How reverse engineering can help you beat your competition in their game?
Link building is important in online marketing for a number of reasons that go beyond SEO. It sure helps your SEO efforts and you end up being discovered on SERPs. But it also helps you encash on the publisher's credibility and build your authority as subject matter expert. And all of it culminates into a strong brand presence. How do you determine the right platforms to promote yourself? You can do some serious research to find your industry websites or you can take a short cut. You can simply map your competition via innumerable tools available online and go where they are. In offline world, companies operating in duopoly do that - place TV spot right after your competitor's, shout out louder in newspapers or magazines competition places his ads in. Reverse engineering to find competition's content sources is only an extension of the age-old marketing tactic.
Here is a step by step guide to do this:
Research:
There are two things you largely want to know. Where is your competition getting endorsements (links) from and who is he endorsing? What is the difference? Some external sites are referring to your competition's site, giving him a link. You can find these sites by using tools like open site explorer and majestic seo. These sites help you track links he is getting his credits from. And there are some sites your competition is using in his content to create a credible association. You can use tools like Screaming Frog to get your hands on that list of links.
Sort & Analyse:
Having access to the treasure box is not enough. You need the key to unlock its potential. So once you have all the links in an excel, begin sorting the links - easy and difficult to get an endorsement from. Then you need to start contacting the bloggers or publishers you want links from. It is serious hard work but you can make the process a tad easier by using contact finder tools like Citation Labs. Insert all contact details you get in the excel itself.
Market:
Wear your marketing hat and start writing to publishers. Give them a storyline they cannot resist. Try convincing small fishes with link exchanges. The large ones need genuinely good content. If you cannot create content yourself, it is fine. You can hire a lot of content writers who will create compelling stories. You can hire publishers too. If you are doing it yourself, use the excel sheet to note down the response from each publisher. Some might ask you to connect next month and some might need another storyline. Keep up the follow up.
Mapping competition will help you beat him in the SEO game. Also, you know it has worked for him so the likely hood of the same sources working for you is high. After all you are from the same industry and are after the same set of consumers.
Here is a step by step guide to do this:
Research:
There are two things you largely want to know. Where is your competition getting endorsements (links) from and who is he endorsing? What is the difference? Some external sites are referring to your competition's site, giving him a link. You can find these sites by using tools like open site explorer and majestic seo. These sites help you track links he is getting his credits from. And there are some sites your competition is using in his content to create a credible association. You can use tools like Screaming Frog to get your hands on that list of links.
Sort & Analyse:
Having access to the treasure box is not enough. You need the key to unlock its potential. So once you have all the links in an excel, begin sorting the links - easy and difficult to get an endorsement from. Then you need to start contacting the bloggers or publishers you want links from. It is serious hard work but you can make the process a tad easier by using contact finder tools like Citation Labs. Insert all contact details you get in the excel itself.
Market:
Wear your marketing hat and start writing to publishers. Give them a storyline they cannot resist. Try convincing small fishes with link exchanges. The large ones need genuinely good content. If you cannot create content yourself, it is fine. You can hire a lot of content writers who will create compelling stories. You can hire publishers too. If you are doing it yourself, use the excel sheet to note down the response from each publisher. Some might ask you to connect next month and some might need another storyline. Keep up the follow up.
Mapping competition will help you beat him in the SEO game. Also, you know it has worked for him so the likely hood of the same sources working for you is high. After all you are from the same industry and are after the same set of consumers.
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TheArtfulDodger2012 -
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