If you want to outgrow your competitors, you must be constantly on the go, upgrade your business, and keep your website up to date to not only make it easy to use but also synch with all the updates and trends. Conducting SEO competitive analysis regularly to understand how to upgrade your own website is a must, as it’s one of the best-performing ways to see the areas that have to be improved. Today, we will discuss this essential technique for a successful SEO strategy to help you understand the topic better. Join us and let your business flourish with priceless recommendations from IntlTech!
The Definition of SEO Competitor Analysis
SEO competitor analysis is also known as SEO competitive analysis, and it’s defined as a process of conducting thorough research on your competitors to get certain insights regarding essential metrics of their business: keywords, competitor backlink analysis, content, and others. By taking those into consideration, you may create a strategy to boost your own content and get better results in terms of your website’s SEO.
There are dozens, if not hundreds, of websites similar to yours, and that’s why you may find SEO competitor analysis important to boost your business and get higher in the search engine rankings. Thus, understanding how your competitors’ data can be helpful is vital to taking the next step in bringing the business to a new level. Now, let’s dive into the SEO metrics to analyze when having a closer look at your competitor’s performance.
5 Metrics to Pay Attention to at Your SEO Competitors Research
Now that we have covered all the essentials, let’s explore the vital metrics that must be considered for a well-performing SEO competitor analysis. You may use this information while working on your own or discuss it with a digital marketing agency (sometimes, contacting a professional like IntlTech is a good idea to be sure the results turn out as good as expected and will be used properly for your benefit). If you need professional assistance – feel free to get in touch with us to order a competitor SEO analysis for your business.
#1. Identifying the Competitors and Traffic Source
Before gathering the information within various metrics, you must understand who your competitors are. There are three main types of competitors, and understanding the difference is helpful:
- Direct competitors. These people offer the same products or services as your company and thus must be researched the most;
- Indirect competitors. This type of competitor may offer different products but aim at the same category of customers or maybe solve similar problems. You may have a closer look at them to get some ideas on how to boost your business;
- Emerging competitors. They may be ‘no names’ right now but have great potential to become better known in the future. Keep an eye on them to track their progress and maybe borrow some ideas from them.
When you search competitors, you may see the real picture on the market to understand your next steps on your way to the top of search engines ranking.
#2. Competitors Backlink Profiles
To understand the inside processes in your competitors’ strategies, you must have more detailed information on the backlinks they gather. What should you pay attention to?
- Referring domains. The domains linking to your competitors may diverse, as backlinks from trusted, high-performing sites are able to provide a significant SEO boost to one’s website;
- Number and quality of backlinks. The quantity and quality of your competitors’ backlinks define the general quality of their websites;
- Anchor text distribution. The anchor text in your competitor backlinks can provide significant insights into their link-building strategy, as well as show keywords they are targeting.
Helpful tip: If you have a closer look at testimonials on their website, you may see whether your competitors have reputable websites linked to them, also known as industry-leading experts.
#3. Relevant Keywords Analysis
The next step in analyzing your competitors’ content must be having a closer look at the keywords they use to promote their websites. What should you pay attention to?
- Look at high-volume keywords your competitors rank. If you find keywords with high search volume that your competitors use to outrank you, consider adding those to your SEO strategies to give yourself more traffic opportunities;
- Pay attention to SERP features. The search engine results page can demonstrate exactly where your competitors are winning in their SEO game. It may be image packs or featured snippets, and it’s a perfect way to get some ideas for your own strategy;
- Track trends in keyword rankings. Google Trends is a very helpful SEO competitor analysis tool that can demonstrate how the popularity of the keywords changes over time. This is very helpful for tracking seasonal changes and keyword gap analysis;
- Analyze keywords difficulty. Consider how hard it would be to rank while using a certain set of keywords. Some popular tools include a keyword difficulty score that are ranking keywords and can evaluate potential efforts.
Knowing keywords is important, but there is much more to it. Analyze competitors’ rankings, have a closer look at keyword gaps, and evaluate your opportunities to create an excellent SEO strategy on your own. Also, consider using keywords that can highlight your personal strengths and characterize your business better. Finally, if you are just starting, you may consider paying closer attention to long keyword phrases and questions to include on your web pages for higher ranking. That will be more effective and show the results faster.
#4. On-Page SEO Results
Another important thing that should be considered is your competitors’ on-page SEO. Examine the title tags and meta descriptions, target words, their format, and other essentials. The header structure is another thing you should pay attention to: are keywords included in the header? Is information well-organized? How do search engines react to those, and whether they are able to attract organic traffic to the web page? Finally, look at the value of the content: is the information helpful? Is it clear? Are all the points written clearly? Competing websites may give you some ideas and inspiration for your own, so don’t be afraid to search for ideas.
#5. Technical SEO Matrics
As a final step, we recommend checking technical metrics on competitors’ websites. You can measure the speed of their website, mobile friendliness, and sitemaps to compare those metrics with your results and see the points that can be improved for your website. make your site stand out amongst your main organic competitors and create a strategy to get straight to the top with your business.
Why Should You Consider SEO Competitor Research for Your Website?
Creating a well-performing strategy is an excellent way to boost your SEO and outgrow your competitors. It may help to understand your weak and strong points, thus define the best strategies to help your site achieve new levels of success and significantly grow organic traffic.
Here are a few reasons why you should conduct SEO competitor research:
- Understand your competitors’ weaknesses;
- Learn what works well in your industry and avoid the mistakes others tend to make;
- Apply your competitors’ strengths to your case;
- Understand the best ways to improve your website in the most efficient way.
Performing this analysis is a good idea if you have a new website, plan a new SEO strategy for your business, or want to rebrand your business. Besides, it helps understand the numbers if your competitors outrank you in the search results.
To Sum Up the Discussion
Conducting detailed SEO competitor research is not only about growth: understanding your rivals is important to knowing their next steps, calculating the strategy, and thus always keeping them on the toes with your incredible performance. On top of that, this way, you can understand your target audience better, providing them with exactly what they need.
Learning from others is an effective strategy: avoid repeating their mistakes and incorporate their successful stories into your own for the maximum benefit. Transform all the information into your SEO strategy and boost your website to new levels of success!
