Anyone who has been following the news and tips on our Blog all along surely knows that doing SEO, or the approach to improving a website to make it more effective so it can rank on Google, is one of the marketing strategies that suits every type of business. That's because it can help a business generate more Traffic to its website, increasing the opportunity to drive sales, build Brand Awareness, and many other benefits.
Of course, in 2023, SEO strategy continues to enjoy ongoing popularity, which means competition is likely to keep increasing. Both new and experienced marketers, as well as small and large brands, are all investing in this strategy to achieve the results they want. Therefore, in this article we will introduce tips for doing SEO Competitive Analysis that will help you analyze both your direct and indirect competitors, in the dimensions that interest us and are useful for making your SEO more effective and superior to the competition. If you're ready, let's get started.
Step 1: Find the Right Competitors
Whether you are a small business that is just starting out or a giant brand with long-standing experience, the first fundamental of doing SEO that delivers good results is knowing who your competitors are. It may sound like a basic matter that isn't hard to understand, but believe it or not, a small thing like being able to identify your competitors can create a good or bad impact on your brand over the long run. For beginners, we recommend trying to divide competitors into 2 types:
To identify SEO Competitors, new marketers can start by searching on a Search Engine like Google, using relevant keywords to compile a list of competitors.
Step 2: Analyze Your Competitors' SEO Strategy
After you know who your competitors are, it's time to look at the overall SEO of their websites first, to see what factors are helping them rank on the first page ahead of our website, whether it be the website structure, how the Page Speed is, whether they have already made the site Mobile Responsive, what their type of content is, and the Target Keywords they use, as follows:
- Analyze your competitors' content It's not only about knowing the type of content, but you also need to know which articles and which pages can generate good Traffic. You can use Analytics Tools like BuzzSumo to perform a Content Analyzer.
- Look at your competitors' social media Social media platforms are an important part of doing SEO, because they get the business talked about, build Brand Awareness, and also reach the right target customers, which increases the chance of your website ranking higher on Google. So don't forget to understand the overall picture of your competitors and how they approach marketing through social media platforms.
Step 3: Analyze Your Competitors' Keywords
The next step is doing Competitor Keyword Analysis, or the process of finding the keywords your competitors are currently ranking for in the SERPs, in order to know what your competitors' Golden Keyword is. You must keep in mind that this keyword has to genuinely build a customer base, can be applied to On-Page SEO to improve your website, and has an appropriate Search Volume. As for the tools for analysis, you can choose whichever you are comfortable with, including Keyword Planner, SimilarWeb, Ahrefs, and SEMRush. For anyone interested in understanding competitor Keyword Analysis in more depth, you can read How to Analyze Competitor Keywords Like a Pro in 5 Steps.
Step 4: Analyze Your Competitors' On-Page
Doing SEO that delivers good results involves something called On-Page Optimization. To explain it simply, it means building a website that real people can actually use, whether that's setting page titles or adding page descriptions (Get to Know the 9 Important Factors for On-Page SEO), and so on. Therefore, knowing how to analyze how your competitors handle their On-Page will help you take their weaknesses and strengths and apply them to your own website. The basic elements of On-Page SEO that you can examine from your competitors are as follows:
- Titles
- Meta Data
- Heading
- Internal Link
- Schema Markup
- URLs
- Content
- Images and videos
Step 5: Check Backlinks
Even though Google has somewhat reduced the importance of Backlinks, because the number of Backlinks isn't always an indicator that the content on a website is of good quality, they are still necessary for serving as a Reference or for boosting credibility. But they must be links coming from a quality website, with related content, and not arising from spam.
To check a competitor's website Backlinks, you can use Ubersuggest to inspect the Backlinks of the competitor's website. Then try opening the source links to see which website they come from, how credible they appear, and after that consider whether they are relevant to the content on our website, in order to use as ideas for improving Backlinks in the future.
Closing
SEO is a strategy that changes every year, so for anyone who is starting out with SEO, knowing the overall picture of what the competition is like right now will be a good starting point for figuring out how to improve your website, which approach to take, and at which points your competitors are still not doing well, so you can take those shortcomings and apply them to improve your own. Just this much will help you stay ahead of the competition throughout 2023.
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