You can examine your market as a whole, your competitors, and the state of the search market for key terms by conducting a competitive analysis. You must keep track of your SEO performance even if you are already at the top of the search results for your most crucial keywords to prevent losing your position to a rival.
In this article, we’re going to explore the steps to perform an effortless competitive analysis to stay ahead of the competition.
What is SEO Competitive Analysis?
Finding the advantages and disadvantages of your SEO and that of your competitors is done through a competitive SEO study. You are attempting to identify any gaps between you and your rival, much like you would in a regular competitive study. But you’ll concentrate on SEO strategy rather than a marketing strategy.
You can benefit from a competitive analysis by:
- Comparing your present SEO performance.
- Determining where your SEO strategy needs to be improved.
- Identifying any flaws or weaknesses of the competition.
- Discovering the winning tactics of your rivals
You can discover your competitor’s advantages and disadvantages by performing a competitive analysis. This presents an opportunity for you to outperform your rivals and adopt some of their winning strategies.
Why is a competition study critical to the success of any SEO campaign?
You might ask why competition analysis is crucial for your company as you learn more about SEO. For a variety of reasons, competitive analysis is beneficial to your organization.
- It helps describe your strong points: There will be some things you can do better than your rivals. When you identify those elements, you may concentrate on them and continuously improve them to maintain an advantage over your rivals.
- It helps highlight your campaign’s weaknesses. No SEO campaign approach is flawless. You can find out what your competitors are doing that you aren’t by examining their SEO approach. It aids in your discovery of fresh strategies that can advance your company.
- Helps you connect with your audience. You are exposed to fresh techniques and methods employed by your rivals. It’s a fantastic chance to support your adaptation of strategies that enhance client connection and retention.
A competition study will aid in your company’s expansion. You’ll adopt new strategies that enable you to connect with more worthwhile leads for your company.
How to Conduct a Competitive Analysis
Using an SEO Checker to enter your competitors’ data is probably the easiest approach to discovering their SEO tactics. You will receive a report after the program has finished working. It includes a site speed analysis, meta tag evaluation, content grade, link audit, and much more.
Here are some tips on how you can go about conducting a competitive analysis-
1. Identify competitors in the market.
You must recognize your rivals to conduct a competitive analysis. If you don’t know who your competitors are, you won’t know with whom to compare your company. Your rivals could number in the dozens, depending on your line of work. Comparing your company to every rival will take too much time. It’s advisable to concentrate on your top four to six rivals.
You should pick rivals in both the real world and online. Physical rivals are located not far from your place of operation. When customers search for a company like yours, online rivals show up above or below you in the search results. Pick competitors who have a direct impact on your business while you’re choosing them. When you optimize your SEO campaign, it will help you have the maximum impact.
2. Analyze your competitors’ websites.
The next step is to compare the websites of your company’s competitors once you have identified them. You want to assess your position concerning the opposition. You must choose certain pages from their website for comparison to achieve this.
What pages should you thus read? Here are some recommendations:
- front page
- Comparable product pages
- View pages (pages with multiple products that people can browse)
- pages with news or educational material
In general, you should pick pages that are comparable to the pages you already have. This will enable you to compare different companies fairly.
3. Study of keyword gaps.
It’s time to assess your rivals and their pages after you’ve chosen them. You’ll want to start by looking at their keywords. Because keywords are so important to SEO, you should spend some time researching the keywords that your rivals are using.
You can identify the keywords your rivals are employing by performing a keyword gap analysis. To locate the keywords you’re missing, use tools like Ahref’s keyword gap tool. You should take advantage of this chance to find out what other keywords are available for your company. Although some of your rivals may be utilizing the same keywords as you, you will also likely find some new ones.
This opens up a chance for you to increase the reach of your company and outperform rivals. The keywords you discover through your keyword gap analysis can be incorporated into your pages or custom content can be written to address the keywords.
You’ll want to provide content that is superior to that of your rivals so that you can direct relevant traffic to your page rather than theirs. Using keyword gap analysis will help you attract new visitors and get worthwhile leads. It’s a fantastic way to support your business growth and maintain competition with your rivals.
4. Analyze content
You should consider their content as you assess your rivals. One of the main SEO-determining variables is content. Sites that offer high-quality material that is pertinent to a user’s search are ranked higher by Google SEO. Examine the material of your competitors.
You should first check out the various kinds of information they produce. Do they offer a range of content, or do they only offer one kind? You should consider the post’s word count and content if your rivals are blogging or creating content. Do they produce short or long-form content?
