Today's SEO Tips entry was via Kelvin Newman from Site Visibility
"Look at who's linking to your competitors and see if they'll link to you, hard work and not particularly fashionable but it still works"
I'm fully with Kelvin on this one. Yes, checking through hundreds, or thousands of competitor links can be tedious but if you don't do it you could be missing out on a potential gold mine of links.
You can use tools such as Yahoo Site Explorer to view the backlinks of other websites, or even push the boat out and download a Firefox plugin like SEOquake to give you a bit more information. Have a browse through the sites that are linking to your competitors and ask yourself:
1) Why are these sites linking to my competitor?
2) Would they link to me?
3) Is there anything I can do to get them to link to me? (e.g. produce specific content, not blackmail).
It makes sense, try and get yourself as many of your competitor's links as possible, then outrank them off with some more creative link building and your own SEO techniques.
If you'd like your SEO Tips featured on the Further blog, just Tweet your SEO tip to the #fseo hashtag.
Previous SEO Tips:
SEO Tip #9: Good usability means good SEO
SEO Tip #8: SEO Success = ROI not rankings
SEO Tip #7: Localise, don't just translate
SEO Tip #6: Get the on-page basics right
SEO Tip #5: Check the use before date
SEO Tip #4: Integrate SEO and PPC Campaigns
SEO Tip #3: Using Twitter
SEO Tip #2: Create Unique Content
SEO Tip #1: Stop! Keyword Research
Post by Further search marketing.