How to Conduct an SEO Competitor Analysis

In today’s digital age, search engine optimisation (SEO) has become an integral part of the digital marketing strategy of most businesses. However, SEO is not straightforward, and the progress is not as instant as other marketing tactics including email or performance marketing. It is important to know that ranking high on the search engine results page (SERP) involves a lot of planning and timely execution of different tactics. However, perform SEO competitor research before you and your team can brainstorm ideas and create a research and data-driven SEO strategy to rank higher on Google SERPs.

Please note that an SEO analysis of your competitors does not mean you must copy them but draw inspiration from their tactics and unique points. The objective of analysing your competitor’s SEO efforts is to find new opportunities to improve your online presence and outperform them.

If you are wondering how to get started and study your SEO competition, we have got you covered. In this article, you will learn how to study your competitors and optimise your SEO strategy.

But before we get there, let us understand why you should perform an SEO competitor analysis and what it means.

What is an SEO Competitor Analysis?

SEO competitor analysis, as the name suggests is a like-for-like comparison to your competitor’s SEO activities and jotting down their strengths and weaknesses. It is primarily performed to improve your SEO efforts and gain an edge over your competitors.

Why Should You Perform an SEO Competitor Analysis?

There are many reasons why you should perform an SEO competitor analysis. Some of the reasons include:

Learning and evaluating the SEO strategies that work and that do not

Taking advantage of your competitor’s weaknesses

Getting an understanding of all the SEO activities you must prioritise in the future

Draw inspiration from your competitor’s strengths

7 Quick and Easy Ways to Perform an SEO Competitor Analysis

The best and quickest way to evaluate your competitor’s SEO strategy is to use an advanced SEO tool that offers important insights into different SEO metrics. These include content quality, link audit, meta title and description assessment, site speed analysis etc.

Here is how you can perform an SEO competitor analysis and take your digital marketing strategy to the next level.

1. Determine Your Competitors

Before you perform an SEO competitor analysis, it is important to identify who your competitors are. You must know your competitors before you can compare your SEO tactics and chalk out a plan to improve your digital presence. You may either have a handful or several competitors depending on your industry. Pick a few close competitors, analyse their SEO and digital marketing tactics, and craft a strategy to improve and optimise your SEO tactics.

2. Pages to Compare

The next step is to identify your website’s pages you want to compare with your competitors. We recommend picking a few important pages to understand how you stack up against them.

Here are some pages you can pick for comparison.

Product or service pages

Home page

Resources page

It is important to understand that you must compare similar pages to ensure you are not comparing apples to oranges.

3. Keyword Gap Analysis

Once you have identified your competitors and the pages you want to compare, you must analyse their keywords. It is not a secret that keywords play a key role in improving your SEO, so it is important to determine the keywords you are using.

A keyword gap analysis enables you to identify the existing keywords on your website and keywords that are missing, allowing you to include them to drive more traffic and improve your search engine rankings.

4. Content Analysis

Content is king in the digital world and your site’s content will play a crucial role in improving engagement and _. It is also worth noting that content is one of the top influencing factors in SEO since Google favours and prioritises websites with high-quality content.

Scan through their website to understand the type of content they are creating. How often do they publish each type of content? Are they focusing on short or long-form content? What are the focussed keywords? What type of graphics are they using?

Content analysis allows you to narrow down your content marketing ideas and focus on those relevant to your audience and industry.

5. Backlink Quality

Apart from high-quality content, backlinks also influence your site’s ranking. Analyse the quality backlink on your competitor’s website using advanced SEO tools. Check out the quality of backlinks by analysing the linking domains, domain authority of these domains, domain quality, and the distinct types of content that gain the most backlinks.

6. Review Web Structure

Your site’s structure and design have a huge influence on how your audience perceives your business. Let us admit it, people are likely to leave if your website is not user-friendly with broken links, dull and lacklustre visual elements, and _. Go through their site’s design look for areas of improvement and incorporate them into your website. The objective is to ensure your site is visually appealing, offering a seamless user experience.

Further, it is essential to check whether their website is responsive. Regardless, you must consider developing a responsive website since most of your traffic will come from mobile devices.

7. User Experience (UX)

Apart from SEO, content, and other factors mentioned earlier, user experience (UX) is one of the most essential elements of a website, particularly for your audience. Your audience will only continue browsing your website if they have an enjoyable experience. Analyse how your competitors have placed call-to-action (CTA) buttons on different pages and added other visual elements.

Final Words

And there you have it! You have just travelled far into the world of competitor analysis to improve SEO. Start by listing down a bunch of factors you are looking to improve including keywords, user experience, etc and compare your site with that of your competitors. Remember that the goal is to gain inspiration from them and not duplicate what they are doing.

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