Want to outrank your rivals in the SERPs? An SEO competitor analysis is your secret weapon. By evaluating your competitors’ keyword targeting, backlink profiles, content strategies and overall SEO tactics, you can reverse engineer their successes and identify gaps to exploit. In this guide, you’ll learn a proven process to analyse your SEO competitors and extract insights to boost your rankings. We’ll cover how to:
- Identify your true SEO competitors
- Analyse their keywords and content
- Dissect their backlink profiles
- Evaluate their technical SEO
- Turn insights into action
Why an SEO competitive analysis is essential?
An SEO competitor analysis involves assessing competing websites to uncover their search engine optimisation strategies and tactics. The process allows you to benchmark your own SEO performance against your rivals. You can pinpoint their strengths and weaknesses to inform your own strategy. The insights gleaned can help you:
- Replicate and adapt your competitors’ winning tactics
- Capitalise on their shortcomings to gain an edge
- Identify gaps and opportunities they’ve missed
Analysing the competition can give you a roadmap to SEO success.
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Identify your competitors
If your domain is already established and ranking, you probably already know who your competitors are. However, if this is your first time performing a competitor analysis, then now is the time to meet your rivals. Your direct competitors will be websites that rank high on page one (on Google or other search engines) for the same keywords you’re targeting. They offer similar products and services as you and are competing for the same target audience. It’s important to know that:
- Your SEO competitors may differ from your brick-and-mortar competitors.
- If you offer a variety of products or services on your site or cover various topics through your blog, your online competitors may vary for each product or service you offer and the topic you write about.
It’s a classic battle tactic: you need to know your enemy in order to defeat them.