By mbretous@hubspot.com (Martina Bretous)

Link building is an invaluable part of SEO. In fact, it’s one of the top factors search engines look at when determining your ranking.

Whether you’re developing a new link-building strategy or revising a current one, it’s important to look at where you currently stand. That’s where a backlink strategy comes into play.

Let’s cover what a backlink analysis looks like and the tools needed to conduct one.

Backlink Analysis

What is backlink analysis?

Backlink analysis is a comprehensive review of a website’s backlinks to analyze the site’s performance and identify issues that could affect its search engine ranking.

Backlink analysis is like the SEO version of going to the doctor for a check-up. You should do it regularly to ensure everything is in order, but you also do it when you notice something is wrong.

Completing this process is one of the best ways to understand your site’s health and understand what factors are contributing to its ranking. Perhaps you’ve noticed a sharp dip in your ranking, or you’re simply not seeing the progress you were expecting.

A backlink analysis will also show you how your website measures up against your competitors. You’ll gain some insight into what strategies your competitors are using and what you could implement in your own process.

Lastly, it’s a chance to identify new growth opportunities that you haven’t yet explored.

1. Choose the sites you want to analyze.

While it’s obvious you’ll be analyzing your own website, you’ll also want to narrow down the competitor sites you want to review.

You may already have a few top of mind, but if you don’t, you’ll want to pick sites that:

• Offer similar products or services.
• Are currently outranking you for your target keywords.

2. Select an auditing tool.

Although you could conduct a manual backlink audit, it’s likely more efficient to use a backlink tool that already has the key features you’re looking for.

There are several backlink checker tools out there, ranging in price and capabilities. You’ll usually find them as a section within an SEO tool, like Majestic and SEMrush.

Need help finding a backlink analysis tool? Find a few suggestions here.

3. Get a quick overview.

Once you select your auditing tool, it’s time to start the analysis.

Enter your domain name into the search bar and look at the results.

You’ll start with a ton of data. To get a quick idea of how your site is performing, focus on these metrics:

• The total number of backlinks: The total number of links pointing to the site. For instance, if website A writes a blog post and hyperlinks to a page on website B, that is a backlink. If this number is very low, it may be the reason why your page isn’t ranking well.
• Referring domains: The total number of websites that are pointing to your site. Website A pointing to website B counts as one …read more

  Source:: HubSpot Blog

        

  

  Author: Aaron