🕵️‍♂️🔎Secrets to Mastering SEO Competitor Analysis

🕵️‍♂️🔎Secrets to Mastering SEO Competitor Analysis

June 29, 2023

Read Time: 3 minutes

Hey, Shane here

Welcome back to the Marketing Mix by Shane! Competitor analysis is an essential part of any SEO strategy. By understanding your competitors, you can identify their strengths and weaknesses, and find opportunities to improve your own website's ranking.

In today's newsletter, I'll not only share how to perfect your competitor analysis strategy but also give you the tools to get the job done.

In this newsletter you'll find:

  • SEO Competitor Analysis: How to Find and Beat Your Competition

  • The 3 best tools to do competitor research

  • The latest digital marketing news

  • My latest blog updates 

SEO Competitor Analysis: How to Find and Beat Your Competition

Competitor analysis is an essential part of any SEO strategy. By understanding your competitors, you can identify their strengths and weaknesses, and find opportunities to improve your own website's ranking.

How to Find Your Competitors

The first step in conducting a competitor analysis is to identify your competitors. There are a number of ways to do this, including:

  • Google Search: Simply search for keywords that are relevant to your business. The websites that appear at the top of the search results are likely to be your biggest competitors.

  • The Google "Related:" Search Operator: You can also use the Google "Related:" search operator to find related websites. For example, if you're a lawyer, you could search for "related:lawyer" to see a list of websites that are similar to yours.

  • SEO Tools: There are a number of SEO tools that can help you identify your competitors, such as SEMrush and Ahrefs. These tools allow you to see which websites are ranking for the same keywords as you, and track their backlinks.

Once you've identified your competitors, you can start to analyze their websites.What to Look for When Analyzing Your Competitor's Website

1. Keywords: What keywords are your competitors ranking for? Are there any keywords that you're not ranking for that you could target? 

2. Backlinks: How many backlinks do your competitors have? Are there any websites that are linking to your competitors that you could also target? For a fulll guide on backlinks, check out Backlinks 101: All You Need to Know. 

3. Content: What type of content do your competitors have on their websites? Are there any gaps in their content that you could fill? 

4. User experience: How easy is it to use your competitors' websites? Are there any areas where you could improve the user experience of your own website? This could include important ranking factors such as loading speed, and meta info too such as ALT text. You can use analytical tools such as PageSpeedInsights and Surfer SEO to help.

How to Beat Your CompetitionOnce you've analyzed your competitors, you can start to develop a strategy for beating them. Here are a few tips:

  • Target the right keywords: If you're targeting the same keywords as your competitors, you're going to have a hard time outranking them. Instead, focus on targeting long-tail keywords that your competitors aren't targeting.

  • Build backlinks: Backlinks are one of the most important factors in SEO. If you want to beat your competition, you need to build more backlinks than they do. Here are backlink tools to help you get started.

  • Create high-quality content: Content is still king in SEO. If you want to rank well in the search engines, you need to create high-quality content that people will want to read.

  • Optimize your website for mobile: More and more people are using their smartphones and tablets to search the web. Make sure your website is optimized for mobile so that you don't lose out on traffic. PageSpeedInsights provides a detailed inspection of your website's mobile optimization, which should highlight any areas that need fixing.

Competitor analysis is an essential part of any SEO strategy. By following the tips in this newsletter, you can identify your competitors, understand their strengths and weaknesses, and develop a strategy for beating them.