No matter what industry you are in, there are competitors who are competing for the same customers as you. Unfortunately, many business and website owners do not see the value in devoting time and effort to competitor analysis.
However, when it comes to SEO and website visibility, you need to know who they are, what they’re doing, and how they’re doing it! SEO Competitor analysis is a crucial part of any digital marketing strategy and helps you make more informed and effective decisions.
Here we will discuss the definition and benefits of competitor research as well as top tips to help you in your next strategy session.
What is Competitor Research and Analysis?
Competitive research is the process by which you determine your competitors, evaluate their strengths and weaknesses and identify any opportunities where you can out-perform them.
Similarly, it helps you identify and keep on top of industry trends to ensure your website, products and services are constantly meeting and exceeding industry standards. Additional benefits include:
- Understanding Your Market
- Improving Your SEO Strategy
- Helps Identify Gaps
- Helps Planning For the future
How To Perform SEO Competitor Analysis
There are many ways to approach competitor analysis, but the basics include analysing what is working for your competition and creating a strategy to leverage this to improve your own SEO efforts.
This can be a time-consuming task. By enlisting the services of a professional SEO agency, this can be easily done for you. However, here are some tips to follow if you wish to do it yourself!
Finding Your SEO Competitors
Before you can start any research you need to know who your competitors are. This can be done by analysing the most popular domains for a handful of your most popular or main keywords. There are also a number of SEO tools such as SEMRush and Moz that accurately and automatically find your competitors.
Keyword Gap Analysis
Once you have a list of your competitors, the next step is to understand what keywords and phrases they are targeting that you are not. These should be valuable keywords that are related to your business and are likely to convert. Similarly, these should be keywords that you could rank better for.
While this can be a challenge, comparing more than one competitor can give you a better understanding of the opportunities you are missing out on.
Top Content Analysis
By looking at your competitors top-performing content you can develop a strategy where you can create similar content that significantly improves on it in one or more ways. This can be done by looking at click-through rates, social shares and the bounce rate.
However, one of the most important parts of this research is ensuring your content offers something different or better than your competitors.
Link Gap Analysis
Links are important for ranking, as they provide Google with signals that your website and its content are of high quality and authority. Similar to keyword analysis, link gap analysis work to identify the links your competitors have earned that you might also obtain.
This analysis should provide insight into both types of link building opportunities as you can then identify where to best spend your time and effort when it comes to link earning strategies.
Out Rank Your Competitors With DNHQ
While it may be a time-consuming task, with the right tips and strategy, it can be done! However, if you really want the best strategies and insights, it helps to have the knowledge and expertise of a professional Digital Marketing Agency. Digital Nomads HQ can help you to outrank your competitors and stay ahead of industry trends. Get in touch to find out how!