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How to Grow Your List of Prospects with Lookalike Prospects

Ahrefs
Ahrefs
07 Jun 2025
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Digital Marketing
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Reading time: 5 minutes

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Hey, it's Sam Oh and welcome to the second lesson in the link prospecting module.0:00
In this lesson, we're going to talk about how to grow your list of prospects with lookalike prospects.0:04
Lookalike prospects in link building are very much the same.0:30
Alright so there are 3 tools I use to find lookalike prospects.1:20
And we'll continue with the examples we discussed in the previous lesson.1:41
The easiest way to do that is to look for a footprint within the pattern.2:20
Alright the next example was when we found an opportunity for our link building guide.3:20
But this job is much easier if you use Ahrefs' Content Explorer.4:30
And that's where segmenting your link prospects is going to help you stay organized.6:20
I'll see you there.9:09

How to Grow Your List of Prospects with Lookalike Prospects

Have you ever wondered how to expand your outreach without starting from scratch? By leveraging "lookalike prospects," you can tap into new audiences that mirror your existing ones.

Understanding Lookalike Prospects

Lookalike prospects in link building are akin to lookalike audiences in online advertising. Just as ad platforms like Google and Facebook allow you to target individuals similar to your existing customers, you can find link prospects that resemble your seed prospects—those who already link to your content for specific reasons.

To maximize the value of this lesson, it's essential to grasp the concept of seed prospects and their "linkable points," which are identified through patterns in a competitor's backlink profile. If you're unfamiliar with these terms, I recommend revisiting the previous lesson for a solid foundation.

Tools for Finding Lookalike Prospects

To effectively find lookalike prospects, I rely on three primary tools: Ahrefs, Google, and the Scraper Chrome Extension. Each tool serves a unique purpose in identifying potential link opportunities based on your seed prospects.

For instance, when working on our SEO statistics page, we analyzed a competitor's anchors report in Ahrefs Site Explorer. We discovered that many links pointed to outdated statistics. This insight allowed us to craft compelling pitch angles based on the patterns we observed.

Analyzing Competitor Backlinks

Once you identify a seed prospect, the next step is to gauge the breadth of the opportunity. This involves looking for a "footprint" within the pattern—essentially a common mark among the dataset. For our SEO statistics page, we found that the percent sign (%) was a recurring element in the anchor text of backlinks.

By filtering the backlinks report using this footprint, we uncovered approximately 1,800 unique pages linking to our competitor's content. This discovery opened up a wealth of opportunities for outreach.

Expanding Your Prospect List

In another example, we explored our link building guide and noticed that a competitor's page received backlinks due to a downloadable ebook that was no longer available. This led us to identify our seed prospects as pages that featured listicles on "top SEO ebooks."

To find these lookalike prospects, we utilized Google search with specific queries like intitle:best intitle:seo intitle:ebook. This approach yielded hundreds of results. Alternatively, Ahrefs' Content Explorer allowed us to refine our search further, resulting in over 1,000 prospects when we broadened our search to include marketing-related terms.

Scraping for Additional Opportunities

Sometimes, the best opportunities arise unexpectedly. While analyzing our SEO course landing page, I stumbled upon a potential seed prospect through YouTube analytics. Our SEO course videos had garnered over a million views, indicating that many websites might have linked to or embedded these videos.

By running the video URLs through Ahrefs' Site Explorer, we discovered numerous referring domains. To streamline the process, I used the Chrome Scraper Extension to gather all video URLs quickly. This method allowed us to batch analyze the URLs and identify a significant number of lookalike prospects willing to link to our academy page.

Organizing Your Outreach Campaign

Finding lookalike prospects is just the beginning. As you accumulate thousands of potential link prospects, organization becomes crucial. Segmenting your prospects will help you manage your outreach efforts more effectively, ensuring that your personalized emails convert into valuable backlinks.

In the next lesson, we'll delve into strategies for segmenting your prospects to enhance your outreach campaigns.

Conclusion

In summary, leveraging lookalike prospects can significantly expand your link building efforts. By identifying seed prospects and utilizing tools like Ahrefs, Google, and scraping techniques, you can uncover a wealth of opportunities.

As you embark on this journey, consider this: How can you apply these strategies to your current outreach efforts? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below!