The next step is putting together an intelligent link building strategy.

You are right, this is not the logical sequence, I am putting it here simply so that your Ahrefs trial doesn't expire before you get to this task.

Stealing competitors backlinks is the best strategy because each of the sites we analyze are already ranking in the top spots of Google.

The concept is pretty simple-

Find the top ranking pages for your target keyword
Download all of their backlinks
Replicate as many as possible

You will need to replicate as many backlinks from the top #5 results to your site as possible! It’s a simple theory but highly effective.

Matthew Woodard's spreadsheet will automatically analyze your competitors' link profile and with Ahref's power spit out the best links to steal first.

It does things like-

Automatically filters out spammy links that could hurt you
Removes all of the “weak” links that aren’t worth stealing
Allows you to assign link types like “Resource Page” or “Guest Post”
Builds a precise “backlink theft strategy” of which links to steal and in which order

Setting this up follows a near identical to process to setting up the keyword sheet.

There are 3x tabs at the bottom to navigate through -

Start Here – Enter your competitor URLs here
Data – Enter the data you export here
Plan of Attack – This is your backlink plan (the most important links at the top)

Step #1 – Find Your Competitors Ranking URLs

The first thing you need to do is get a list of the top #5 ranking URL’s for your target keyword. Select the keyword you want to target from the keyword strategy sheet.

Then do a search in Google and make a list of the first 5x organic search results.

Step #2 – Open The Sheet

Once you have a list of the top 5x organic search results for your target keyword, open the first tab on the sheet #1 – Start Here

Enter the URL’s of your competitors in column A-

Then click on the “Click Here” links to automatically open the right report that you need.

Click on the export button and select as much data as you want to export. The more data you have to analyze, the better!

Repeat this for each of the competitor URL’s until you have exported all of the data.

Step #3 – Loading The Data

Head over to tab #2 – Data and import each of the files you exported in step #2.

The quickest way to do that is-

Open one of the files from step #2
Delete the first row of data
Highlight all of the remaining data and copy it
Then paste it into Tab #2 of the google sheet
Repeat the process adding each report you exported in step #2 to tab #2

Step #4 – Your Plan Of Attack

Now head over to the 3rd tab #3 – Plan Of Attack.

This sheet has already found the best backlinks for you to steal!

The sheet has already worked it’s magic and

Filtered out spammy links that could hurt you
Removed all of the “weak” links that aren’t worth stealing
Built a precise “backlink theft strategy” of which links to steal and in which order

You can also use the “type” column to assign what “type” of backlink it is.

Step #5 – Steal Those Links!

Now all you need to do is open each link on the 3rd tab #3 – Plan Of Attack and look at how your competitor was able to get the link-

Sometimes it’s a blog comment, so you just need to post your own
Sometimes it’s a forum post so you just need to get involved
Sometimes it’s a guest post and you will have to submit your own
Sometimes it’s a web 2.0 site, so you just register & create your own
Sometimes it’s an infographic, so just get your own made on Fiverr
Sometimes it’s a resource page and you just need to submit yours

Ahrefs Link Building