Link Building

Advanced Competitor Backlink Analysis For Mid-Weight SEOs [Template Included]

For years, competitor backlink analysis has been a universal process for any SEOs who are instantly looking for link opportunities. 

The approach not only presents a quick analysis of your competitors’ existing links but could also uncover insights into their current strategy and help you generate ideas for your link building campaign.

The typical process goes like this: 

1. Use a backlink analysis tool such as Ahrefs, Majestic, or Moz.
2. Review your competitors’ backlink profiles.
3. Identify the types of links they’ve acquired.
4. Start building links based on your findings.

While this provides a good benchmark, this type of analysis is not comprehensive enough to inform you of what’s happening in the industry from a link perspective and help you drive forward your next link building. 

In this guide, I’ll show how we do advanced competitor backlink analysis, which includes:

• Selecting different types of competitors for backlink analysis (not just your direct competitors).
• Doing link gap analysis to answer the question, “how many backlinks do I need to rank?”
• Seeing patterns in linking pages and understanding why the site acquired the links.
• Replicating the exact link building strategy (or doing even way better) to leverage available link opportunities in specific markets. 

Let’s get started. 

What is competitor backlink analysis?

Competitor backlink analysis is the process of reverse engineering your competitors’ backlink profiles to see their existing backlinks, uncovering insights and strategies for your own link building campaign.

How to Perform Competitor Backlink Analysis?

There are many link intelligence tools available on the market. I use Ahrefs throughout this guide, given its huge link database and useful features for better analysis.

Step 1: Identify websites with which to reverse engineer.

Competitor link analysis starts by determining the domains/pages you want to assess. 

I’ll give you the different types of websites or businesses on which to do competitor link analysis.

Direct Competitors 

For example, if you’re selling bathtubs in London, you probably have a list of direct competitors in your space (as you may have done market research as you start your business operations). 

If not, you can search for organic competitors ranking for the keyword you vet on. These are your direct competitors.

Direct ranking competitors are currently ranking for head terms you’re also competing with.

Ahrefs has a feature that shows you your direct competitors. You can find them by looking at “Organic Competitors” under “Organic Search.”

What it shows you depends on your input. 

Using the “domain” and “subdomain” target modes will show you organic competitors that rank in the top 10 organic search results for the exact keywords from which your website gets the most traffic. 

Using the  “exact URL” target mode or “path” target mode shows you competing pages that rank in the top 100 organic search results for the same keywords that your target gets the most traffic from in the top 10 results.

For example, using Ahrefs’ Organic Competitors to find competitors of a potential client - JustBaths, it shows two types of direct competitors:

• A niche direct competitor - e.g. Omnitub, an online store selling only bathtubs
• A brand with a competing product category - e.g.  Bathroom City with bathtubs as part of its product line/category (they’re selling other products besides bathtubs).

I could find link opportunities by reverse engineering both websites: Omnitub's exact URL/Path target mode and Bathroom City's Domain target mode. 

Big Websites

Direct competitors are the tip of the iceberg for competitor backlink analysis. There are many other niche-related sites where you can find thousands of link opportunities. 

For example, Wayfair UK is an online retailer that offers a wide selection of furniture, home decor, and household items. With DR73+, you can collect hundreds of link opportunities through backlink analysis. 

If I were building links​​ for this niche, I would start by assessing pages linked to the specific category page - Bathtubs. Then, once I exhaust the opportunities, I would look at sites linked to the entire domain (including links to other category pages). 

The benefit of competitor backlink analysis for big websites is that it widens your link prospecting scope. This means that after looking for highly relevant link opportunities (in our example, you only want to find bathtub-specific publications/blogs), it only takes time before you exhaust all opportunities covering bathtub topics. 

This is where you need to tap into 2nd to 4th degrees of backlink relevance, and it goes like this:

• 2nd degree of backlink relevance - websites that are not focused on your target content but have sections or categories strongly related to them. (e.g. home improvement, DIY, interior design, retailers with bathroom sections, etc..). 
• 3rd degree of backlink relevance - websites that do not focus on your target keywords and have no categories about them but belong to the same general industry. (e.g. home and garden, architecture and design, real estate, sustainability, etc..)
• 4th degree of backlink relevance - websites that don’t belong in the same industry/topic niche but can publish articles related to its core content theme and your website’s. (e.g. health and wellness, parenting, travel, luxury lifestyle, fitness and recovery, etc..). 

Conducting competitor backlink analysis for large websites allows you to tap into the second to fourth degrees of backlink relevance, expanding your list of potential link targets. 

Local & Geographical Websites

For local SEO, the more localized your links, the more significant their impact on your domain authority and linking pages. 

Look at local businesses within the geographical area, which may not necessarily be topically relevant but are within the local context. 

For instance, if you’re doing SEO for a wedding business in Manchester, you should also be searching for other local businesses in the area: 

• Hospitality Lifestyle
• Well-being Local Experience
• Tourism 
• Home & Interior Design 
• Professional Services 
• High-End Retail & Artisanal Shops

Pro Tip: Check local directories like Yelp to see what types and industries of businesses are getting the majority of listings. 

When you perform competitor backlink analysis for local businesses, you find specific linkable audiences with many opportunities for linking within the context. Since most are connected via associations and organizations, linking to other localized brands is highly possible - thus, providing you with higher chances of links.

Similar Content Competitors 

For product-led and content-led link-building campaigns, one effective way to promote a content asset is to contact publishers who link to similar content. Given their familiarity with the content’s theme, there’s a likelihood of getting links from these content publishers. 

For instance, if I published a sleeping guide for parents, I’ll check the ranking pages for the keyphrase “sleeping” for parents guide and do a competitor backlink analysis for these pages to see who linked to them. 

Pro Tip: Go one step higher by looking at other content assets that are not directly focused on your content’s theme. 

So in my earlier example, it could be any content piece about sleeping tips/guide: sleep science & research, healthy sleep habits & routines, work & productivity sleep optimization, fitness, recovery & sleep performance, travel & jet lag solutions, bedroom design & sleep environment, sleep tech & gadgets, etc..).

