SEO and the Role of Competitor Analysis

Competitor analysis is an important way to incorporate the best possible SEO into your website’s marketing campaign. It should under no circumstances be overlooked, and so to understand how it can help and what it involves, read on.

When you start to consider your competitors, remember that they might not be the ones you expect. Your SEO competitors are those who have better search engine rankings that you when you both wish to rank for the same keywords. Competitor analysis aims to understand your real competitors, which then allows you to improve on your website’s search engine ranking.

Once you have been able to identify your competition, it is start to take a close look at their individual websites. Look for how they incorporate yours/their keywords into the site, keeping an eye out for techniques you perhaps haven’t thought of. Don’t just use their site as a template though, but instead just as an idea on how their SEO is working. Never copy text though, as duplicate content is detrimental to your SEO campaign, and your site could be completely removed from search engine results.

The next step is to check out their linking profiles, which you can use free tools like Yahoo Site Explorer should you not have access to other premium tools. Tools like Yahoo Site Explorer allow you to explore your competitor’s inbound links, so you can understand how these are acquired and also be aware of the quality of the sites which are linking back to them. Again, you should only use this information to enhance your SEO campaign, not to replicate your competitor’s.

Competitor analysis is about learning what your competitors are doing that is working for them. But it is not about replicating their techniques or strategies. It is fundamentally about finding gaps in their strategies that you could perhaps use to ensure yours are better. Because after all, you don’t want to just sit below your competitors – you want to better their rankings!

Find out more about SEO Manchester.