If you want to put your business in a position to be successful, you need to pay attention to the competition. Because so many people use the internet when they are looking for products and services they need, you need to rely on search engine optimization to help you improve your online presence.
In addition to thinking about your search engine optimization campaign, you need to take a look at what your competitors are doing. That way, you can figure out how to rank above them and drive more traffic to your website.
What is competitor SEO, and how can you use it to improve your SEO strategy?
An Overview Of An SEO Competitor Analysis
By performing an SEO competitor analysis, you can identify the strengths and weaknesses of the search engine optimization campaigns that your competitors run. You can use this information to figure out what they are doing that you can emulate while also finding ways to exploit their weaknesses.
Why Run An SEO Competitor Analysis?
You need to run a competitive analysis of other companies’ SEO campaigns because you can get a better feel for your overall market, identify your biggest competitors, and figure out what the search landscape looks like for some of your most important search terms and phrases.
Even if you are already at the top of the list for certain search results rankings, you still need to run an SEO competitor analysis. That way, you can make sure your ranking doesn’t drop below your biggest competitors.
A few other significant reasons why you need to perform an SEO competitor analysis include:
- You can get a feel for how your current SEO campaign is performing.
- You can identify gaps and weaknesses in your SEO campaign that you can improve upon.
- You may identify some weaknesses in your competitors that you can use to improve your ranking.
- You may be able to emulate what your competitors are doing well to improve your search engine optimization campaign.
You need an SEO competitor analysis if you want to stand out from the crowd. How can you do so effectively?
The Steps To Follow
Every SEO competitor analysis is a bit different, and you should customize your strategy to meet the needs of your business and the industry in which you operate. Some of the biggest steps you need to follow include:
1. Identify Your Competitors
First, you need to identify your biggest competitors. You can identify your biggest competition by taking a look at websites that rank highly for your most important words and phrases.
2. Look At The Top Pages For Your Competitors
Once you identify your competitors, you should take a look at their top pages. Some of the questions you need to answer when you are trying to find their top pages include:
- What pages rank for the most keywords?
- Which of their pages represent the highest percentage of their overall traffic?
- Why do you think those pages are generating the most traffic?
This will help you conduct a detailed breakdown of the pages that rank the best on your competitors’ websites.
3. Find Your Keyword Gaps
Next, you need to identify the keywords that you rank for but still fall significantly behind those of your competitors. For example, there might be a few keywords that you consistently seem to be one or two positions behind when compared to your competitors.
Some of the questions that you need to answer include:
- Why are your competitors ranking for those terms?
- Why do you think they are ranking ahead of you?
- Do your competitors have supplementary content that you may need to include?
- Do your competitors have more backlinks than you, causing them to rank better?
- What types of adjustments do you need to make on your site to improve your ranking?
If you answer these questions, you should be able to start improving your search results ranking.
4. Develop A Strategy To Improve
Now, it is time to put together a strategy to improve your search results ranking. Some of the most important points to keep in mind include:
- How can you improve your website authority with more backlinks?
- What do you need to do to make your content more powerful for visitors and search engines?
- Do you have any duplicate content or broken links that need to be addressed?
- Does your website show up well on mobile devices?
Answering these questions can help you form the foundation of a strong strategy that can ultimately improve your search results rankings.
Partner With SEO Locale For A Competitive SEO Strategy
This is just an overview of the basics of performing an SEO competitor analysis. If you want to get the most out of your strategy, you need to partner with a professional team that can help you. At SEO Locale, we provide a variety of SEO services, including dental SEO services, e-commerce SEO, heating and cooling SEO, and more services. We would be honored to help you with your SEO campaign and give you an advantage over your competitors. Contact us today!