Beating the Giants: A Competitor Outbound Link Analysis
Client: An e-commerce store blog in the “home & garden” niche.
Challenges We Faced
The client’s blog was struggling to outrank major publishers for “best of” (commercial) keywords:
Outranked by Publishers
Their “best outdoor furniture” article was being outranked by publisher sites (like Forbes, Wirecutter).
Lacking “Expert” Signals
Their content made claims but didn’t cite any authoritative sources, so it looked weak.
No Idea Who to Link To
They were afraid of linking to other sites and “losing” their customers.
Low Topical Authority
Google saw them as a “seller,” not an “expert.”
No Internal Links to Related Articles
Blog posts didn’t link to other helpful content, reducing topical authority and SEO value.
Outrank Your Competitors
“Want to know why your competitors are outranking you? Our Competitor Outbound Link Analysis will find the authority sources they use.”
Our Approach – How We Solved These Challenges
Competitor Outbound Link Analysis
We used Ahrefs to analyze the outbound link profiles of the Top 3 ranking articles for “best outdoor furniture.”
Authority Link Insertion
The analysis gave us a “gold list” of 10 authoritative sources (e.g., Consumer Reports, university studies on materials) that all the top competitors were citing.
We then added these same authoritative links to our client’s article.
Content Refresh Services
We rewrote the client’s article to be more comprehensive, citing these new sources and adding new sections to make it the “best” result.
Nofollow & Dofollow Strategy
We nofollowed all the “buy now” links (as they were affiliate) but dofollowed all the new, authoritative citation links.
Results
| Metric | Before | After | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ranking (“best outdoor furniture”) | Page 2 (#12) | Page 1 (#3) | +9 spots |
| Authoritative Outbound Links (per post) | 2 | 15 | +650% |
| Organic Traffic (to that one post) | 800/mo | 5,500/mo | +587.5% |
Free Competitor Link Analysis
“Not sure who to link to? Request a Free Competitor Link Analysis and let our outbound linking service find their secrets!”
Advice for Marketers & Brand Owners
- Don’t guess who to link to. Use a Competitor Outbound Link Analysis to see who Google already trusts as an authority.
- Linking to the same authoritative sources as your competitors is a powerful “me too” signal of trust.
- A good outbound links for seostrategy shows Google you’ve “done your homework” and your content is well-researched.
Extra Factors That Made It Work
- The Competitor Outbound Link Analysis (using Ahrefs) was the key to this strategy.
- By adding these authoritative links, the client’s article appeared more trustworthy and comprehensive, which helped them rank higher.
- This Content Refresh Service (updating an old post) was faster than writing a new one.