You may lack link opportunities when you over-narrow your competitor's backlink analysis. However, you can expand your applicable link prospects by examining other content’s themes.  

Step 2. Get Backlink Data of Competitors 

Plug each website into Ahrefs (or any link intelligence tool). 

Navigate to the Backlinks report page.

Filter for “one link per domain, " then export the data as a CSV. 

Step 3. Derive Insights and Strategy From Analysis  

The next step is to analyze the backlink data and uncover insights and ideas for a link building strategy. 

Initially, we start with a link gap analysis.

Link Gap Analysis 

Link gap analysis (or “backlink gap analysis”) determines the difference between your competitors’ links and yours. 

It answers the question, “how many backlinks do I need to rank?”.

Through link gap analysis, you’ll get an estimated number of links and how much effort you need to put into your link building campaign to rank within the top 3 spots for your target keyword. 

To simplify things, I’ve created a free tool that allows you to instantly see the links needed to rank for your target keyword.

Once you have a copy of this template, import your site’s backlink data and competitors’ - as new sheets. 

Rename the tab based on the name of the domain. 

In the “Link Root” column, change it to the sheet tab name (your domain and your competitors). If sheet names are correct, it’ll only pull relevant data from other tabs. 

Finally, it will show you important insights based on the gathered backlink information. 

Here are a couple of items you should notice quickly:

• “Links needed per month” - shows how many links you need to build per month to catch up with the average monthly links of your competitors. Change the timeframe depending on how many months you want to conduct your link-building campaign (e.g. from 12 months to 6 months). 
• “Link Gap Against Each Competitor” - gives you the link gap score between you and each individual competitor (based on their monthly links). 
• Dofollow Backlinks (on DR Buckets) helps you quickly assess links your competitors acquired (per buckets of Ahrefs’ DR).  It gives you an idea of what range of Ahrefs’ DR to focus on in your link building campaign (and not second-guess it when starting). 

Knowing how many links to build every month challenges your SEO team to focus on a strategy to hit the link goal. While you can’t one hundred percent do it, it’s better to have it than to wonder what to achieve every single month.  

Discover and Analyze Valuable Link Opportunities

One of my favorite tasks in competitor backlink analysis is scanning the lists of links to sites/competitors to see if I can find any interesting patterns, insights, or ideas.

The main point is that you should look for any type of page or link that has occurred on many of the backlink profiles you assess. This would uncover a strategy that, through proper execution, can help you land multiple links.

To make things easier, combine your competitors' backlink data (exclude yours). 

You can combine a group of CSV files into one using the Terminal app on a Macbook or a tool you search online. 

You may also write a prompt on ChatGPT and upload the CSV files.

 

Once you have a merged file, remove the following columns that you may not need in your scanning process:

• Platform
• Referring domains
• Linked domains
• Content
• Nofollow
• UGC
• Sponsored
• Rendered
• Raw
• Drop reason
• Discovered status
• Lost

Then, delete these ones after filtering out the rows:

• Language - delete rows that aren’t “en” or “blank (unless you’re trying to scan non-English pages for an international link building campaign).
• Referring page HTTP code - delete rows with “404” or “403”.
• Lost status - remove rows that aren’t 

Finally, you add a “Duplicates” column. For each referring page, we can see how many sites share the same referring page URL—this shows that it could be a resource/links page with links to all of your competitors. 

For Duplicates column, add this formula: =COUNTIF(A:A,A2)

The next step is where you’ll spend most of your time, given that you’ll be scanning each page URL based on certain metrics.

To help you better understand how this works in real-life, I’ll show you different examples of competitor link analysis - for SaaS, eCommerce, and local businesses. 

SaaS Example For Competitor Backlink Analysis

In this section, I’ll use the SaaS domains earlier as my example for competitors.

With their given backlink data, here are some interesting things I’ve found:

Backlink Analysis Technique #1: Duplicates + Filtering (Descending)

To see pages that are linked to 2 or more of your competitors. 

The higher the number of duplicates, the more competitors’ links are included on the page. Without even browsing the page itself, a page with a higher external link count  could mean that there are other sites it also linked out to (check column: External links).

Examples are roundup posts, links/resource pages, and group interviews. 

In my SaaS example, we have some of the best roundup posts (Duplo Cloud, Ensuzo, Zluri, Scrut, Insight Assurance).  

Direct and non-direct competitors and other publishers publish these roundup posts. This provides you with content insight: publish your own roundup post and make your software at the top of the list (as the best software for that category). 

For backlinks, you may reach out to other publishers (of related roundup posts) and try to get included. 

The more roundup posts that list you, the more visibility you gain, and the more likely that other publishers in the space will also include you in their roundups. 

Backlink Analysis Technique #2: Homepage Links

By assessing homepage links, you’ll often find interesting link building tactics. One in particular, in our SaaS examples, is links from testimonials (homepage) and links from case studies. Examples are Vellum and Incident. 

As soon as you gather patterns like this, you can also look at other similar link types. Search for page titles on your competitors’ backlink data using the keyphrase “case-studies”. It would reveal other case studies with Drata using other people’s products.

Link Building Tip: One good idea to test is to identify products and services your company has used, found satisfaction with, or has gotten results from. Offer your company a case study that the product/service can use for their middle-of-the-funnel content. 

You’ll likely get a higher response rate, given that most SaaS are looking for case studies/results pages to showcase on their website.

eCommerce Example For Competitor Backlink Analysis

Let’s have an example in the eCommerce space.

We follow the same steps when performing a competitor backlink analysis. We chose a couple of competitors and exported their backlink data individually. 

Backlink Analysis Technique #3: Filter By Ahrefs Domain Rating (Descending)

You'll see the most authoritative domains by filtering links from highest to lowest Ahrefs’ DR. These are gold nuggets for high-tier link-building opportunities. 

