Analyzing and Using Your Competition’s Link Information with Blogstorm Link Tool
I am a tool junkie. I will try any tool once. My kitchen counter has been crowded with a Magic Bullet, George Foremen grills and every chopping device imaginable. I regularly take apart my computer and add new and “better” stuff to it. My floppy drive is from 1995. I am also er.. um… frugal and do not part easily with my money (Scottish genes) so my gadgets and gear are bought second hand- let other people buy the latest gizmos and I’ll pick up at next year garage sale.
This new tool is a doozy.
What would you do if you could find out what pages attract the most interest on your competetions site? Would you like to take a peak into your competitions blog and see what the MOST popular pages were? What pages had the most links pointing to it?
Damn right you would. And you can – for free! Patrick at Blogstorm.cm has come up with such a tool, The Blogstorm Link Tool ( For those new to link building and blogging- this is a perfect example of great link baiting – he has created a USEFUL tool that many will link to and they are also forced to visit is site to use it.)
What the Link Tool Does:
In under 30 seconds I found out how many links are pointing to pretty much every page on John Chow’s Make Money Blogging Site.
See results here
I don’t mean to single out John’s site- it was just the first name that popped into my head without having to check URL.
Some of the highlights:
After his main page some of his most linked to pages are:
http://www.johnchow.com/make-money-online-review-my-blog/ has 2897 links
http://www.johnchow.com/make-money-online-recommended-money-makers/ has 1433 links
http://www.johnchow.com/make-money-online-with-john-chow-dot-com-e-book/ has 487 links
http://www.johnchow.com/john-chow-dot-com-blog-income-report-june-2007/ has 232 links
How can you use this information?
I say this over and over gain- information is power. Anytime you get a window into user behaviours look into it. You will be able to glean something useful from it. ALWAYS. Figuring out what to do with the information is the harder part.
Looking over John’s info you can see that his most popular pages are the ones where he discloses information most people don’t give out; i.e. earnings. You may surmise from this two things- people are nosy and people want real numbers.
Maybe people like to compare. Maybe they are just plain curious. You can apply this to your site by offering your own earnings reports or sharing something honestly.
I did something similar when I started my Raise Your Alexa Traffic Rankings Test. It was embarrassingly- because my ranking was so awful. But it was the truth. What becomes more interesting is over time seeing numbers grow. It is more fun to be in the ground of something. The most popular page on my mom’s diet blog is her pictures. She has some before during and after pics and that page gets 50 times the traffic of all the the others.
We can see people like e-books- or at least they link John’ Chow’s e-book. It is worth a shot to create your own e-book. If you are an expert in your field do up a manual or guide or tutorial to something people are interested in. Look at your stats to see what people want- or use the Link Tool to find out what your competition is offering.:-). Do NOT do a half-ass job. It may take you weeks to do it right.
Other patterns I notice in John’s popular pages- pages that engage the reader. He INVOLVES his readers somehow and invites them to “join” and come along for the ride. He asks them to review his site for example. He is combining communication with his readers with link bait. “Hey- help me make my site better by reviewing my ( and link back.. of course) I will help you by linking to your site.
Since most reader of this posts are looking for ideas for their OWN blogs – I do invite you to submit requests. Please submit your own blog URL as well as your competitions site and we can take a look and see some real examples of taking a competitors site and using the info for your own advantage. Use comments section below to submit.
Note: Blogstorm LinkTool uses Yahoo API with sitemap.xml so the site must have a sitemap.xml file on the site (most blogs will)
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We’ve been doing humor hook linkbait on the web since 1995 at Zug.com
It would be great to get your feedback on the comedy linkbait angle!
Shelah
Marketing Assistant
http://www.zug.com/us/about/link-baiting.html