How Do You Conduct a Competitor Analysis for SEO?
Competitor analysis is an essential part of any successful SEO strategy. If you want to improve your rankings in search results, it is important that you perform a thorough competitor analysis, identifying where your competitors rank in terms of keywords. Once you have an idea of what your competitors are doing well and what opportunities they are not taking advantage of, you can use these valuable insights to boost your rankings, driving organic traffic to your website.
Competitor analysis is a process that identifies websites and brands ranking higher than you when it comes to queries relating to products, services, or information you provide. When you identify what works for your competitors, you can apply this data to your own SEO strategy.
When you do a competitor analysis, you see how your competitors are spending their time, money and resources, along with how they respond to industry trends. It provides you with gaps in their strategies, that you can use to boost your own brand visibility and drive quality and organic traffic to your website.
Competitor analysis is not a once off process, it should be done at least twice a year, or once a quarter, based on your industry and competition levels. It is also important to bear in mind that your competitors are not perfect and they may not be doing everything right. You can use their strategy as inspiration for your own SEO strategy.
Competitor analysis can be carried out following the steps listed below:
The first step to conducting a competitor analysis for SEO is to identify who your competitors are. You can start by writing down the competitors you know. This can be direct or indirect competitors:
It is advisable to do a search for high value keywords, seeing the results. This can help you identify your competitors. You may even be surprised on what the results are. If you are a smaller business, you may find you are competing with large brands that you will not be able to compete with on an even playing field. Chances are you do not want to compete with brands such as Ebay and Amazon, they are so well known already, you cannot win going up against them.
You need to conduct a keyword analysis to identify the keywords you want to target. These are the keywords that will drive high quality, organic traffic to your website. You use keywords in your competitor analysis to identify the brands you are going up against, identifying why they are targeting those keywords. It helps you identify what content you should be creating, along with opportunities you want to improve on.
It is recommended that you approach your competitor analysis using the SWOT framework. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Using SWOT, you can learn more about your competitors SEO strategies, including:
Competitor analysis is an important step to boost your rankings in SERPs and drive quality traffic to your website. Conducting a competitor analysis gives you a competitive edge when it comes to your SEO strategy, helping you gain valuable insight into your own digital marketing campaign.
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