For example, we’ve seen high-tier publications that one of the competitors has acquired using expert commentary tips, which helps increase their thought leadership in the industry. 

Backlink Analysis Technique #4: Filter By External Links (<50) and Descending

By filtering links with less than 50 external links on the page and sorting them from highest to lowest, you’ll see resource pages, products/category list pages, and directories where your online store can be included. 

You can quickly​​ find it on the sheet by filtering words in page titles, such as “where to buy” or “store.” 

Backlink Analysis Technique #5: With Left and Right Context, Filtered by DR25+ (Ascending)

Scanning backlink data allows you to spot specific types of backlinks that count. 

For instance, by using information on the Left and Right context of the anchor text, you can quickly see editorial links on the list (editorial links are links where the publishers link out to other resources within the page's content). 

These editorial links typically have surrounding words on the anchor text - within an article. 

To spot them, filter out links with blank information on the left and right context. The remaining linking pages are most likely to be editorial links.

Local Business Example For Competitor Backlink Analysis

One last example is scanning for backlink data for local business competitors. 

For instance, if I’m trying to do a competitor backlink analysis for pet clinics in London. I can start looking for other pet clinics in other regions, as they would open up new angles and insights for link building. 

Below is a search result for the “pet clinic in Manchester” keyword. 

 

First, when scanning, I avoid directory listings and local citation sites that rank for the local keyword. I’ll try to find local business competitors. 

Then, I enabled the metrics bar in Ahrefs’ Chrome extension to see each website's unique referring domains instantly (saving me from consuming much of Ahrefs credit).

I want to find domains with many referring domains (RD) because doing competitor backlink analysis for these sites is a goldmine for link opportunities. 

Backlink Analysis Technique #6: “Find A” Directories and Citation Sites

In your scanning approach, you’ll undoubtedly come across a directory or listing site where you can submit your local business to be listed. 

In general, most national business listings won’t positively impact your rankings. Most of these sites don’t have a strict or real vetting process for local businesses to be listed, so Google doesn’t value directory links.

However, there are a few niche directories where your local competitors are also listed. Check if these directories rank for a decent number of organic keywords using Ahrefs. If they do, spend minutes submitting your local business to them. 

Also, find ones with a continuous vetting process in listings, like Pets Reunited - they remove fraudulent listings as soon as they receive scam reports and validate them. 

Although it doesn’t carry as much weight as other link types, such as editorial and digital PR links, finding directories with good search traffic could help diversify your backlink profile. 

 

Backlink Analysis Technique #7: Local Organization Finds

Other local links are local organizations, partnerships, and associations where your local business can be listed. Search them quickly on your backlink data sheet using “organization”. 

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You Don’t Have To Reinvent The Wheel

Regarding competitor backlink analysis, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Instead, analyze backlink profiles from similar businesses in highly competitive markets. Identify their strongest link-building strategies, extract the most effective approaches, and adapt them to your local landscape. 

By continuously refining and applying these insights, you can build a robust backlink strategy that keeps you ahead of the competition.

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by Venchito Tampon

Ecommerce Link Building: Actionable and Proven Tactics for 2025

In 2025, you’ll see the savviest SEOs moving into eCommerce, where there is less competition and higher returns. Those particular about handling affiliate and display-ad sites now diversify their efforts into eCommerce, as it offers better opportunities. 

On top of this scenario, the demand for SEOs will significantly increase, given that traditional businesses continuously shift and/or add operations to their online shops.

Marketers who take advantage of this profiting market should master the basics and learn new ones to excel and dominate the competition. 

The fundamentals of SEO have remained the same for years (and will continue to be so for years to come): sound technical SEO, logic-based site architecture, data-driven UX, and strategic backlink placements. 

The latter - links matter more today. With AI content flooding search, links become a fundamental and most reliable signal of quality and authority, especially in eCommerce, where tons of business owners churn out AI content in their product descriptions and blog content, hoping for a sudden spike in organic traffic - which in reality, only stagnate their growth. 

In this guide, I’ll show you how to build strong, relevant, and high-performing backlinks to your eCommerce that have only proven to work. Some of these are scalable and can even be tested in various industries and/or types of businesses (other than eCommerce). 

Let’s get started.

Backlink Factors to Consider in eCommerce Link Building

Before diving straight into prospecting and outreach campaigns, here are the high-level considerations for starting any eCommerce link building campaign. 

1. Relevance

Google values backlinks from domains that share topical relevance with your site. For instance, an eCommerce store selling outdoor gear should get backlinks from sites or blogs focused on outdoor activities, gear reviews, or travel. 

Topical relevance extends even to the page's specific content—we call this “page-to-page relevance”. So, in our earlier example, getting links from a page discussing hiking gear is significantly more valuable than getting links from a general lifestyle blog (if all things are equal, of course). 

2. Trust and Authority

You want to get a link from a site that Google and users trust and consider authoritative. Link metrics, such as Majestic’s Trust Flow and Ahrefs’ Domain Rating and Page Rating, can measure this. 

Majestics, for example, handpicked seed sites and manually reviewed them to ensure they were legitimately reputable. This is a starting point for assessing a link's trustworthiness. Fundamentally, these sites only link to truly deserving pages, making it hard for anyone to manipulate the ratings for this metric. 

So, acquiring from a link on a site that’s being linked to by any of the seed sites of Majestic tends to have higher Trust Foow, which is genuinely worth your time if you’re pursuing links. 

On another note, you can use Ahref’s Domain Rating, which measures a domain from a scale of 1 to 100 based on the quality and number of unique referring domains the site acquires in a given time. 

One tip is to assess whether the page you’re getting links to receives internal links from other pages within the website. A well-linked page boosts the value and authority of your backlink.

3. Anchor Texts

Anchor text influences how search engines interpret the relevance of your backlinks. Overdoing it on one end (let’s say getting 100% exact match anchor texts on links could lead you to some penalties) or being too conservative (just having 5% exact match) boils down to your risk tolerance. 

