How To Perform Competitive Analysis For An SEO Campaign
Do you ever wonder how your competitor got that #1 Google Google ranking for your most coveted keyword? This is the essence of competitive SEO analysis. The foundation of any SEO campaign should be a careful examination of who your competitors are, what theyre ranking for, and how they achieved those rankings. Based on this analysis, you can structure your own SEO efforts to keep pace and remain competitive.
Following is a 4-step process for performing your own competitive analysis for SEO. There are many different strategies and tools one could potentially use, so feel free to adapt this framework to best suit your needs.
1. Identify your keywords
Although it goes beyond the scope of this article, its obviously important to first have a firm handle on the keywords youre targeting; if you dont, your competitive analysis simply wont have legs. That said, youre likely to discover many more new and profitable keywords in your competitive analysis, so approach the process with this in mind.
Ive written in detail about how to find the best keywords for your business in the following articles:
2. Identify your competitors
You likely already have a good idea who many of your competitors are; but be aware that business competitors are not always SEO competitors. From an SEO perspective, your only competitors are the ones who are ranking in the first or second page of Google for your top keywords.
Its very likely, however, that you also have direct competitors who you know nothing about. This is where using competitive intelligence tools can help. SEMRush and Keyword Spy are great tools for determining which sites or pages are ranking for your chosen keywords. While the tool can provide a wealth of information about your competitors, at this point we simply want to know who is ranking for our keywords.
By going to the Organic Competitors tab, we can see the top 10 sites that are ranking for that keyword or phrase (upgrading to a paid account will give you access to a full list of competitors, but 10 gives you a good start). One of the most valuable pieces of information here is a list of all the keywords these individual sites are ranking for. This is a great way to find new keywords to potentially incorporate into your own SEO strategy.
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How To Perform Competitive Analysis For An SEO Campaign