SEO Tools Archives

Check competitor backlinks with out SEO Tools

Creating high quality backlinks is most effective marketing method if you are working towards website online presence. We all know that having a good number of quality backlinks give us better ranking in SERP (Search Engine Result Page). But after reaching on certain level, you need to keep an eye on your competitors and their activities. After getting into SERP race, you need stability so that your competitors would not steal your rankings. There are thousands of methods spying on competitor but the best one is to keep an eye on their backlinks.

When it comes to finding out the competitor backlinks, most of the marketers rely on different tools. Some most commonly used tools as ahref, semrush, linminer, seo powersuit and similarweb. But what if you are not interested to purchase a paid subscription of these tools? In this situation, you have to use your brain and work manually to find out competitor backlinks. Today I am going to share some google tips and tricks which will help you to learn how to spy on competitors and find out competitor backlinks without seo tools. By the help of these tips and tricks you can easily monitor your competitor backlinks and fasten your belts to compete with them.

Finding out the comment backlinks

Blog commenting is a good backlinking method. If you are using it correctly, you can get good results in SERP. We all know that generating backlinks by posting on blogs/forums always helps in a positive way. In order to find out your competitor backlinks which are built by using blog commenting method, try the following google trick.

Method: 1 Keyword/anchor text in comments

Open browser
Open Google in an incognito tab
Type : keyword “domain” “comment” -“Comments have been disabled for this post”
Hit enter

PS: Here you need to avoid typing https or .com/.in/.edu/org and so on domain extensions. For example if your competitor has a website https://theseoguy.in and you want to spy on backlinks generated by blog commenting then use trick and remove https:// and .in just type theseoguy.

I am sharing a case study for the client where my client was dealing in education and running a computer education center. Their competitors were gaining ranks on even on my clients brand keywords. The moment I get this project, I start digging out about the competitors. And finding out their website strength is the first point to start with. I followed method 1 to find out backlinks which are generated by comments.

Refer the screenshot below

In the above image you can see the URL’s where my client’s competitor has put their URLs and used comment box to generate backlinks. After reviewing all 10 pages with 100 results, I was able to find out the platforms which are providing backlinks to my client’s competitor.

Method 2: Keyword in URL, Citations, Blog posts and Meta data

Open browser
Open Google in an incognito tab
Type: inurl:domain
Hit enter

Similar to method 1, but little simple method to find out the backlinks. It is pretty common to check number of cached url’s by typing site:https.//www.domain,com/ but here in this technique, you can avoid the https and .com both to find out the url’s which have competitor name in it.

Refer the screenshot below.

In the above screenshot you can see the domains which either has the competitor name in it or has citations. Method 1 and Method 2 are relative but the only difference is, you can only find comments platform by using method 1 but method 2 will give you results or URLs which has your competitor name, citation, profile or comment.

Method: 3 Keyword/anchor text in social bookmarking sites

Social bookmarking is a common and effective practice while building quality backlinks. And if you could spy on your competitor bookmarks without using any tool would be an advantage for you. In order to do that you can follow given below steps.

Open browser
Open Google in an incognito tab
Type: keyword “add to this list” site: mix.com (mix.com is written just for an example. You can change it according to your choice)
Hit enter

If you follow this practice, you can find out the bookmarks created for particular keyword. You can switch the keywords and bookmarking site according to your choice. The only flaw in this method is, you can spy within one bookmarking website at a time. You have to switch the site after finding the results. Given below is one example of this method.

In above image you can see all the bookmarks created on mix.com for particular keyword.

Method 4: Finding out the platform

Apart from all the above competitor backlinks analyzing techniques, you can also monitor if any of your competitor is using particular CMS for website or blog. This method is little different and used to find out the competitor CMS rather than backlinks. By using this method you can analyze the CMS platforms such as wordpress, expressonengine, blogger, wix, penzu, strikingly, drupal, joomla and many more. Follow the steps given below to use this method.

Open browser
Open Google in an incognito tab
Type: keyword “powered by expressionengine” (Expressionengine is just an example. You can switch to another CMS according to your choice.)
Hit enter

You can use this method to find out third level domains and blogs as well.

Hope these tips and tricks would help you to find out competitor backlinks without SEO Tools. If you can add more value to this information or have suggestions and feedback for this post, then do comment below.

