Competitor analysis in SEO involves assessing how your competitors position themselves in search engine results, getting insights into their tactics, and recognizing their advantages and disadvantages.
By implementing this practice, you're not just watching; you're collecting useful insights to improve your digital marketing strategy.
In this guide, you will discover how to analyze your website competitors, use SEO analysis tools, and develop a unique SEO strategy that distinguishes you from others.
How to Find Your Competitor Site?
Give us the exact coordinates. The initial stage of competitor analysis involves identifying the most relevant competitors. A simple method for identifying competing sites is analyzing the Google search engine results page (SERP). Launch the search engine in Incognito mode and type in the query you want. The primary benefit of this approach is that it does not necessitate any financial expenditures.
One of the key disadvantages is that it may take a lot of time and offer only a limited amount of information regarding competitors. Identifying relevant competitors is just the initial step in the analysis process. The subsequent steps in competitive analysis involve using SEO tools like https://ninjareports.com/competitive-research-tool/ and understanding trends in digital marketing.
Analyze Competitor Websites
Once you have created a list of competitor websites, the next step is to collect basic information about each of them. This criteria can differ, but it should encompass the following elements:
- website address;
- the number of keywords it ranks for;
- details regarding the marketing strategies employed by your competitor.
After gathering primary data on rival companies in the search engine results page (SERP), you can obtain more comprehensive information. Let's delve deeper into the key characteristics of the businesses.
Website Quality
Analyzing competitors' websites should help in addressing the question: What motivates visitors to make purchases from this site? Important business features to concentrate on during your analysis include:
- Products and services along with their prices.
- Services provided by the business include features such as service attributes, discounts, promotional codes, loyalty programs, and more.
- Reputation metrics: feedback shared on its website as well as on external review platforms. This will show the strengths and challenges associated with the potential customers of each business. Analyzing the company's brand visibility and ability to draw traffic can reveal the weaknesses of competitors and inspire innovative ideas.
- The resources that competitors use to quickly interact with visitors, such as online chat or AI-driven chatbots.
During the early years of a website's life, its credibility is built. The specific factors it relies on include:
- the age of the website,
- the history of the domain,
- the extent of optimization and promotional efforts,
- the amount, variety, and standard of backlinks
- the importance, standard, and amount of content.
Technical Aspects of the Site
Additional important technical aspects include site appearance and page layout design. The first thing a visitor assesses on a website is its visual design.
1. Design quality.
The website needs high-resolution images, easily readable fonts, and buttons that contrast well and include clear calls to action (CTA).
2. Responsiveness.
The website should be accessible on all devices and web browsers, ensuring that it displays correctly.
3. Site stability.
Design elements should be visible when observed.
This could impact the user experience. If there are comparable problems on other sites, please include them in your report.
4. Usability.
A UX expert should conduct a thorough usability assessment, but you can perform simple usability tests to identify any obvious problems.
5. Site navigation.
When reviewing, pay attention to how the site layout is organized. It's important to be aware of the menu locations and if there's a search feature available on the site. Examine the pages and categories of the directory to create a more efficient navigation for the site.
If there are many competitors, it is not necessary to conduct an extensive technical audit of each one. Instead, simply evaluate the page load speed, briefly review the site, and pay attention to its layout.
Looking at the number of pages indexed by Google can give insight into the organization of the site and identify any indexing issues. This may also shed light on why only certain pages on your site are being indexed due to deep nesting or illogical layout..
Website Traffic and its Sources
Now let's move on to the next step of competitor analysis. It is important to assess traffic levels to identify the desired KPIs and to effectively develop an SEO strategy. This research will help you to:
- identify strengths and weaknesses
- evaluate the conversion
- Choose websites for guest publications if necessary.
- Choose standards for content and user experience.
Check SEO Keywords
An essential part of the analysis is checking the keyword list of the competitors.
By analyzing the queries used by competing companies in your sector, you can adjust your strategy to surpass them. The list of keywords pertains to those that are relevant to the main focus or theme of the website.
This collection provides the basis for shaping both the layout and content of each webpage. Analyzing competitors' keywords is important for various reasons: It helps in assessing how effective the SEO strategies of competitors are.
You can enhance and expand the keyword list for the website being promoted.
You can choose which search queries will provide you with a competitive edge and expand your list of keywords.
It is important to understand how search queries are ranked and how the quantity of keywords impacts the visibility of a website.
This data is essential for assessing a competitor's SEO strategy. Let’s assume that the volume of search queries is either increasing or staying consistent.
In such a scenario, the promotional strategy is working well, and you should examine a competitor closely to adopt their most effective methods.
Backlinks and Anchors
Backlink volume refers to the total number of links originating from external websites that are monitored. Collecting data on a website's backlink profile is essential during the competitor analysis stage.
For every competitor, you need to get the following information::
the total number of backlinks;
the number of referring domains;
ratio of do-follow and no-follow links;
number of external links;
domain trust index.
You can get comprehensive insights about competitor backlinks through various SEO tools.
In the world of SEO blogs, there is a debate about the effectiveness of anchor text compared to non-anchor links.
Here are three primary principles to adhere to:
- The anchor list should not be primarily filled with anchors that contain commercial terms such as "buy," "price," and similar words.
- The list of anchors should be varied to the greatest extent possible.
- The majority of the backlink quantity should be made up of non-anchor links.
Summary
Competitor analysis includes assessing technical factors, rankings, website architecture, backlink profiles, and the reliability of websites, among other elements.
It is an important step in SEO work. Using the gathered information, you will be capable of:
- develop an effective SEO strategy;
- select the most efficient methods and promotional resources;
- designate optimal KPIs for promotion;
- Develop a strategy to improve the presented website.
- Identify the appropriate tools for marketing purposes.
Wishing you many valuable, important, and practical ideas in the future!