I recommend getting an idea of what your competitors are currently doing regarding their link profiles. Analyze your competitors’ anchor text profiles to understand the ideal distribution.

For instance, in our link building agency, a healthy mix for our clients’ link profiles looks like 50% branded, 15% exact match, and 35% partial match. We optimize our strategy based on what we’ve seen on their competitors’ link profiles - not fully imitating as some of our competitors could be doing something wrong - the earlier mix is one to consider in our experience.

So, diversifying anchor texts goes like this: 

• Exact match: Your target keyword (e.g., "best electric violin")
• Partial match: A variation of your target keyword (e.g., "top-rated electric violin for beginners")
• Branded match: Your brand name (e.g., "FiddlerShop")

Topping it all, you want to also pay attention to words before and after the anchor texts used for links to maintain a natural context. This is where you see the sentiment types and language, whether or not it is going in your favor (if it’s giving a positive sentiment about your brand). 

Overall, focus on creating a balanced and natural-looking profile, using exact match anchors sparingly. 

4. Link Placements

The placement of a backlink significantly impacts its value. 

Links positioned higher on the page hold greater weight than links in the footer or sidebar. So, for example, a link in the first paragraph of a blog post receives more engagement and link value than one buried at the bottom.

If a page has several external links, aim to get the first link rather than the third or fourth external links. 

Context matters as well. A link surrounded by relevant and high-quality content holds more weight than a standalone link on a low-value page (brings back to the relevance factor mentioned earlier).

Aim for link placements that naturally integrate with the surrounding text. If you’re doing niche edits, ensure the surrounding texts fit and support the anchor texts.

5. Link Diversity

Diversity reduces the risk of overreliance on a single link type and signals to search engines that your site naturally acquires links from different sources. For instance, digital PR creates a robust and trustworthy backlink profile through a mix of editorial links from blogs, citations from relevant local directories, and mentions in top-tier publications. 

Remember that a diversified profile is less susceptible to algorithm updates and helps avoid risks from over-relying on a single link building strategy (often abused as more marketers utilize it).

Getting a no-follow link is also valuable. It helps diversify your link profile and is even more beneficial if it comes from a high-tier website. 

Which Pages to Build Links To?

One key area of link building strategy is prioritizing which pages of your eCommerce site to build links to. 

Start by analyzing your competitors' existing allocations to see what they’re doing and what Google has been rewarding them with lately in terms of rankings.

See how many links are pointed to the homepage, category (collection) pages, and some key product pages. This would give you insights on how many links you should target for each page in context with your website. 

Another approach is to create your own link allocation strategy based on your current domain authority. 

For instance, if your website is relatively new (say <DR25), you can point more links to the homepage (50%) and half of the links to blog content (50%). You want to pass more link equity to your homepage to build up its domain authority.

You can push more links to your category pages if you have a mid-tier authority site (DR25 to DR50). A good allocation would be 30% homepage, 50% collection pages, and 20% blog content.

You can allocate more to your key product pages for a high-tier eCommerce site with DR50 or higher. An ideal ratio would be 30% homepage, 30% collection pages, and 40% blog content.

Two things you’ll notice in this strategy: 

• Diversifying links to transactional and informational pages (blog content) to create a more natural link profile - instead of merely focusing on money pages.
• Few to zero links point to product pages, as Google became more biased towards ranking product listings instead of a single product page. 

11 eCommerce Link Building Tactics

Link building strategies for eCommerce in 2025 tend to target multiple objectives, including increasing brand and product awareness, improving Google’s SERPs (improving SEO), and enhancing brand positioning. 

Here are some tactics you can try.

1. Partner Outreach

Leverage your existing network to build links. It is easier to persuade someone who trusts or is already familiar with your brand's work.

Request backlinks from current partners from suppliers, distributors, or business partners. For instance, if your eCommerce site sells artisanal coffee, you could ask your bean supplier to include a link to your store in their "Partners" or "Retailers" section.

Attend local business events to connect with potential linking partners. Networking with industry stakeholders at trade shows or conferences takes a more extended shot at acquiring new customers or suppliers and expanding your lists of relationships with those who could potentially link to your eCommerce site. 

2. "Where to Buy" Pages

One effective product-led link building strategy is acquiring links from “Where to buy” pages. It leverages the brand or product to attract and/or earn links. It also showcases the product’s unique value proposition to position it as an obvious solution in the space.

If you’re a distributor or retailer, find manufacturers’ sites with where to buy pages and get included in their list pages. You can use advanced search operators to find these pages quickly. Few link prospecting phrases you can try:

• site:DomainName “where to buy”
• site:DomainName "store locator"
• site:DomainName "find a store"
• site:DomainName "retailers"
• site:DomainName "buy now"
• site:DomainName "purchase online"
• site:DomainName "shop online"
• site:DomainName "available at"
• site:DomainName "stockists"
• site:DomainName "authorized dealers"
• site:DomainName "find us"
• site:DomainName "distributors"
• site:DomainName "where available"

Highlight your product’s POV and reliability as a supplier to increase the chances for inclusion. 

You can also reverse engineer competitors to find sites linking to them from where to buy pages. We use tools like Ahrefs to find these opportunities. 

3. Digital PR (Expert Commentaries, Data-Driven, Reactive PR, and Product Updates)

Getting links from high-tier publications (ones with DR70 or DR90) contributes to building a strong reputation for your brand, as your product or any part of your brand becomes more visible to potential customers. 

Using digital PR as a forefront eCommerce link building strategy makes that goal reasonable and has been true to many successful link building campaigns for the past few years (you’ll find many SEO agencies integrating digital PR in their marketing services).  

Expert Commentaries

Position yourself or your brand as an industry thought leader by giving expert commentaries to journalists of top-tier publications. Many need expert opinions to solidify their current research and add more meat to their content. 

One effective approach to leverage expert commentaries in digital PR is to ask your client (or any thought leader in your organization) for expert tips on a given topic in your industry. 

You can also gather these expert tips from recently published articles in their blog section, which are still helpful today (“evergreen”). 