Share the information with people who are looking for such tips and tricks. And keep Exploring TheSEOGuy for Latest SEO Tips and SEO Tricks

Best free SEO tools

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process of skills and knowledge. But sometimes we need tools to make our work easy so that we could get better outcome. Better tools could give us an opportunity to perform out of the box and get amazing SEO results. Today I am going to talk about free tools which could help you to maximize your productivity. These tools can help you in getting better results quickly. But before getting into the list of the tools, I would like to share my personal opinion on SEO Tools. As I said earlier, Tools are good for increasing productivity. Every SEO expert should focus on his/her skills more than relying on tools. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a method which requires a sharp brain and good information about on-going trends along with good understanding or marketing.

There are thousands of Free SEO Tools available online. Most of them claims to be the best free SEO tool but not every tool fits in SEO’s requirement. Each tool is unique and has its own USP. Every tool is important based on your need. But there few good tools which you can use for better SEO results.

Google Analytics

Google analytics is a performance tracking tool which helps you to understand the website behavior and adjust/design/create/innovate your marketing strategy. This tool gives you the data which you require for better SEO results. For example

Audience type and behavior
Demographics (User Age and Gender)
User Location and Language
Behavior of user such as if it is new or returning visitor
Devices information which shows devices used to surf/explore your website
User Flow (Which are the enter and exit page for users)
Website Traffic Sources
Monitor Social Traffic
Keep an eye on your campaigns (paid promotions)
Number of keywords used to reach to your website
Number of Conversions (Sales)

It also shows the real time user data which shows number of current sessions, events and total number of visitors on your website.

Keyword planner

Google keyword planner is a keyword research tool. It gives you a broad idea of keyword also known as search terms related to your website product or services. You can get the complete value of keywords including their average monthly searches, competition and cost of bid along with search history of previous years. By the help of this tool, you can find out the number of keywords to target and be in competition while working for better SEO (Search Engine Optimization) results.

Here is how to choose best keywords from keyword planner I had written an article which explains the best use of keyword planner tool.

Google Search Console

Google webmaster also known as Google Search console is one of the best free SEO tools. I personally like this tool. SEO cannot be done without analyzing performance of website. And this tool gives you power to do that. You can perform website analysis by using Search Console and work on website improvement. This tool is a game changer if you know how to use it correctly. Apart from collecting data of analysis reports such as Performance, Coverage, index, Backlinks, Product and AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) you can always solve website issues. Most commonly we face issues like indexing, crawling errors and broken links.

All issues can be sorted out by analyzing reports by using Google search console tool.

Structured data testing tool

Google Structured data testing is also an important tool in the list of best free SEO tools. According to its name, you can perform structured data test by using this tool. All you need to do is open Structured Data Testing Tool paste or write the url in testing tool and hit Run test. You will get the results which shows the structured data of your website and list of error on which you can work. Given below is one screenshot of Structured Data Testing Tool.

Page Speed Insights

Basically this tool is used for finding out the website load speed. If you have a responsive web design then this tool can do a lot for you. It can help you to find out steps to follow in order to improve your site experience and load speed. You can access the tool here.

Structured data Mark-up helper

Structured data mark-up helper tool helps you to define your web page type and generate structured data according to page type. For example, I tag most of my information as article because those are article based on Search Engine Optimization. All you need to do is, visit Structured Data markup and login with your search console login ID and passwords.

Now paste or write the URL which you want to tag and publish pages. You can use different markups for different category of pages by using this tool.

Google My Business

Google My business is a platform which can be used as tool. It can give a boost to your Local SEO. If you are running a business and looking for local conversions/customers then you should do local SEO. And this tool gives you a chance to perform well in local SEO. By using this tool, you can engage with customers, get a local listing and convert potential visitors into confirm sales leads. I had posted information on “SEO Strategies for Local Business” which can help you to understand the importance of this tool. Also you can check out some amazing SEO Benefits of a Business Listing

Apart from these many tools, if you have any custom requirement for your blog or website then you can choose between paid tools available in market. But as far as SEO concern, you can solve almost every SEO problem by using above listed tools.

Conclusion:

Using tools wisely for better performance is much more important than relying on them. It’s totally up to your need that how many tools you require. Even you can have as much as tools but you should always have better understanding of Search Engine Optimization while using them. Having good knowledge would decrease the dependency on paid tools.

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Tag: SEO Tools

Here is how to find out competitor backlinks without SEO Tools