Everyone uses backlinks, as Tom_C over at SEOmoz recently pointed out, and there are seven great ways to visualize them. Link data is useful for many things like analysis, education, adjustments, and sometimes it’s just plain SEO fun.

Which Folders are Top

OSE’s top pages function is supremely useful as it allows users to see which folders and pages are linked to most often. Users can create their own subset of folders and gain data over which pages are the most popular.

Create a GEOlink Map

Create a map of backlinks that shows where your links are coming from…it’s particularly useful for analyzing competitor data and even creating marketing targets for a campaign.

Neat Tag Clouds

Wouldn’t it be cool to create a tag cloud that was shaped like something else to display your most popular keywords? Well, you can! Create a cloud based on the theme of your website for added visual interest.

Directory Links Visualized

It’s good to look at both the spammy and non-spammy links on a company’s backlink profile, and it’s almost always the case that the better links are more interesting to analyze. An interesting way to weed out any directory links from a competitors profile is to use the formula:

=IF(IFERROR(FIND(“directory”,A2),IFERROR(FIND(“directory”,B2),IFERROR(FIND(“Directory”,B2),0)))>0,”Y”,”N”)

Then create a pie chart from the data. This will tell you what kind of links make up the bulk of your competitors stash and also which of their links is worth copying.

Venn Diagrams

It’s interesting to create a Venn Diagram based on your links as well as those of your competitors. You can easily see which links you have in common and which sites’ backlink profiles are most like your own.

Broken Links?

Most easily accessed through Google’s Webmaster Tools, the Broken Links tool is helpful for figuring out which links need immediate attention.  A broken link is a useless link and should either be nixed or fixed.

SEOmoz Labs Tools

These tools are helpful for identifying opportunities with new clients as well as existing ones. It can help congregate existing links, developing links, and link opportunities which are always useful for an SEO hosting company to know.

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