Curate these expert tips and craft a press release pitch to journalists who cover the topic. 

Pro Tip: Identify angles of expert commentaries by using this advanced search query on Google search (“expert reveals” “topic” ) to help you generate digital PR ideas. 

 

For client coverage in the UK, I use the search query “expert reveals” “topic”  site:.uk” (seeing that there are several digital PR-led links from UK-based publications) - it’s a good source of insights for angles on expert commentaries. 

Let’s say you sell premium beds, here are a few examples of expert commentary ideas you can create content on:

• A bedroom expert has warned against using washing-up liquid on windows: 
• Expert's 'eye-rolling' technique to get back to sleep if you wake up at 3am: 
• Bed expert says this is how you stay warm 'without spending any money'

Another popular approach to acquiring more links through expert commentaries is capitalizing requests for expert inputs on social media. 

Start by looking for PR-related posts on X with hashtags like #journorequest or #prrequest. These are posts from journalists actively looking for expert comments - and having you jump into the conversation by directly sending email pitches is an actual leverage you can take. 

You can also subscribe to platforms like Featured and Daily Press Roundup at PressFlow to receive notifications from publishers when expert commentary requests are made. 

 

To increase your chances of being featured, ensure your responses are concise, professional, and tailored to the journalist's query.

Data-Driven Campaigns

Conduct and present original research or gather your own data. These assets could be surveys, experiments, or analyses that offer fresh insights into a topic.

If you don’t have the capacity to collect your own data, you can source information from public databases. Then, find unique angles that you can use for your own content.

One way to spark digital PR ideas for datasets is by using Google’s search query: “study reveals” “topic” sites:.co.uk” - replace it with other TLDs (aside from .uk) if you’re in the US or Australia. 

 

Then, filter the search results from last year to the current year (if the current year is 2025, filter results from 2024 to 2025). 

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Since they published a similar dataset last year, they’re likely to be receptive to new, unique insights/angles on the given topic—this time, with a new dataset. 

Reactive PR

Reactive PR leverages trending topics and breaking news to gain quick exposure and backlinks. 

By identifying current trends, you can leverage the existing desire for journalists to cover the story, making it easy to get coverage for your input. 

Monitor current events and spot viral topics using tools like Google Trends and Twitter Trends.

For instance, if there’s a sudden spike in demand for eco-friendly products, and you sell sustainable packaging, you can create content or offer expert insights on the subject. 

Time-sensitive pitches are more likely to gain traction, so being one of the first to create content that resonates with a relevant trend increases chances for coverage (and more links due to the campaign).

Product Updates

Generate links from coverage of your new product updates, by sharing the behind-the-scene stories, founders’ commentary, or any interesting information about your new product (or its new product update) that would interest journalists and publishers. 

For more best practices, you can check out this guide for more digital PR tips.

4. Member Discounts

Offer exclusive discounts to linkable audiences (e.g., teachers, military personnel, nurses, first responders, etc..) by creating a dedicated landing page for each discount type. 

Highlight how the discount aligns with their readers’ interests to make the audience group feel personally catered to. 

Make a list of websites with roundups or list pages for discounts. Start your search by finding pages linking to your competitors, using Ahrefs or other link intelligence tools. 

Reach out and pitch your product for inclusion.

With a highly personalized email outreach, you’ll likely get a 5 to 15% conversion rate in your outreach emails using this eCommerce link building strategy. 

5. Affiliate Programs

Another eCommerce link building tactic that leverages deals and offers is affiliate programs. This strategy acquires links and offers a way to expand your brand’s network by adding a distribution channel for your products or services (affiliate network).

Launch, publish, and design an affiliate program page with the best-converting copy. Treat it like a linkable asset to attract publishers to link to your page. 

Get included on affiliate roundup posts, such as “top affiliate programs in [niche]”.

While most of the links from this technique come from the online marketing and finance verticals, the link value from high-DR sites is still worth pursuing. 

Monitor mentions of your affiliate program using Ahrefs’ Alerts or BrandMentions. Ask these site owners to credit mentions with links. 

6. Content Partnerships

Compared to new content (i.e. guest posts), existing pages with significant organic traffic (currently ranking for informational keywords) are pages worth pursuing for backlinks. 

This is especially true if you’re targeting the types of backlinks that drive business value to your pages in terms of lead generation and branding. Links from these pages can drive second-hand traffic to your eCommerce. 

Content partnerships, also known as niche edits and link insertions, comprise the majority of eCommerce sites' link profiles today. 

The ease, relevance, and value of niche edits play a significant role in driving quick wins to product category pages (many eCommerce SEOs find this type of page challenging to build links to).

The approach in prospecting for niche edit opportunities is almost similar when you prospect for guest post blogs (the only difference is you add published articles when doing link prospecting). 

The advanced search operator (site:DomainName.com “topic”) is used to find topically relevant blog posts. Filter the search results by two years from the current year (2023 to 2025, if the current year is 2025) to sort search results with recently updated, published pages.

Send outreach emails to publishers of these pages asking for niche edits. You can incentivize them by offering free products or reciprocating the link by linking to the best content from your blog (or other articles from your other websites). 

7. Product Reviews

Getting product reviews is still viable if the reviews are legitimate and honest. 

Focus on getting bloggers and influencers with an engaged audience (not necessarily massive, but targeted toward the potential customers you’re looking into). 

Send your products and clearly state that you want an honest review without any obligation to provide a positive outcome—this works better than forcing them to write biased and fabricated reviews.

I recommend asking for links to point to the product category page (where the specific product is located) or to the homepage (if it’s more properly context) - using branded anchor texts.

8. Reverse Engineer Competitors’ Links

Developing link building strategies in 2025 boils down to understanding what the top players do - replicating tactics but making it better for your site. 

Analyze competitors’ backlinks using tools like Ahrefs. You can use Link Intersect to uncover high-potential pages linked to your competitors, but not to you.

