link opportunities there such as blog post opportunities.
With regards to social media monitoring, you can also use Google Alerts for it. You will be able to see where your competitor hangs out the most outside of their website. These alerts are sent to your email or your preferred RSS reader.
Advanced Search Terms
Advanced search terms in Google provides more specific and detailed results. This enables you to look for linkable assets such as pdf, ebooks or infographics. This type of content is valuable and highly linkable since they usually provide actual facts, numbers, and information that are original.You can use this content and gather some inspiration and ideas from these to create your own.
Just place this in the search bar in Google Search and you’re good to go: site:thesiteyouwanttosearch.com “term you want to search.”
Here are some useful search terms you can utilize to gather these content types.
- site: example.com “pdf”
- site: example.com “infographics”
- site: example.com “powerpoint”
- site: example.com “case studies”
What To Do Next
Now that you know how to find your competitor’s linkable assets, you are now ready to get into the next step. Knowing the linkable assets of your competitors, you need to create your own version of these assets. But your version needs to be even better than the competition.
Find out what your competitors are lacking in their content. Make your own content about something similar and add all the points that your competitor missed or write it from a different perspective. This way, you will have content that is proven to resonate with people and is much better than of your competitors.
Keeps Your Allies Close, Your Competitors Closer
As the saying goes, “Keep your friends close, your enemies closer.” One way to stay ahead of them is to watch their activity closely. Business is like a chess game. In order to win, you have to anticipate your rivals next move. Predict what the outcome will be after their progress and formulate a plan to make a better move.
However, don’t just settle for the number of links that you will be getting. Quantitative link building is long gone with the Google updates patrolling the search results pages. This is why valuable linkable assets are essential in link building. These assets can earn you qualitative backlinks that are relevant and from highly authoritative sites.
Remember, one quality backlink is worth more than 1,000 poor quality backlinks.
