Advanced Strategies for Link Building Using Data Analytics

Backlinks are an integral part of your overall SEO strategy. High-quality backlinks from relevant websites act like votes of confidence for search engine crawlers, ultimately influencing your website’s ranks. And the higher the ranking, the more organic traffic you’ll get.

However, to acquire and sustain a stellar backlink profile, you need a data-backed strategy. Data analysis will help you analyze credible linking opportunities and how you can fill the gap others are missing.

This guide delves into advanced strategies for competitor analysis, content creation, and link outreach, all fueled by valuable data insights. We’ll also explore some of the top data analytics tools to supercharge your link-building journey.

How Can Data Analytics Improve Link Building And Provide Link-Building Insight?

Data analytics can be a powerful tool to inform your link-building strategy. Here are five significant ways it can provide greater insight:

• Gap analysis: By comparing your backlink profile to your competitors, you can identify websites that link to them but not you. This reveals potential link-building opportunities you might have missed.
• Competitor analysis: Analyzing your competitor’s backlinks helps you understand their strategies and target similar high-quality websites. This can give you a roadmap for your outreach efforts.
• Determining link quality: Data can help you assess the value of backlinks. Look at factors like website traffic, domain authority, and anchor text relevance to prioritize high-quality links with the most impact.
• Content planning: You can inform your content strategy by analyzing what type of content on your site naturally attracts backlinks. Focus on creating similar content to generate organic links.
• Monitoring performance: Track the impact of your link-building efforts on website traffic, search engine rankings, and other key metrics. This helps you measure your success and refine your strategy over time.

5 Strategies For Link Building Using Data Analytics

Struggling to get backlinks for your website? Data can be your secret weapon. Here are five data-driven strategies to build a strong backlink profile and boost your SEO:

1. Data-driven content topic selection

Ever feel like you’re shouting into the void with your content? You create awesome stuff but only get crickets in response. The struggle is real, especially when it comes to attracting backlinks—those golden links from other websites that boost your authority in the eyes of search engines.

Here’s the good news: Data can help you craft content that gets noticed and linked to. With the right information, you can uncover topics that are important to your audience and are most likely to get backlinks from relevant sources.

Here are some ways you can create data-driven content to earn maximum backlinks: 

• Look for long-tail keywords. These are more specific search or niche phrases with lower monthly search volume, lower competition, and higher ranking potential. Long-tail keywords often indicate higher user intent, which means people are likelier to convert after using the query. For example, instead of targeting “healthy recipes,” go for “gluten-free vegan breakfast ideas for busy mornings.”

• Analyze user behavior with Google Analytics. This free tool goes beyond search terms and shows how users interact with your content. Look for topics that generate high engagement metrics, like time on page and low bounce rates. This suggests users find the content valuable, which can signify future link-worthiness. Conversely, you may also tweak existing articles that perform poorly on essential engagement metrics.

• Consider “evergreen” content. Don’t just chase trends. Create content that stays relevant for a long time, like “ultimate guides” or “frequently asked questions” (FAQs) on core industry topics. Evergreen content attracts consistent traffic and links over time.

• Repurpose and refresh existing content. Use analytics to see which content performs well, then update it with new information, visuals, or a different format (like turning a blog post into an infographic).

Pro tip: Leverage social listening tools to identify trending topics and conversations within your niche. This allows you to create content that addresses current interests and pain points, making it more likely to be shared and linked to.

For example, let’s say you run a travel blog. Social listening tools might reveal a sudden surge in interest in “sustainable travel tips,” a trending topic you can jump on with a well-researched and informative piece.

2. Competitor backlink analysis 

Do you ever come across the same competitor every time you perform a Google search? The secret to these consistently high rankings might lie in backlinks. 

That’s where data analysis can help you again—analyze your competitors’ backlinks to identify link-building opportunities for your content.

Suppose you want to build links for a platform to automate and streamline contract management. You would want to check your direct competitors and monitor which websites are currently linking to those competitors and what type of content they are linking to.

How will you analyze your competitor’s backlinks? Here are some tools that can make the process easy:

• Linkody: It helps you track your entire backlink profile and insights into competitors’ link-building strategies. The report includes essential information like the source and target URL, anchor text used, rel attribute, Moz DA, and spam score, among others.

• Ahrefs: This tool provides in-depth insights into your competitors’ backlinks, including the websites linking to their content, domain authority, and more.

• Moz: Another big player, Moz, offers a detailed backlink analysis, giving you an idea of the quality and authority of your competitor’s backlinks.

