SEO tricks: 10 Ways to outrank

A competitive analysis is a critical part of any businesses marketing plan. A well-reasoned competitor analysis will structure your whole marketing strategy and position your business for future success. Having a better understanding of the competitive landscape, an insight into what your competitors are doing well, and how you compare, will ultimately help you capitalize on it.

This tutorial will explain how to gain insight into your competitors’ positioning, efficiency, traffic sources and how they got there. This includes their keyword targeting, social media presence, content marketing efforts, PPC targeting, position in SERP’s, backlink profile, reviews, differentiators, Call To Actions (CTA’s) and page traffic.

1. Identify and qualify your competitors

It’s important that you understand who your competitors are, not only from an industry perspective but also online. Start by Googling your product or service, and review who appears within your competitive space.

2. Investigate online presence

Detail how the competition appears online; are they in the local pack, do they pay for advertising (PPC), do they take advantage of rich answers, do they use schema data, do they have multiple landing pages, who are their referrals. Identify strong and weak points in your competitor’s marketing.

3. Analyze reputation and reviews

Analyze customer opinions of your competitors, from online reviews such as ‘Google Reviews’, product reviews, social reviews and comments left on blogs. Read both the positive and negative comments, learn what your shared audiences find positive and negative, then capitalize on it.

4. Track mentions of your competitors

Track and monitor online mentions of your competitors, as well as your own business, with a Google Alert. You can also monitor the web for new content created around your products, services or anything else.

5. Analyze your competitors’ PPC efforts

Gain insights into what keyword terms your competition believe are worth bidding on. Utilize both primary and secondary keywords within the search engines. You can also use third-party tools to save time – it will break down which ads are image, HTML or text. Analyze the pages that the ads lead to.

6. Find out competitor keyword positioning

Having an insight into what keyword terms your competition is ranking for can give you a huge advantage. Review what keywords your competition appears for in the top 100 results with ‘ahrefs’.

7. Compare Keyword gaps

Go one step further, with the help of a Keyword Gap Tool. Perform a side-by-side comparison of all the similarities and differences between your keyword (organic, paid, or product listing Ad) portfolios and that of your competitors.

8. Review the competitions link profile

Save time by studying your competitor’s backlink profile, and try to win some of their links for your own website. Look at the referral relationships that give backlinks to your competition, and draw conclusions on the quality of those relationships and their suitability with your own website.

9. Evaluate content

Evaluate what content your competitors cover, and the opportunity to do it better. Scan the competition for all types of content, (onsite and offsite) landing page copy, blogs, news, events, whitepapers, FAQs, case studies, infographics, e-books, videos, webinars, podcasts, etc.

10. Snoop on social media

Determine which social platforms your competitors are using, what type of content they post and its regularity, who they engage with, their audience size and the tone of voice they use. You will also get a good idea of how customers feel, what does and doesn’t work well for engagement.

SHARE THIS