What You Need to Know to Do a Competitive Analysis
The first down of the first quarter of the biggest game of the year is NOT the time to realize you don’t know anything about the opposing team.
In order to be truly successful, you need to know what the other guys are bringing to the game before you even step out onto the field. In football, that means watching countless replays, understanding the other team’s go-to plays, and preparing the perfect counter-play.
In SEO, it means much the same thing. We call it a competitive analysis.
If you want to take the ball from one end to the other and score the winning touchdown, you’re going to have to understand everything about the people you’re up against.
The infographic above brakes down the critical elements of an effective analysis:
- The kickoff – Identify the right keywords and the right competitors.
- Going deep in the opponent’s territory – Identify online competitors for those keywords, don’t just assume you know.
- First and goal – Compare your own webpage’s onsite and off-site elements to those of your top competitors.
- Touchdown – Now that you’ve identified some opportunities, be sure to capitalize on them as quickly as possible.
You may be surprised what you learn from this kind of analysis. Maybe you were competing with the wrong companies all along. Perhaps you were missing out on some lucrative, long-term keywords. You may even find that it only takes a few simple changes to slip past the defensive line up and take the ball all the way to the end zone.
You can analyze your own site and compare it to some of your competitors right here:
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Awesome Tyson! In my experience, explaining the right way to go through the competitive analysis process can be a real challenge. Most people just find the #1 result for a keyword, pop it into OSE and call it a day when they don’t find any link opportunities. And explaining the big picture/other steps isn’t always easy.
That’s why your visual guide rocks!
Thank you, Madhu!
It’s important to look past the first page that’s ranking for a particular keyword. Just because Google finds that particular page most relevant for that particular queries, doesn’t mean it’s the most authoritative page.
You’re right. You shouldn’t just call it quits if you don’t find what you are looking for in the first search. You gotta dig deeper.