 

For instance, if you find several roundups or list pages that mention your competitors, contact them and ask for inclusion, emphasizing why your product/service deserves to be included. 

You’ll get insights rarely seen in reverse engineering competitors' link profiles. A few notable patterns you could find are:

• Specific link types that can easily scaled to target more link opportunities of the same kind (multiple links from a single link building strategy) -  (e.g. associations, local sponsor pages. etc..).
• Anchor text ratio (as mentioned earlier) so you can figure out the best percentage for anchor texts. 
• Linkable audiences that are likely to resonate more for links in your industry (i.e. parents, students, or veterans).
• Topical guides you can recreate (but doing it better and more comprehensive) - i.e. Guide to Buying a Violin.

Do this as part of your SEO tasks to generate new insights into link building and developing content assets with a high potential for earning links. 

9. Publish Content-Led Assets 

Many successful link-building campaigns we’ve executed for our clients in our link building agency (and even case studies we’ve seen in others’ SEO and digital marketing agencies) have produced content-led assets.

Create high-utility, value-driven content assets to better build and earn links through relationship-building and manual outreach approaches. 

Start producing guides to appeal to a broader audience that promotes and supports links for their audiences. 

 

Publish content around audiences that fit your current niche/topic. Linkable audiences include:

• Teachers
• Caregivers
• Parents
• Senior citizens
• Veterans
• Health conditions sufferers
• Job seekers
• The unemployed
• Local community
• Students
• Families of substance abusers

Aligning content with each intended audience's needs, interests, and challenges guarantees that links will be converted from each link building campaign.  

10. Links from Comparative Pages (“Best of X”)

In addition to publishing high-utility, value-driven content assets for links, we have added product-led link building as part of our core link building services. 

I’ve covered this entirely in my guide on product-led link building. The premise is simple: Leverage the unique aspects of our client’s product or service to attract and earn links.

We highlight the product’s unique proposition to position it as the best possible solution for the challenges, needs, and problems it addresses in the market.

Start by finding “best of X” articles and roundups for the product or service using Google search (with advanced search operator inurl:best “product category”) 

You can use Ahrefs to find more “best of” pages linked to your competitors. 

Reach out to the authors/editors of these articles and ask for inclusion. Offer insights into why your product stands out in terms of quality, value, or innovation. 

For example, this comparative content highlights our client as a premier choice for advanced cellos. 

11. Unlinked Brand Mentions

Tracking unlinked mentions of your brand is a 2013-ish link-building strategy. Still, it is considered highly effective in generating product-led links in 2025, especially for reputable eCommerce brands with extensive product coverage. 

Given that more publishers are producing content that highlights other people’s products in their roundups and different types of content, it is more common to see articles mentioning the brand (but without links).

Track unlinked mentions of your brand, product, and names of thought leaders in your organization. We use tools like Ahrefs’ Alerts, Mention, or Google Alerts to get notified of those brand mentions. 

Send pitches to authors of those articles and request that they convert the mention into a clickable link. 

Need help with link building? Get your free strategy call. Let’s talk.

If you liked this post, you can follow me on X @venchito14.

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by Venchito Tampon

How To Build Backlinks In Very Small Niches

One of the challenging parts of link building is creating a list of targeted opportunities where you’ll have chances of getting links. 

This is easy for industries where you can quickly think of audiences to target. However, you may find it very challenging for small niches, such as safety training manuals for niche construction tools and custom gaskets for commercial refrigeration. 

In this guide, I’ll show you practical ways to think outside the box so you can learn how to build backlinks in very small niches. 

1. Serve More Linkable Audiences

When building backlinks, it’s a common practice to ask what topics you should write about for other sites so they can link to yours. While that’s important, I recommend you start with audience research first. 

Think of the audience you want to serve as they’ll also give you links—in SEO lingo, we call them “linkable audiences.”

What Are Linkable Audiences?

Linkable audiences are people likely to share or link to content that resonates with their interests or values. These audience groups include educators, researchers, and web curators.

Their day-to-day work involves maintaining the website, mainly updating their resources or links pages with new links. So, doing SEO outreach to these folks doesn’t require much asking but instead sharing your newly published content that matches their audience's interests and needs. 

This approach removes the friction of constantly following up with audiences who won’t necessarily link to new content anyway. They know what to do once you send them new resource links because they, by nature of work, link to other sites. 

Here’s a list of highly linkable audiences. 

Find connections between your site’s content theme and these linkable audiences. For instance, in my sleeping blog before, I’ve published a couple of guides that target three of these linkable audiences:

• The Ultimate Parent’s Guide to Helping Kids Sleep Better
• PTSD Sleep Solutions: A Practical Guide to Restful Nights
• Veterans' Restful Nights: A Comprehensive Guide to Better Sleep

You can also use ChatGPT to generate topic ideas by connecting your brand’s thematic relevance and these linkable audiences. 

Choose content ideas that make sense to your site and could be expertly written based on your available resources (in-house content team, available data, etc..). 

2. Leverage Reverse Outreach

Reverse outreach is a link building strategy of creating content that naturally attracts links by getting in front of bloggers and publishers. Instead of contacting other sites for links,  you draw them to your site by ranking for highly referential or research keywords. 

This is one way to acquire links for very small niches without entirely relying on manual outreach. 

Start reverse outreach by developing resources that publishers and bloggers in your industry value. Examples of resources you can create are: 

• Industry reports (data)
• Statistics
• Calculator
• Case studies or research papers

You could expand your reach beyond the limited topics of your site. Use Ahrefs’ Content Explorer to find topics and existing linkable assets that highly rank for “research keywords”. Here are a few examples: 

• [Your niche/topic] industry statistics 2024
• Latest trends and data in [your niche/topic]
• Comprehensive [niche/topic] market report
• [Niche/topic] growth and projections statistics
• Historical data and insights on [specific aspect of niche]

People who use these search queries are likely during the research stage of their content creation process. And if they find one of your ranking content valuable, they’ll include it as one of their references/resources through links. 

