SEO competitive analysis
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What is SEO competitive analysis?
SEO (search engine optimization) competitive analysis is the study of how your competitors optimize their websites for search engines. With the results of this analysis, you may be able to compete better for some of the same keywords as well as some new ones and acquire more backlinks. In short: observe that your competitors do to optimize their sites for search engines, and then do it better.
How to analyze the competition
Various SEO competitive analysis tools are available, both free and commercial. A search for "SEO competitive analysis tools" or something similar (without the quotation marks) will produce links to them. You can also analyze your competition's SEO techniques yourself by examining what your competitors have done. Either way, the following is some of what to look for when doing an SEO competitive analysis.
Identify your competitors
You probably already know most of your direct competitors in the industry. They're the ones that offer a similar range of products or services and target the same market. But you may have some SEO competitors that don't fit that description. Do a search for the keywords that you'd like to rank well for, and make a list of what sites appear higher in SERPs. When the same sites appear before yours in several searches for keywords that you're targeting, those sites are your SEO competition.
Note also the advertisements that appear with your target keywords. The sites they advertise may also be your competition.
Research and analyze
Keywords
First, research what keywords the site is optimized for. Decide which of those keywords you'd like to compete for, and analyze the following for them:
- Where the site places in search engine results for those keywords
- Placement and frequency of the keywords on the pages
- Keyword use in title elements
- Keywords in navigation
Backlinks
Backlinks that are good for the competition may also be good for you. Identify what sites your competitors have backlinks from, decide which backlinks would also be good for you, and look up who owns the website domains — your competitors might own those sites. Work on getting backlinks from the sites you've identified as useful for you that aren't owned by the competition.
Domain age
All other factors being equal, domain age can help a site rank better than its competition. If you're creating a new site and your competition has domains that have been registered for years, it might be worthwhile to buy an already-registered domain to use for your site. Other than that, knowing the age of your competitors' domains only tells you about a factor beyond your control.
See also
- Keywords
- Website backlinks
- Linking strategies
- Meta tags and search engine optimization
- Successful landing pages
- Title element
- White hat, black hat, and gray hat SEO
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