The SEO Competitive Analysis Checklist
Competitor analysis is effective in finding out what competitors are up to, identifying workable strategies to borrow and mirror, loopholes to take advantage of, and finding link opportunities to feature in your site. It is an area that every SEO marketer is newly but steadily getting into as a knowledge based strategy to figure out a rationale that will keep them ahead of the game.
While is it undeniable that healthy competition is good for the success of every business, competing blindly can have negative implications on a business. This is why marketers have consulted the serpbook to give analytic in highly ranked keywords that customers and competitors might be using.
If you are wondering how to go about SEO for competitive analysis, find yourself 9 astounding items that should sum up your SEO checklist and get you started:
Content analysis
Content marketing is the heart of SEO whereby the content of every page on a site determines how visible it is on searches and how well it performs on search engines. Among other approaches of analysing content, considering these main areas should definitely make the cut to your analysis checklist:
Multimedia messages – identify whether your competitors are using a variety of content, how well they are using them and the level of excellence of optimising non-text content like video, images and text.
Word count – ascertain how long the content they share is, and how much scope they cover on the terminologies specific to the industry of interest. This should help you aim for creating longer content because a higher word count performs well on search engines like Google.
Comparison of content – the goal you should have is to create unique content that is not provided for by your competitors, laying keen interest on duplicated or similar content and eying the topic areas they haven’t yet dived into.
Keywords analysis
For the reason that keywords are fundamental in site optimization, it is of utmost importance to not only identify what keywords your competitors are using, but also how well their keywords rank on search engines.
This will inform you of how better to frame your keywords for search engines, but better still to understand their keyword targeting and how different from them you are as business so as to stay ahead of the SEO game.
Analysis of website design
The structure and design of a site matters especially on matters ease of use and readability, which is all about user experience.
If you find that your competitors have better designs and a more functional site structure than you, users probably feel the same way about it. Consider remodelling your design and embark on a better functioning structure to get better results.
Social media is a key marketing tool for SEO and could scoop up a huge chunk of traffic for your site.
If your competitors are leveraging well on social media, you need to get on board too, and if you already are, regard what it is they are doing different from you.
Check out for the type of content they share, and the nature of interaction with their audience and aim to do better than they are by having a higher social presence.
Analyse their site’s optimization
Your competitors may be doing a better job on site optimization and this is certainly an area to keep an eye out for.
Keenly study their keyword density, but more so their Meta descriptions that will give you a snippet of what they are feeding their audience with.
While at it, analyse their internal linking tactics to give you deeper insight on how authoritative their site is in comparison to yours
Analyse their backlinks
The main reason you would want to analyse your competitor’s backlinks is to track their choices in case they are ideal for emulating, as well as find yourself linking opportunities for your site.
Since you share a common industry, many of the links used on their site is likely to be relevant to the content you share. How much reliance do they have on backlinks and what are the sources of the links? As you analyse, consider finding an answer to these questions, which will guide you on the quality of backlinks they bank you, informing you that you can certainly choose better than them.
Check out their off-site strategies
While there is an excellence in on site SEO, most businesses are realizing off site SEO strategies to drive traffic to their site.
Off-site strategies can be social media marketing, TV ads, newspaper and radio.
It might be challenging to figure out how much off site activity your competitors are involved in, but this will give you a real feel of what extra thing they are doing for their sites that you aren’t.
Analyse their SERP ranking on search engines
Before you consider your competitors better than you at SEO, check out their SERP ranking on different search engines.
Keep an eye out for what keywords they use to optimize their pages, to weigh out how much of a grasp they have on the common industry you share.
Additionally consider which pages appear first on their rankings, which informs you the areas they are most active online, whether on social media platforms or their site. Identify which platforms they perform better in so that you can strategize on building your brand in that area as well.
Analyse their traffic
Use plugins and software to examine the traffic that your competitors attract on their site.
Look out for the nature of organic traffic, and the source of this traffic. Understand what their conversion rate is for the traffic they get from off-site platforms, and the appreciating or depreciating numbers in their traffic.
So much can be said about keeping an eye for competitors, but it is important to be sombre about it, using these tips to do better rather than be overly obsessed with keeping tabs on them. If they are doing it right, mirror them, if not, capitalize on it and get back to providing value to your audience and giving your business the best.