Pro Tip: Look for new linkable content published by competitors or big industry publishers. This could inspire you to create more content for your blog. 

3. Capitalize On Your In-house Experts

If you create content similar to the other ranking pages, you create unoriginal content. 

Adding a component of first-hand experiences to your linkable asset brings unique perspectives and expands the body of knowledge already available on the web.

To publish more interesting content on your blog, you can interview and collaborate with your in-house experts and potentially other publishers from other sites. Their insights can position your content as authoritative and have higher information gain, increasing the likelihood of backlinks. 

You can also leverage expertise through a digital PR campaign. 

One new HARO-like platform is Pressflow, which helps connect experts and thought leaders with journalists and publishers looking for credible sources.

When you subscribe to Pressflow, you’ll be notified of the latest requests for insights and quotes. Browse for topics your team of in-house experts (or collaborated leaders) can contribute to, and send your thoughts as soon as you can (remember: time is your greatest ally in digital PR). 

For more actionable tips, you can check out my guide on digital PR best practices. 

4. Get Event Links Through Sponsorships and Partnerships

One underutilized link building strategy is event link building.

Getting backlinks through sponsoring events and partnering with organizers has a high relevance score, especially in a hyperlocal context, where you’re sponsoring events in local organizations.

Find local events within the industry, and see if they have dedicated event pages on their sites where you can get embedded or text links. 

Collaborate on their community initiatives by incentivizing through monetary or non-monetary means, supporting, or event-hosting workshops or meetups. 

Many small niches have local business groups or associations, as it’s one way for them to solidify their work and expand business connections. These relationship-building activities allow you to get link opportunities without the usual link begging. 

5. Use AI Tools for Content Ideation

One of the major challenges in creating linkable content for small niches is getting new insights and topics that are still on-brand. 

You can use AI tools like ChatGPT or the recent Ahrefs feature, “AI Content Helper”, to flesh out new insights and sections you can add to your content. 

 

Of course, you won’t fully rely on these tools to make the content for you. As we know by now, adding the experience and experience (or the entire EEAT) elements to content creation makes it more user-engaged and more likely to climb Google’s SERPs for its respective keywords. 

Use these tools just as a guide to support you with new ideas and differentiate your content so that it brings new information to the knowledge base and helps increase user engagement. 

6. Monitor New Links to Competitors

Reverse engineering other sites’ links helps generate new link types that can only exist within your small niche. 

For instance, one dominating unique link type in the wedding space is links from pages of wedding vendors, including florists and videographers. Given their local relevance, links from these types of pages give higher link equity than any other link type. 

If you’re in this niche, you can expand your link prospects by doing Google searches for wedding vendors in your city to find a few more resource pages and directories where your florist or videographer (or your local business) could be included. 

Scaling Your Efforts in Small Niches

While link building for small niches may present more challenges than having a big website that can reach multiple audiences, those few tips mentioned earlier could help you create a sustainable and impactful link building campaign.

By being more creative, persistent, and precise, you can expand your link opportunities and form genuine connections with partners and publishers within your industry. 

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by Venchito Tampon

Types of Backlinks That Impact Your SEO (and How to Get Them)

Link building has always been one of the most challenging areas of SEO. 

It will get more difficult these days, especially in highly competitive spaces, as most Google core updates and HCU updates strongly favor brands (sites with stronger link profiles, brand searches, and mentions from reputable sites), emphasizing the need for better types of backlinks. 

The notion of getting only quality links doesn’t apply in ranking sites today. Link building should be about getting more quantity of the quality links that count. 

Google’s algorithms are smart enough to distinguish between a high-quality editorial mention and a spammy, low-value link. Focusing on quality links alone won’t make it. You have to acquire more to maintain rankings and strengthen brand positions. 

The links you aim to build should meet at least these two primary criteria:

• High-quality: Links from authoritative, relevant sites within your industry.
• Hard-to-replicate: Links that your competitors cannot easily reproduce, giving you a competitive advantage.

So, what are the types of backlinks that matter today? 

1. Editorial Links

Editorial links are highly coveted because they signal authority and trust. These links come from natural mentions in articles, blogs, and other media without a direct request from you. Earned links through strong content, positive press coverage, or expert quotes are strong indicators that people trust your site, which helps your pages climb higher in Google’s SERPs. 

Why They Matter:

• They are seen as the most organic form of a backlink, showing that other authoritative sources value your content. These links are referential in nature and could only be acquired if you have great content published on your site or if you have a link-worthy product. 
• They help position your brand as a leader in your industry. Editorial links from reputable sites can serve as social proof and enhance your thought leadership. 
• Drive referral traffic from reputable sources, increasing the likelihood of converting visitors into leads or customers. When other publishers recommend your product/service through links, it’ll help assist conversions. 

How to Get This Type of Link?

• Publish High-Utility Content Assets: Create content that fills a knowledge gap in your industry, such as in-depth guides, unique case studies, or proprietary research. Content that educates or provides a solution naturally attracts editorial links. In today’s age, providing new information (“information gain”) is critical as it attracts established authors who are looking for new bread of industry information for their audience. 
• Leverage PR: Use media outreach to promote new products, reports, or expert opinions that could be picked up by publications or influencers in your field. Subscribe to Mark Rofe here, as he shares actionable regular tips on how to utilize digital PR to its fullest. 

2. Links That Drive Second-Hand Traffic

These backlinks come from niche forums, community discussions, or recommendation pages, and while they may not carry the same SEO weight as editorial links, they’re highly valuable for driving targeted, second-hand traffic.

It is usually known as second-hand traffic, but it doesn’t diminish its value. The traffic that comes from recommendation and community sites is as powerful as editorial links. 

Why They Matter:

• Links from community-driven sites (such as niche forums or “how-to” pages) often bring users who are further along in their decision-making process. These visitors are more likely to convert as they arrive at your site already looking for solutions or recommendations. 
• They create diversified traffic streams, making your site less reliant on organic search traffic.

How to Get This Type of Link?

