Business musings...

Want to find out the other sites that link to your website? It’s easy when you know how! Here’s how you do it:

1. Go to http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com. In the top bar fill in your own website URL [1] (e.g. http://www.yourwebsite.co.uk ).
2. Click on  ’Explore URL’ [2].
3. Yahoo will generate a list of websites [3].
4. Click on ‘Inlinks’ button [4].
5. Choose ‘Except from this domain’ [5] and ‘Entire site’ [6].
6. Voila! You have your list.
7. You can also export as this list as a TSV file [7].
8. If you sign up for a free Yahoo account you’ll also get additional tracking features.

What do I do with the list?

There are various things you can do with this list; it is essentially free market intelligence!

1. By allowing you to understand who is interested in your site, the list can help you to better tailor the content of your site to those people/organisations.
2. You might find that there new opportunities to explore if some of the links surprise you.
3. Use the list to check your market positioning and check that you are described accurately by those linking to you.
4. Do the same check with your competitors, which might provide you with an interesting comparison. If they’re ahead of you online, it may be a way of getting new ideas of how to develop your organisation and website.

Tips kindly provided by Hugo Russell from iCentrum at their Social Media Drivetime event.