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how They Get Their Links The Percentage of Their Traffc
from Search
Understanding how they get their links is
just as important as knowing where they get Attempting to gauge the traffc volume
their links. By researching how they get their of a website by using Alexa ranks, is in my
links you’ll be able to determine how many opinion, too ineffective to rely on. Alexa
links they naturally receive compared to how only gives you an indication of traffc volume
many links the trade and how many links they since their metrics are gathered only from
buy. This can give you an indication of their people using their partner toolbars or direct
strategy, their goals and of their budget. monitoring services. A more reliable method
is to use professional SEO research tools that
The Value of Their Links not only monitor overall website traffc but that
categorize it by traffc type. Understanding
Researching the value of all of their links will competitor traffc sources can offer insight into
reveal not only the most valuable link sources,
their marketing strategies.
but will give you an idea of the value of links
you can expect to have to obtain in order to
But who Are Your True
competitively rank. Once you have a list of your
Competitors?
competitors most valuable links you can work
to get links from as many of the same sites as
Before you invest any time into dissecting
possible and you can also research those pages
other top 10 ranking sites it’s important to
most valuable links in order to build a longer
decide which site you should actually consider
list of potentially valuable link sources.
a competitor. A competitor in search is not
necessarily the same as a competitor in your
The rate at which They Get market. Assume you operate a dating site and
New Links are trying to rank for a particular keyword,
your frst assumption might be that the other
The rate at which you get new links, otherwise
big dating sites ranking for the same keyword
known as your link velocity, is a very important
are your competitors. In most scenarios this
metric to keep an eye on. Your link velocity
is true, but in this instance any site that you
will either send signals to search engines like
can outrank should be your target competitor.
Google that your links are being acquired
naturally or that they’re being built unnaturally, Or, if the top 10 is dominated by only dating
and therefore should be devalued. Keeping sites, your competitor won’t necessarily be the
an eye on your competitors link velocity is site you compete for affliates over, rather it
important so that you know the pace at which will be the one with the fewest links and least
they’re acquiring new links, so that you’ll know ranking authority. Your competitor is any top
the pace that you must maintain, or exceed, 10 ranking site you have the best potential to
yourself. outrank.

All of The Keywords They rank There is a story commonly passed around
For among SEOs that illustrates this concept well.

Once you determine who your primary Two men are walking through the woods.
competitor is, for the target keyword you’re Suddenly, they see a bear in the distance,
considering, you should expand your research running directly towards them. They turn and
to learn all of the keywords that particular site start running away. But then one of them stops,
ranks for. This will not only give you an idea of takes some running shoes from his bag, and
how formidable this website might be, but will starts putting them on.
reveal many more potential target keywords
that you can go after yourself. And for each “What are you doing?” says the other man.
of these additional keywords you might not “Do you think sneakers will help you outrun
necessarily compete with the same website, that bear?”
you may fnd new target competitors for each
target keyword depending on the strength of “I don’t have to outrun that bear,” he says. “I
the websites that rank within the top 10. just have to outrun you.”

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