SEO COMPETITOR ANALYSIS
SEO competitor analysis (sometimes referred to as SEO competitive analysis) involves researching your direct search competitors to understand their SEO strategies and identify opportunities to improve your own website's search engine rankings.
Based on your findings, create a plan to improve your own website's SEO strategy. Identify areas where you can improve your content, website structure, backlinks, and social media presence to outperform your competitors in the search engine results pages. Consider implementing new SEO tactics or refining your existing ones to gain an edge over your competitors. Regularly monitor your competitors' SEO strategies to stay ahead of the game.
How do I find my real SEO competitors?
Google Search: As mentioned earlier, you can manually search for your primary keywords on Google and analyze the websites that are ranking on the first page of search results.
Google “Related: ” search operator: The "related:" search operator in Google allows you to find websites that are related to a specific domain. In the search bar, type "related:" followed by the domain name of the website you want to find related sites for. For example, if you want to find websites related to "example.com", you would type "related:example.com" into the search bar.
Google Maps: Google Maps is great when you own a local business and you want to find your local competition. Go to Google Maps and search for your [“keyword” + Location], you will see all your competitors near you.
SEMrush: SEMrush is a paid tool that allows you to enter your domain name and see a list of your organic search competitors. It also provides insights into your competitors' organic and paid search strategies.
Ahrefs: Ahrefs is another paid tool that allows you to enter your domain name and see a list of your competitors based on organic search traffic. It also provides insights into your competitors' backlink profiles.
SimilarWeb: SimilarWeb is a free tool that provides insights into your competitors' website traffic, including their sources of traffic, top organic and paid keywords, and audience demographics.
Google Alerts: Google Alerts is a free tool that allows you to set up alerts for your primary keywords and receive notifications when new content is published by your competitors.
BuzzSumo: BuzzSumo is a paid tool that allows you to see the most popular content on your competitors' websites, as well as their social media engagement and backlinks. This can help you identify content gaps and opportunities for link building.
How to Perform SEO Competitors Analysis?
Performing an SEO competitive analysis can help you identify your competitors' strengths and weaknesses, as well as find new opportunities to improve your own search engine optimization efforts. Here are the steps to follow:
Identify Your Competitors: Start by identifying the websites that are ranking for the same keywords you are targeting. You can use tools like Google Search, SEMrush, Ahrefs, or SpyFu to identify your competitors.
Analyze Their Website Content: Once you've identified your competitors, take a close look at their website content, including their blog posts, landing pages, product pages, and other content types. Analyze their content quality, length, and depth. Identify what keywords they are targeting and the topics they cover.
Examine Their Website Architecture: Analyze the structure of your competitors' websites. Look at how their website is organized, the hierarchy of their pages, and their internal linking structure.
Look at Their Backlinks: Analyze the backlinks of your competitors' websites. Look at the number of backlinks, the quality of the backlinks, and the types of websites that are linking to their site.
Check Their Social Media Presence: Analyze your competitors' social media presence. Look at the number of followers they have, the engagement on their posts, and the types of content they are sharing.
Identify Their Strengths and Weaknesses: Based on your analysis, identify your competitors' strengths and weaknesses. This will help you understand what you need to do to outrank them in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Create an Action Plan: Finally, create an action plan based on your analysis. Identify the areas where you can improve your own website content, structure, backlinks, and social media presence to outperform your competitors.
SEO competitor analysis template.
An SEO competitive analysis template can help you organize your research and findings when analyzing your competitors' SEO strategies. Here's an example template you can use:
1. Competitor Name:
2. URL:
3. Target Keywords:
4. Analysis:
- Content quality: (poor, average, good, excellent)
- Content length: (short, medium, long, very long)
- Content depth: (superficial, in-depth, comprehensive)
- Topics covered: (list of topics)
- Keywords targeted: (list of keywords)
5. Website Architecture Analysis:
- Site hierarchy: (simple, complex)
- Internal linking strategy: (well-structured, poor)
- URL structure: (SEO-friendly, not SEO-friendly)
- Site speed: (fast, slow)
6. Backlink Analysis:
- Total number of backlinks:
- Quality of backlinks: (high-quality, low-quality)
- Types of websites linking: (authority sites, spammy sites)
- Social Media Presence.
7. Social media platforms used: (list of platforms)
- Number of followers:
- Engagement: (likes, comments, shares)
- Types of content posted: (list of content types)
8. Strengths:
- What your competitor does well in terms of SEO
9. Weaknesses:
- Areas where your competitor can improve their SEO strategy
10. Opportunities:
- Opportunities for you to improve your own SEO strategy based on your analysis
11. Threats:
- Potential threats to your own website's SEO strategy based on your competitor's analysis
Using this template, you can fill in the information for each competitor you analyze and use it to identify areas where you can improve your own website's SEO strategy to outrank your competitors.
