Backlink Gap Analysis: How it can be Useful

Backlinks, also known as internal or coming links, are active connections from other web pages that direct visitors to certain pages on your site. Backlinks are an indication of credibility by Google and an essential ranking component in its algorithms.

A website comprises several components, one of which is links. External links and internal links are of 2 types.

Both are vital; however, SEOs may place greater emphasis on external links, often known as backlinks.

Given its significance, every website should implement a link-building plan. However, you must do a website backlink analysis before you update or implement a new link-building plan.

What Exactly Is Backlink Gap Analysis?

Backlink analysis allows you to evaluate the amount and quality of links coming into your site to those of your main rivals.

If you consider each backlink to be an upvote for your content, then follow that upvotes from the most respected industry sites and pages have more weight than other backlinks.

High-quality, great backlinks from authoritative referring domains create and sustain a virtuous cycle: not only does referral traffic increase overall traffic volume to improve your SEO score, but it is made up of higher-quality prospects who are more likely to engage with and find value in your content than other incoming traffic. 

This boosts your site’s domain authority even further.

Good backlinks also assist search engine indexing bots in exploring your site. So the aim isn’t just to have more backlinks; the goal is to have more and better backlinks than your competition.

And your website backlink gap research isn’t a one-time task or a simple issue of running reports. The analysis is the first step in maintaining and monitoring your backlinks regularly. To remain competitive, you must take constant action.

Furthermore, backlink analysis is only one component of a long-term plan for creating and retaining thought leadership, relevance, and authority in your market.

Understanding Backlink Gap Analysis

A firm should constantly strive to be at the top of search engine results to attract a larger audience and convert more leads. High-quality backlinks are beneficial in accomplishing this aim.

But how would you know whether your site receives more high-quality backlinks than its competitors? This is where backlink gap analysis comes in handy.

A backlink gap analysis, also known as competitor backlink analysis, aids in discovering authoritative referring sites that aren’t linked to your site but are linking to your rivals. Backlink gap tools will allow you to determine the gap between your site’s backlinks and those of your rivals.

Knowing your rivals’ backlink gaps will help you to create backlinks from the same referring websites. As a result, your total traffic volume will grow. Expect your site’s domain authority and SEO score to grow with the aid of this complete plan.

What are the primary advantages of a backlink gap analysis?

 Aside from finding easy wins for backlinks, doing a link gap analysis has a lot of other significant advantages. 

If you’re still wondering whether an analysis is ideal for your company, here are three further advantages to consider:

• You’ll discover great new links that will assist you in increasing traffic and rating.

• Another clear advantage is that analysis may help you locate highly relevant pages and websites to link to; this doesn’t have to be a one-time thing. If they find your information beneficial, they may connect with you again.

• Finally, conducting a competition study like this will help you identify any holes in your current link development approach and design a stronger strategy for the future.

A link gap analysis is helpful for?

Several tools and service providers are available to assist you in this endeavor, and we’ll look at some examples in the next section.

The many technologies available for link analysis

There are several possibilities for determining the best tool for doing your link gap analysis. And the majority of them operate similarly.

That stated, they may all have distinct capabilities and features, and some may be superior to others. Here are some well-known SEO link analysis tools that you may have heard of or used previously:

• SEMrush

• Ahrefs

• Majestic

• Moz Link Explorer

• Screaming Frog

• SpyFu

As previously said, many of them function similarly and can offer you a list of recent backlinks obtained by your rivals.

Benefits of A Backlink Gap Analysis

A backlink gap analysis will benefit your search engine optimization (SEO) approach. While it is only one of many aspects of your SEO strategy, it is critical in boosting your domain authority by enabling authoritative sites to link to your site.

Backlinks from the most respected sector sites are an efficient technique to increase site traffic and boost your rank in search engine results pages (SERPs). 

Your rivals will continually be at the top of search engine results if they have more high-quality backlinks from high-ranking sites. However, by doing backlink gap research, you will be able to study your rivals’ backlinks, identify chances, and work on your linking tactics.

How to Do a Backlink Analysis?

• Analyze Competitor Websites; however, you won’t have a good image of where you stand unless you compare yourself to your competition.

As a result, you must select a few top rival websites and examine them as well. You should know who your competitors are, but if you don’t, look for websites that provide similar services or goods. Look for websites that are outranking you for your desired keywords.

• Run a Quick Overview

After you’ve picked your website backlink analysis tool, it’s time to begin the analysis. Type the domain name into the search field and see what comes up.

The search will provide you with a wealth of information, but watching three indicators will give you a rapid overview of your site is functioning.

First, determine the total number of backlinks pointing to the site. If this score is low, it might be the explanation for the website’s poor ranking.

Then look at the referring domains, the total number of websites that lead to your site. Sort these domains by authority, and you’ll see how much your rating depends on these pages.

• Choose an Auditing Tool

Manual backlink analysis is doable, but utilizing a backlink tool with the necessary built-in functionality is far more effective.

This saves time and improves accuracy. Various backlink checker software is available, each with varying features and prices. Usually: SEO tools like Majestic and SEMrush have backlink gap analysis. Others recommended tools for backlink gap analysis are Google Search Console, Ahrefs, and MOZ.

• Know What Your Competitors Are Doing

You explore deeper and obtain more knowledge throughout your domain investigation. Meanwhile, you must compare your results to those of your rivals.

Comparing your domain to other websites can clear out specific elements that will provide an idea or direction for your domain to aspire towards.

In addition, the comparison indicates your website’s backlink acquisition rate compared to your competitors. It indicates who is growing and at what rate.

• Backlink Gap Analysis

SEO is extremely dynamic, with search engines continually revising their guidelines. 

As a result of the fierce rivalry, SEO strategies have gotten more advanced, and backlink gap research has emerged. It is a component of SEO competitive analysis.

Backlink gap analysis examines your rivals’ external link profiles to uncover backlink gaps, which entails locating backlinks in your competitors’ external profiles but not yours. 

Simply, it provides a list of websites that connect to your competitors’ websites but not yours.

• Detail Analysis

You have the data; now begin the in-depth examination. This is the stage at which you examine statistics to discover answers to your inquiries. 

Begin by looking for spam backlinks that may be harming your ranking.

This check is performed by examining your relevant keywords. It should be noted that the anchor text of spam referral URLs contains coarse language and often resembles the trash part of your email.

You can contact such websites and request that they be deleted, but a simpler option is to instruct Google to disregard those hyperlinks. 

That is, you deny the existence of those relationships.

Conclusion

A link gap analysis might be the solution to increasing traffic and taking your SEO strategy to the next level. 

As you can see from our advice, using competitor analysis to uncover easy and high-quality victories pays you.