Ok I'm thinking I'm starting to get the picture on how I should build links. Consider this hypothetical scenario The site I want to outrank has 1000 total back links to their page. The site I want to outrank has 40 anchor text links for the keyword we're both targeting. The anchor text links are spread out as follows: PR1 - 20 links PR2 - 7 links PR3 - 5 links PR4 - 3 links PR5 - 2 links PR6 - 2 links PR7 - 1 link How do you form a plan to outrank your competitor in this particular scenario? Would building 30 PR4-PR6 links be sufficient? Are the anchor text links the only ones that really matter? At what ratio do you build your anchor text links to non anchor text? 30%? 50%? More? Any thoughts on this topic will be greatly appreciated!
There are other factors in play (age of site for example), but would agree that backlinks are very much so a huge part of Google algorithm. I would try to match them if I could to get started. I always go through my competitors links using backlinkwatch or some other backlink viewing tool. Sometimes it can really provide some good details. For example, you may notice they advertise on a certain related site. You might try to do the same because there is a decent chance that if they are advertising there then it possibly converts. Also, matching their backlink profile will help you to "catch up". Once you catch up, you can add a few more links and sometimes pass them. Always keep in mind though to be smart with your money. Just because they spent $500 on that PR7 backlink doesn't mean you have to. You might find that spending $200 on a few extra high quality sitewide PR4 backlinks is more beneficial and saves you money. Lastly, I would add that sometimes you don't have to play much catch up. That site would have a decent ranking for related keywords, but again, looking at their backlink profile you can see that sometimes if you are looking to beat them for "blue widgets" that it is quite easy because most of hteir backlink anchor text is for "widgets". Since they aren't too worried about that longtail keyword, sometimes you can easily surpass them on those because Google was just playing nice with them since no one else was really truly targeting that keyword. They were just giving them the "relevance factor".
Thank you so much for your input I really appreciate it. I have a question though if you're still around. I use Market Samurai so I can look at links the same way for the most part and I was wondering if building a near duplication of their link structure is a good or bad thing? As in getting your links from the exact pages they have gotten theirs on pages where it's possible...I mean, what they have already done is working right? Or are the Search Engines way to smart to fall for something like that?