Click here for our complete SEO glossary.
What is competitor analysis?
Is it poring over your rivals’ website to uncover their secrets? Is it figuring out what keywords they are targeting and how you can outrank them? While those may be some aspects of competitor analysis, it is actually much more than that.
Competitor analysis is a process by which you assess your competition in order to understand their strengths and weaknesses. You then use that information to improve your own SEO efforts. In this post, we will explore what competitor analysis is, why you should do it, and how to go about conducting a thorough analysis. Let’s get started!
What is competitor analysis?
As we mentioned, competitor analysis is the process of assessing your competition. This can be done by looking at their website, their backlink profile, their social media presence, and more. By understanding what they are doing well and where they are lacking, you can improve your own SEO efforts.
Why do SEOs perform competitor analysis?
There are a number of reasons why SEOs perform competitor analysis. First, it can help you understand what keywords your competitors are targeting. You can then use this information to target those same keywords or to find new keywords to target.
Competitor analysis can also help you understand what content is ranking well for your competitors. This can give you ideas for new content that you can create to improve your own rankings. Finally, competitor analysis can help you understand your competitor’s link building efforts. This can give you ideas for new links that you can pursue.
How to conduct a competitor analysis
There are a number of tools that you can use to conduct a competitor analysis. Some of the most popular include Google Search Console, Ahrefs, and Moz.
To start, you will want to choose a few of your main competitors. Once you have done that, you will want to look at their website and see what keywords they are targeting. You can do this by looking at their website’s title tags and meta descriptions. You can also use a tool like Google Search Console to see what keywords they are ranking for.
Next, you will want to look at their backlink profile. This can be done with a tool like Ahrefs. By looking at their backlinks, you can see where they are getting their links from and what type of links they are getting. This can give you ideas for new links that you can pursue.
Finally, you will want to look at their social media presence. See what kind of content they are sharing and how often they are sharing it. You can also see how many people are following them and engaging with their content. This can give you ideas for new content to create and for new ways to promote your content.
Conclusion
Competitor analysis is a critical part of any SEO strategy. By understanding your competition, you can improve your own SEO efforts. If you’re not already conducting competitor analysis, we encourage you to start today!
By now, you should have a good understanding of what competitor analysis is and why it’s important. You should also know how to conduct a thorough analysis. So what are you waiting for? Get out there and start analyzing your competition!
Jamie Fallon is an SEO expert who lives life to the maximum, redlining every day on a rollercoaster straight to the grave.
In an SEO career of almost ten years, he’s seen it all, he’s done it all, and he’s not impressed: from white text on a white background to today, when you can have robots paint or write for you like some kind of sick science fiction come true.
No matter what life throws at him, Jamie always manages to come out on top. He’s an expert at seeing the silver lining in every cloud and making the best of every situation. His positive attitude and unshakable faith in himself have seen him through tough times. For some people, success goes to their heads; but Jamie never forgets what got him to wherever he thinks he is.
When he’s not busy gaming the system, you can find him writing angry thinkpieces on how Google is ruining everything good about the internet, or hanging out with his wife (pictured).