At the same time, use these tools to identify gaps your content can fill and where it could be a better fit than what’s currently linked.

Let’s say you own a fitness website for busy professionals. And if you see that your competitor has a backlink from a website focused on general health tips, this could be an opportunity for you. You can leverage this link gap opportunity, as your content specifically targets busy professionals and their fitness needs.

3. Performance monitoring and link-building adjustments

After crafting content based on data-driven culture, topic selection, and competitor analysis, you should be able to acquire some quality backlinks. However, your job doesn’t end here.

Like any investment, you need to track the SERP performance of your pages after link building with a search engine monitor and make data-driven adjustments as you go.

Here’s how data analysis can help you optimize your link-building strategy:

A. Focus more on the quality, not quantity

Earlier, it used to be all about quantity. But now that the internet is inundated with content, prominent search engines like Google prioritize high-quality backlinks from relevant and authoritative sites in your industry.

You can use tools like Moz and Ahrefs to determine a website’s backlink profile, domain authority, and the relevance of each link.

B. Track organic traffic and conversions

Linking isn’t just about vanity metrics. The ultimate goal is to drive valuable traffic to your site. Use tools like Google Analytics to see which backlinks send you the most qualified referral traffic. Visitors may convert into leads that eventually turn into sales.

Consider a person running a pest control business. If the proprietor finds using Analytics that a backlink from a popular home improvement blog drives the most traffic and warm leads, this is a gold mine they will want to nurture.

C. Identify and disavow toxic links

Not all links are created equal. Some backlinks come from shady sites that can actually hurt your search engine rankings. In that case, link building might hurt your SEO performance.

If you detect such links on your site that violate Google’s quality guidelines, you can first ask the site to remove those links. But if you can’t get them removed, luckily, Google Search Console allows you to disavow these links, essentially telling Google to ignore them.

Aside from being a backlink monitoring software, you may also use Linkody to disavow unwanted links straight from the tool’s dashboard:

4. Broken link building with data insights

Ever clicked on a link while reading an article, but it led to nowhere? It can be annoying.

Broken link building is all about giving you a valuable opportunity to build links from an overlooked broken link.

Here’s how it works: 

​​You find websites with broken links on pages relevant to your niche. Then, you contact the website owner and offer your high-quality, up-to-date content as a replacement. If they like what you’ve got, they swap out the broken link for a link to your site—and boom, instant backlink!

So, how do you find these broken links? Here’s where data analysis comes in:

• Free Chrome extensions: Tools like “Check My Links” or “Broken Link Checker” scan websites for you and highlight broken links.
• SEO platforms: Platforms like Ahrefs or SEMrush offer advanced link-checking features. They can analyze competitor websites and identify broken links on high-authority pages—prime targets for your outreach.

The next step is to analyze these broken links and see if your content can be a valuable replacement. Then, reach out to the website owner and suggest your content as a replacement—this link collaboration is a win-win situation.

5. Unlinked brand mentions

Sometimes, people talk about you on their blogs, social media accounts, and even forums without actually linking to you.

How will you ensure you don’t miss these mentions that don’t link back to you?

You can use tools like BrandMentions or Google Alerts to find online mentions of your brand that don’t include a link. You can set them up to find any mentions of your brand name, company, or even specific product names.

Once you see mentions, contact the people and websites and request that they add a backlink to your site when mentioning your brand.

Pro tip: Remember to check their domain authority before requesting a backlink. Not all backlinks are equal, and backlinks from low-domain authority sites aren’t worth much, so make sure you invest your effort and time in requesting only reputable backlinks.

How to Measure Link-building Results

Building backlinks takes time and effort. Even after you earn quality backlinks, one of the biggest link-building mistakes is leaving it at that and not optimizing it further.

The key is consistently measuring your results and building high-quality backlinks over time. This will gradually improve your website’s authority and credibility in the eyes of search engines, leading to better rankings and more organic traffic in the long run.

But how do you know if you’re on the right track? Here are some key metrics to keep an eye on:

• Backlink profile growth: To gauge your progress, check the total number of backlinks you receive every other week. Look for steady growth over time, not sudden spikes that can alarm search engine crawlers.

• Backlink quality: The quality of the backlink tells the most about the success of your link-building efforts. They should also be relevant and from authority websites in your niche; otherwise, Google crawlers won’t give them much merit.

• Organic traffic: As your backlink profile strengthens, you should see increased organic traffic or people finding your website naturally through search engines.