In addition to the keywords, it’s crucial to consider the content’s overall structure. Does the article’s substance match the term, or is it just filler? It’s a fantastic opportunity for you to produce meaningful content with useful information if you see that much of the content from your competitors is filler. Additionally, have a look at the subjects that your rivals cover. Do they frequently cover the same subjects, or does their website offer a variety of information? You have the chance to develop original material that your rivals don’t provide if they aren’t extremely diverse.
Lastly, check to see if their material has any visual components. Search for images and videos. If they don’t include media in their content, you have a chance to provide something more interesting. You may improve the content on your website by studying that of your competitors. Due to the importance of excellent material in Google’s algorithm, this is quite beneficial. When you provide high-quality content, you assist your website in outranking the opposition.
5. View their website for examples
The way your website is designed greatly affects how your audience views your company. Bad web design might cause visitors to leave your site, which raises your bounce rate and has an effect on your SEO. Your ranking will be impacted negatively by a high bounce rate. Consider your opponent’s website design when performing an SEO competitor study. You should consider the site’s layout and structure. Checking for use and aesthetic appeal is the major goal.
You can borrow ideas from your rivals’ websites if they have one that is visually appealing to improve your own. It might have to do with how their navigation is set up or where their calls to action are placed (CTAs). You now have the chance to enhance the visual appeal of your website as a result.
You should also check to determine if they have a responsive design. Because it enables people to enjoy a great experience on a site regardless of the device they use, responsive design is essential to the success of your website. Look to determine if your rivals have a responsive design; if not, you may be able to get an advantage over them.
6. User Experience (UX) Analysis
One of the most significant considerations for your audience is user experience (UX). To keep visitors on your site, you must give them a positive browsing experience. UX includes elements including your site’s usability, visual appeal, and informativeness. One of the key elements influencing UX in web design. An enjoyable experience is provided by a visually pleasing website.
You should examine other UX elements on your competitor’s website outside of web design. This includes graphic components, contact pages, and CTAs. To determine whether your competitor’s website offers a good user experience, you need to examine each of these components.
How can you tell if they offer a satisfying user experience? In general, things ought to improve people’s experiences. The website should be simple to use and full of useful information. These components add to the experience by being fascinating, interesting, and engaging.
You can profit from this and employ those features properly on your site if you discover that certain of your competitors’ audience’s visitors aren’t having a fantastic experience with certain elements. You’ll have an advantage over the competition because you’ll give your viewers a better experience.
7. Check out their Google Business Profile.
Local SEO includes a significant amount of Google Business Profiles. A list of Google Business Profile listings is produced when consumers look for local businesses. To compare your listing to those of your competitors, you should look at their Google Business Profiles. Check to check if the listings of your rivals have been completed. If they haven’t, your company gains a significant edge as a result. Due to the completeness and value of your listing, leads are more inclined to choose your company.
Check to see how much information your competitors have added if they have completed theirs. You should check to see if their listing includes all of their contact information, business hours, and other facts. You must determine whether the information is correct and current. Once you’ve reviewed the essential details, check to see if any new information has been added. You must evaluate any additional information on their listing, whether it is a menu linked to their restaurant or images of their products linked to their listing.
You have the chance to add such information to your listing if they don’t have any more information. Due to your listing’s information, it will stand out from the competition and attract more leads to your page. If they do possess this knowledge, you can imitate them to make sure you are still in their crosshairs.
8. Seek out ways to outperform your rivals
Finding possibilities where you can outperform your competition comes after you’ve studied your rivals. You must make your company distinctive from those of your rivals. You will be able to drive more traffic to your page and away from that of your rivals.
Consider where you may add distinctive components for your audience after looking at the websites of your rivals. You should concentrate on improving your site to perform better than your rivals, whether that means having original material or simple navigation.
You may begin integrating those aspects into your website as soon as you decide which ones you can use to make your company stand out. It’s a terrific technique to make your company outperform that of your rivals.
Conclusion
Take the time to thoroughly examine all of the websites in your market area while conducting your study; keep in mind that this is a never-ending process. With algorithm modifications, site migrations, the addition of new pages, and the introduction of new search features, things change. It is crucial to go back and assess any modifications made since the last deep dive.
And occasionally, it’s not even that your rivals have made a dramatic modification to improve their ranking when an algorithm update occurs. Google may have made a small adjustment to reward that even though they may have been doing something better all along. With competitive analysis, you could ideally find out what your rivals are doing more effectively sooner and then make the necessary modifications before an algorithm update takes place.
