Every day, individuals who are new to SEO need to learn the basics of link building and important concepts and strategies within a campaign. This link building 101 post will continue the education of new link builders, this time on the topic of how to perform a backlink analysis
Being able to perform a thorough backlink analysis is a fundamental element to any link building campaign. What’s more, running backlink analyses can help develop your fundamental knowledge of links, link building strategies, and link quality.
What are the elements of a thorough backlinks analysis:
- Total number of links
- Number of unique domains
- Linking domains vs total links
- Anchor text usage and variance – branded, keyword rich, etc.
- Fresh/incoming links
- Page performance
- Link quality*
So, before you can even begin to consider a link building campaign you need to understand the site’s current link portfolio. There are a variety of tools to help you along this path:
All of these tools will do the job properly, and choosing one mainly comes down to a matter of preference. If possible I would recommend using two or more of these tools to ensure you’re getting as much information as possible.