Competitor analysis SEO tools.
Here are some SEO tools that you can use for competitor analysis:
SEMrush: SEMrush is a comprehensive SEO tool that offers a range of features for competitor analysis, including keyword research, backlink analysis, and site audit.
Ahrefs: Ahrefs is another popular SEO tool that offers advanced features for competitor analysis, including backlink analysis, content analysis, and keyword research.
Google Keyword Planner: Google Keyword Planner is a free tool provided by Google that allows you to research keywords and see how competitive they are.
Moz Pro: Moz Pro is an all-in-one SEO tool that offers features for keyword research, site audits, backlink analysis, and competitor analysis.
SimilarWeb: SimilarWeb is a website traffic analysis tool that allows you to see how much traffic your competitors are getting, where it's coming from, and what their top-performing content is.
SpyFu: SpyFu is an SEO tool that allows you to spy on your competitors' keywords, backlinks, and ads.
Majestic: Majestic is a backlink analysis tool that allows you to see the number and quality of backlinks to your competitors' websites.
Screaming Frog: Screaming Frog is a website crawler tool that allows you to analyze your competitors' website structure, meta data, and content.
By using these tools, you can gain valuable insights into your competitors' SEO strategies and identify opportunities for improving your own website's search engine rankings.
Local SEO Competitive Analysis.
When it comes to local SEO, analyzing your competitors is crucial for developing a winning local SEO strategy. Here are some steps to follow for conducting a local SEO competitive analysis:
Identify Your Local Competitors: Start by identifying the local businesses that are ranking for the same keywords as you are. You can use tools like Google Maps or Google Search to identify your competitors.
Analyze Their Google My Business Profile: Analyze your competitors' Google My Business profiles, including their business name, address, phone number, hours of operation, and reviews. Evaluate the completeness and accuracy of their profile information and identify opportunities to optimize your own profile.
Examine Their Website: Analyze your competitors' websites, including their homepage, landing pages, product pages, and other content types. Evaluate the quality, length, and depth of their content, and identify the keywords they are targeting and the topics they cover.
Assess Their Backlink Profile: Determine the number and quality of your competitors' backlinks, and identify the sources of those links. Look for opportunities to acquire similar links for your own website.
Evaluate Their Local Citations: Determine the number and quality of your competitors' local citations, which are mentions of their business name, address, and phone number on other websites. Look for opportunities to acquire similar citations for your own business.
Check Their Social Media Presence: Evaluate your competitors' social media profiles and activity, including the types of content they post and the engagement they receive. Determine which social media platforms they use and which are most effective for them.
Identify Their Strengths and Weaknesses: Based on your analysis, identify your competitors' strengths and weaknesses in terms of their Google My Business profile, website, backlinks, local citations, and social media presence.
Develop an Action Plan: Based on your findings, create a plan to improve your own local SEO strategy. Identify areas where you can improve your Google My Business profile, website, backlinks, local citations, and social media presence to outperform your competitors in the local search results.
Consider implementing new local SEO tactics or refining your existing ones to gain an edge over your competitors. Regularly monitor your competitors' local SEO strategies to stay ahead of the game.
Why is SEO Competitor Analysis important?
SEO competitor analysis is important because it can help you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors' SEO strategies. By analyzing your competitors' SEO tactics, you can identify opportunities to improve your own SEO and gain a competitive advantage.
Here are some reasons why SEO competitor analysis is important:
Identify keyword opportunities: This can help you improve your keyword targeting and increase your visibility in search results.
Benchmark performance: By comparing your website's SEO performance to your competitors, you can identify areas where you need to improve. This can include factors like website speed, mobile optimization, and backlink profile.
Discover new link building opportunities: By analyzing your competitors' backlink profiles, you can identify new link building opportunities that can help improve your website's authority and search engine rankings.
Improve content strategy: By analyzing your competitors' content, you can identify gaps in your own content strategy and find opportunities to create new content that better meets the needs of your target audience.
What could be a price for SEO Competitor Analysis?
An in-depth analysis of a client's competitors in search engine rankings to identify what they are doing well and how the client can improve to compete.
Price Range: $1,000 - $5,000
Basic analysis (top 3-5 competitors): $1,000 - $2,000
Comprehensive analysis (5+ competitors, deeper insights): $2,000 - $5,000+