What are the things I need to do, and with what tools to know what a competitor has working for him/her off-page (free and paid tools -- please suggest both)?First of all, I'm supposing I want to see all of the sites linking in and see what anchor text is used. Is there something that would report on the anchor text linking in, such as counting the keyword phrases used as anchor text?Also, it would be helpful to see where the PR is coming from by PR, such as, listing inbound links by PR of the page linking in.Lastly, if I'm missing something, here in the way of off-page attributes, please say so.
How should I study a competitor's off page SEO?
seo;links
Start by using Ontolo's free SERP dominator tool (free registration required) this will let you know which sites specifically are ranking across your top keywords (IE the most powerful) even if you think you know it's worth the 5 minutes it takes to run the report because you'll usually find a surprise or two.then buy your comepetitor's backlink profiles from Majestic SEO, this will give you all the link info you can handle, they have also developed their own ranking system (similar to PR or Mozrank) I believe for the basic subscription its ~$10 and you get something like reports on 5 sites/month. (open site explorer has similar data and can be used as an alternative it's just a matter of preference).I also like to look at Majestic SEO's compare domain history report (its free) it allows you to see how quickly and steadily your comptitors have been building links over time.From there I look at top linked pages, unique linking domains, and sort by link type (IE forums, blog comments, media mentions, etc.) to know how they are getting their links, what content draws the most links, and who they are getting them from.Bonus tip* You can also use SemRush to get an idea of what other keywords your competitors are ranking for, this will help you know who is competing head to head with you and who is mainly focused on other industries that overlap with yours, it will help find additional keywords you may want to target, and related niches for link building.