The runbook, with sheet columns
01Pick three rivals per target page
Take the top results for the page's main query, skip big brands and forums, and keep sites of your own size. Three is enough.
02Export referring domains
Use Ahrefs, Semrush or Majestic, whichever you already pay for. Export the rival's domains, not every individual URL.
03Run the overlap
Ahrefs calls it Link Intersect and Semrush calls it Backlink Gap. Keep domains that link to two or three rivals but not to you.
04Tag each gap
Mark every domain as editorial, directory, forum, guest article or junk. Delete the junk at once.
05Decide per row
Pitch it, buy a comparable placement, or ignore it. Write the decision and a price ceiling in the next column.
06Re-run in 90 days
Same rivals, same export. See what they added, and whether you closed any gaps.
Pitch it or buy it? A comparison
General trade-offs, not measured results. Outreach also builds relationships with editors, which a purchase does not, and many owners mix both approaches over a year.| Point | Outreach and guest posts | Buying a placement |
|---|
| Cost in cash | Free except tools | From $1 to about $500 per link |
|---|
| Cost in time | Hours per link, many replies never come | Minutes to pick, about 24 hours to go live |
|---|
| Control over anchor and target | Partial, editors rewrite | Yours to set per order |
|---|
| Fit for editorial gaps | Good | Only where a donor with the right niche exists |
|---|
| Risk with Google | Lower | Paid links can break Google's spam policies, so keep volume modest |
|---|
A worked example with made-up numbers
Imagine a 60-post site about home espresso. Its best page, a grinder comparison, sits at position 8. Rival A has 140 referring domains, B has 95, C has 210. You have 38. A gap this size is typical for a young site, so do not read it as failure.
The overlap gives 52 domains that link to at least two rivals. Not bad. After tagging, 14 are editorial blogs, 9 are directories, and the rest are junk. You pitch six of the blogs, buy two matching placements, and ignore the directories.
Cheap. That plan costs maybe $90 and a few evenings, and the bigger cost is the six pitch emails, since most blogs will not reply. It is a gap list, not a promise, and you should keep it next to your budget sheet. Judge the donors on the scorecard before you pay. If a rival gained many links in one month, check the date against Google's 2025 updates before you copy the pattern.
Short list, then. Log the six pitches with dates, and review replies after three weeks, since silence is the usual answer and the sheet should say so plainly.
Common snags
Which tool should I use to compare backlinks?
Use whichever you already have. Ahrefs and Semrush both have gap views, and Majestic is cheaper for raw lists. They index the web differently, so numbers disagree. Pick one and stay with it, otherwise you cannot tell whether a change is real.
Can I check a rival without paying for a tool?
Partly. Free checkers show a sample of the strongest links, which is enough to spot a pattern but not a full list. For your own site, Search Console's Links report is free and complete for your domain only.
How many rivals is too many?
More than five usually adds noise. A domain that links to only one rival may be a one-off. The useful signal is overlap, so three focused rivals beat ten random ones.