• Engage in Niche Communities: Participate in niche forums or communities where your target audience hangs out. Contribute genuinely by sharing insights and solutions, which can lead people to link to your site as a resource. Pro Tip: Don’t try to push hard on your product recommendations if they are not relevant. It would otherwise backfire on your brand if you do so. 
• Provide Solutions on Q&A Sites: Sites like Quora or Reddit can be goldmines for getting these types of links. You can gain backlinks and traffic from these platforms by answering questions and providing value. 
• Invest as much time to see opportunities further. When there are opportunities to add value with your product recommendations (as authentic and as useful as they can be), don’t hesitate to answer in the discussions. 

3. Links From Ranking Pages

Links from pages that already rank well in search results carry a unique value. These pages receive a constant flow of organic traffic via rankings, and the authority from their position in the rankings can pass on to your site.

I see it as banking on other pages’ authority, as these pages may be seen as relevant to certain queries I may have wanted to rank for either informational or commercial keywords. 

Why They Matter:

• Ranking pages are highly authoritative in the eyes of search engines, so a backlink from them holds more weight.
• They ensure a steady flow of referral traffic, as users continually find these pages through search.
• These links often come from content that is highly topical relevant to your site, further boosting your rankings in specific keyword niches.

How to Get This Type of Link?

• Outreach to Ranking Sites: Identify sites that rank well for your target keywords, and offer value through guest posts or content collaborations through SEO outreach. Focus on content that enhances their ranking pages, like providing an expert opinion or data that complements their existing material. Make sure you’re adding unique information that isn’t yet found on the page to increase the likelihood of getting your pitch noticed (and hopefully acquiring the link from the page). 
• Get Included in Listicles: Reach out to sites that create “best of” or “top X” lists related to your niche. Offering a compelling reason why your product or service should be included can earn you a spot on these high-traffic pages. See which angles or unique POV your products or services could offer that would be irresistible to add to the page. 

4. Contextual Links from Distributed Content

Contextual links embedded within relevant content (such as guest posts, listicles, or interviews) are highly valuable because they integrate naturally into the flow of information and provide search engines with strong context about your site’s relevance.

Compared to reaching out to get added, you need a compelling reason—a content piece that adds new information to the industry’s knowledge base—to have a chance for link placements. 

Why They Matter:

• Contextual links within content carry more SEO weight than sidebar or footer links because they are part of the main content, signaling to search engines that they are directly relevant to the topic.
• These links also tend to drive better referral traffic since they appear organically as part of an informative resource.

How to Get This Type of Link?

• Guest Posting on Targeted Sites: Focus your guest blogging efforts on sites that serve your intended audience. Aim to provide content that adds value and is relevant to the readers of those sites. Pro Tip: we use Ahrefs’ Domain Rating (DR) and SEMRush Traffic to see if a potential publisher is worth contributing content to. Benchmark must be Ahrefs’ DR 25 and above, and with existing organic traffic of 1,000, and without history of traffic drop (or algorithmic penalties). 
• Leverage Your Author Portfolio: If you’ve built a portfolio of high-quality content, use authorship as leverage to contribute to reputable sites with high Domain Ratings (DR). Match your contributions to your professional profile, which increases your chances of landing a contextual backlink on relevant sites. Pro Tip: If you’re working with SEO clients, you can use thought leaders or in-house experts in the company who want to build their personal brand. Collaborate with them by assisting them in doing the outreach yourself and letting their content be submitted with links to their personal site and your client’s site.

5. Thought Leadership Links

Thought leadership links come from opportunities such as public speaking, podcasts, and interviews. These links establish your authority in your niche and extend your digital footprint beyond written content.

Why They Matter:

• Links from organizations or events where you’ve presented establish you as a thought leader and build credibility not just with search engines but also with your audience. They also help your site optimize for large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews, which rely on information from other publishers. 
• They can diversify your backlink profile by incorporating non-traditional SEO sources, making it harder for competitors to replicate. This type of backlinks require depth of expertise and personal brand to garner a chance. 

How to Get This Type of Link?

• Guest Speaking: Look for opportunities to speak on podcasts, at conferences, or in webinars. This builds your authority and earns you backlinks from the event or podcast host’s site. 
• Leverage Personal Interests: If you have interests outside of your professional domain (e.g., personal development, productivity), use these as angles to land guest spots on podcasts or content collaborations outside your main niche. These can still drive relevant traffic to your site. For instance, I do corporate training on topics related to personal development, leadership, career, sales, and customer service. This allowed me to diversify my approach to guesting that other SEO and digital marketing speakers can’t easily access to unless they have similar personal interests. 

6. Product-Led Links

Product-led links are earned by offering valuable tools, templates, or services that can be highly utilized by targeted audiences. They act like an extension of a first-touch experience, as they get to have immediate access to premium features your tools provide. 

Why They Matter:

• Offering no-cost products like calculators, checklists, or apps can generate consistent backlinks because these resources are highly shareable. It also helps potential customers convert, as they get to experience first the value before making a purchasing decision. 
• These backlinks are sustainable since they continue to attract new links as more users discover and share your product.

How to Get This Type of Link?

• Develop Free Tools or Resources: Create high-utility resources like free templates, checklists, or tools that your target audience finds useful. Distribute them through your site or platforms like Product Hunt to get the word out.
• Ask your networks in the industry to share your new tool or resource: Send emails to friends and networks in your space to gain early traction for your product-led content assets. 
• Outreach to Resource Pages: Actively promote your tools or services to websites that curate lists of free tools. These pages often attract significant traffic and can generate long-term backlinks.

Get The Type of Backlinks That Count

Not all backlinks are equal in SEO value, and understanding which types of backlinks move the needle for your business is crucial. 

Focus on building hard-to-replicate, high-quality links that enhance your authority, drive traffic, and generate leads. 

Whether it’s through editorial mentions, contextual links, or product-led backlinks, prioritizing quality over quantity will lead to more sustainable SEO success.

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by Venchito Tampon