Why SEO Competitor Analysis Is Essential for Your Business and How to Do It
No business exists in isolation. There are always countless other companies offering similar services and competing for your share of the market. Understanding what those businesses are, what they offer and what works for them can give you valuable information. You can then use this data to maximise your offering and avoid making the same mistakes that others have made. Conducting SEO competitor analysis is essential for your business because it helps you analyse and understand the keywords your rivals are using, where they’re getting their backlinks and to see whether their social media presence is generating interest. This information is gold and can save you an incredible amount of time and money.
Identifying Your Competitors
Before you can start gathering data and delving into a wealth of information that can help your business, you need to find out who your competitors are. They can be divided into three categories:
Direct Competitors
Direct competitors are those companies that offer similar products and services to your business and compete for a share of the market.
Indirect Competitors
Indirect competitors offer different products and services, but still satisfy the needs of your target customer or offer solutions to their problems and answers to their questions.
Replacement Competitors
Although not directly in competition with your business, it is worth considering replacement competitors, which are businesses that offer different products and services entirely, but compete for your customers’ time and money.
Understanding who the three types of competitors are will help you stay ahead of the game and assess where you business fits in the market. However, it’s good to focus on your direct competitors, as they will be the ones who will provide the most valuable data. The information you glean from your direct competitors will also be more accurate as they are vying for the same customer base.
Find Out More About Your Competitors
To get the most value out of this exercise, choose four or five of your biggest competitors and find out more about them. This can be done by searching for what you’re offering on Google and seeing which businesses come up on the first page. This gives an indication of their ranking and whether they’re optimised for key terms that your potential customers would use. Finding out as much information about them will help you understand what they offer, their pricing structure, what discounts they have and how active they are on social media. This will give you a clear idea of how your company compares. It can also give you alternative perspectives that you might not have thought of.
Competitor Keyword Analysis
Conducting an SEO competitor analysis can provide a wealth of information that you can use to refine what you offer and how it’s presented online. Analysing the keywords other businesses are competing for can show you how much traffic they’re getting from certain keywords and phrases and what their customers are putting into an online search to find them. Competitor keyword research can also highlight gaps that you can utilise to gain an advantage. Gathering this data can be done using a variety of tools, such as Buzzsumo, SemRush, ahrefs, Moz, etc. This information can then be used to focus the language on your website to help you compete for high trafficked keywords and longtails.
Competitor Backlink Analysis
According to ahrefs, backlinks are arguably the most important ranking factor. This is because they form the basis of PageRank, which forms the foundation of Google’s algorithm. PageRank analyses the value of a page by assessing the volume and quality of the pages that link to it.
The theory behind it is simple, putting it into practice can be a little more challenging. The basic principle is to look at your main competitors and find out who links to them. If you find that all of your competitors have backlinks from a high-ranking site and your business doesn’t, this is a gap that needs addressing by trying to get a backlink from that site. This information can be gathered using the sites used to run the keyword analysis. Then it’s the hard work of trying to get those backlinks, which is a topic for a future blog post.
Social Media Presence and Engagement
Knowing what your competitors are posting on social media can give you valuable insight into the language they use and how their audience is responding to what they’re putting out. It will also give you a clear idea of their strengths and weaknesses. A good competitor social media analysis will:
- Find out what platforms your competitors are on
- How they are using the platforms
- Show how well they’re doing on each platform
- Help you compare your social presence
- Identify gaps in your own social media strategy
Running a competitor social media analysis is a great way to understand your audience and the language they use, which is invaluable when creating content.
Understanding your competitors is essential in business. It can help you stay ahead and find out what’s working and what’s not, saving you money and a vast amount of time. Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of your competition can give you valuable data to help you identify strategic gaps to exploit. It can also help you see how your own business is doing by measuring its success compared to other similar businesses. So, if you want to stay ahead of the curve, make sure competitor analysis is a central part of your strategy.
About Now Ltd is an SEO and web design agency with a difference. Cutting-edge analytics and valuable data are used to understand your competitors. This will give you a powerful advantage in getting your business in front of the right people. If you need a website or more information on boosting your online visibility and getting your website working, click on the link below and we’ll get back to you within 24 hours.
