Creating a Link Building Baseline for a Client

[Captain Midnight]

Hi Guys,

I have a quick question about creating a baseline with a client to show them their progress. This particular client in mind has 10,000+ backlinks (as identified within Google Webmaster Tools). BUT, they need to know what is it going to take to overcome the position right above them in the SERPS.

For example, they are ranking #4 for a keyword. They want to move up to #2 or #3 realistically, but how can I determine "what that will take?" In other words, I can not see what Google Webmaster tools says about their competitors' website.

So what Resource is a good baseline that we can all use to determine what that would be? ALEXA, COMPETE ?

Not all backlinks are obviously counted by ALEXA or COMPLETE because Google Webmaster says they have xx,xxx links and ALEXA says 1,800.

Regardless, when I configure a backlink campaign for them, what is the actual moving indicator that I can monitor to see that progress is being made and we will overtake #3 position at the current rate?

Thanks,
CM

[zekiel218]

the first thing you should do is comparing your client's website page and the competitor's page on ON PAGE SEO. Take in considerations of following things:
-keywords, keyword phrases
-title
-meta description
-keyword density
-First H tags
-anchor texts
-image alt
-internal links
-sitemap

now to off page seo comparisons, considers following things:
-Complete unique traffic (monthly)
-backlinks to that specific page and keywords
-where are the source of backlinks coming from? ads exchange, free backlinks or natural backlinks from the users?
-can you get the same amount of backlinks just like them?
-how many edu, gov,wiki backlinks you and them have?
-is it in dmoz?
-Can you tell if they are doing SEO daily/weekly just like you as well?

it really depend on how much information you found out about your competitor, sometimes it is better off finding another long tail keywords and rank it top rather improve SERP of current keywords if your competitor know what to do with their SEO.

[dominodivine]

Have you tried using openexploer from SEOmoz