• Keyword rankings: Strong backlinks can help your website rank higher for relevant keywords in search results. Track your keyword rankings over time to see if your link-building efforts are paying off.

• Referral traffic: Backlinks can send targeted traffic from other websites. Monitor your referral traffic to see which backlinks drive the most valuable visitors.

Data Analytics Tools For Better Link Building

Now that you’re armed with the right strategies, you’ll need some tools to implement them.

Here are some of the best data analytics tools you can use to improve your link-building efforts and speed up the link-prospecting process:

#1 Linkody

Linkody is a backlink tracker that helps you keep an eye on all the links pointing to your site. Think of it like a personal assistant for your website’s online reputation. You can see where they’re coming from, what kind of websites they are, and how they’re performing.

One of its key selling points is its simplicity. Its sole focus is on giving you the essential information you need to make smart decisions about your link-building strategy. 

Key features: 

• Link Analysis: Linkody helps you analyze your link profile with important metrics to identify links are good and which ones might be dragging you down.
• Competitor analysis: Linkody gives you insights into your competitors’ linkbuilding strategies and see where they’re getting links from.
• Disavow tool: If you find some bad links, Linkody helps you tell Google to ignore them. It’s like pressing the “ignore” button on a pesky telemarketer.

Pricing: Starts at $11.20 monthly for up to two domains, 500 monitored links, and one user (when paid annually). 

#2 Semrush 

Semrush is one of the most popular tools for link building. Beyond link building, it’s an all-in-one tool for all SEO strategies—from keyword research to on-page optimization—within a single platform. This also negates the need to switch between multiple platforms.

One of SEMrush’s biggest selling points is its Keyword Magic Tool, which helps you discover high-volume, low-competition keywords that users are actively searching for.

This sweet spot helps you create content that attracts natural backlinks.

Key features:

• Backlink analytics: Analyze your website’s backlink profile, see where your competitors are getting their links, and identify potential link-building opportunities.
• Link-building tool: Streamline your outreach efforts with tools to find high-quality websites to target, manage your email campaigns, and track your progress.
• Domain comparison tool: Analyze your competitor’s backlinks side-by-side with yours to find gaps and uncover link-building opportunities you might have missed.

Pricing: Starts at $117.33 per month if you pay annually. There’s also a free account with some limitations and a 7-day refund policy.

#3 Ahrefs

Ahrefs is considered an industry leader in link-building and other SEO functions—and for good reason. It has its own massive web crawler, second only to Google’s in terms of activity. This translates to a monster backlink index of over 3 trillion links, giving you access to comprehensive data.

It also comes with a built-in keyword research tool that provides you with a list of high-volume, low-competition keywords.

Key features:

• Competitor analysis: See where your competitors are getting their backlinks and uncover link-building opportunities you might have missed.
• Content explorer: Discover high-performing content in your niche, perfect for guest posting or link-building inspiration.
• Broken link building: Find broken links on relevant websites and suggest your own content as a replacement.

Pricing: Starts at $108 per month when paid annually.

#4 Moz Link Explorer 

Moz Link Explorer is another popular tool for link building and maximizing the impact of your SEO efforts.

Beyond the usual competitor analysis and identifying your own backlink profile, it helps you uncover hidden link-building opportunities.

One of Moz’s main USPs is its own metrics—Domain Authority (DA) and Page Authority (PA). These Moz metrics predict how likely a website is to rank well in search results. You can use them solely to prioritize high-authority link targets.

Key features:

• Backlink checker: See all the websites linking to yours, along with important details like anchor text and link type (follow vs nofollow).
• Competitor analysis: Research your competitors’ backlinks to see where they’re getting links from, and use that information to inform your strategy.
• Link-building opportunities: Moz Link Explorer identifies websites that mention your brand but haven’t linked back to you yet. This is gold for outreach efforts.

Pricing: Initially, it’s free, but to access more advanced tools and features, paid plans start at $39 per month when billed yearly.

Conclusion

Data analytics is the secret weapon for building a winning link-building strategy. By leveraging the power of data, you can uncover hidden opportunities, craft high-performing content with long-tail, high-ranking keywords, and target the right websites for outreach. Data analytics tools like SEMrush, Linkody, and Ahrefs will come in handy here.

Once you have enough backlinks, don’t forget to measure their impact and consistently improve your strategies.

All in all, you can use Linkody to streamline your link-building efforts and keep improving your backlink profile. This backlink tracker offers comprehensive data and features to help you build a rock-solid backlink profile and achieve SEO dominance.

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