An SEO competitive analysis is an in-depth look at the strategies, assets, and activities of your competitors within your target search engine optimization keyword or market.
It’s like spying on your competitors. But rather than coming away feeling morally superior, it’s a way to get inspired and understand where they are beating you, so that you can counter their moves and hopefully leave them eating your dust.
This will give you the insights you need to make informed decisions about where to focus your SEO strategy and marketing efforts moving forward.
So let’s dive in and see how we can perform an SEO competitive analysis for your own company or any competitor you may be targeting for a new project or expansion.
What is an SEO competitive analysis?
An SEO competitive analysis is a process that helps you understand your competitors’ SEO strategy and find out what keywords they’re targeting in order to increase website traffic, leads, and sales.
It allows you to see where your competitors are performing well in search engines, what keywords they’re ranking for, and how they’re doing it. The competitive analysis is also useful if you want to expand your SEO strategy to cover additional keywords that you may not be currently targeting.
An SEO competitive analysis is an essential part of any successful SEO campaign, and is something that every SEO agency should be doing as part of their standard procedure.
A competitor analysis can assist you in the following ways:
- Compare your current SEO performance to others.
- Determine where your SEO strategy can be improved.
- Identify any holes or vulnerabilities in your competitors’ strategies.
- Find out what your competitors’ winning strategies are.
When Should you Conduct a Competitive Analysis?
When launching a new firm, it is usually a good idea to conduct a comprehensive competitive analysis. A competitor analysis is useful for businesses other than startups.
Revisiting and updating your competition analysis on a regular basis, or doing one from scratch, will help you uncover new market trends and keep a competitive advantage over other companies in your field.
How to Perform an SEO Competitive Analysis?
It can be difficult to decide what to focus on while performing a competitive analysis. The following are six steps to get you started. Consider what you hope to gain from your competitor analysis before you begin. Include any additional research fields that support these objectives.
1. Identify Your Competitors
Consider where your customers might go if they didn’t buy from your firm when developing a list of potential competitors.
A simple place to start is to enter the name of your product or category into Google or another search engine, then browse the results.
You may also conduct a poll or conduct an interview with current clients to learn more about the alternatives they looked at before choosing your goods or services.
When finalizing your list, try to include a wide range of companies to get a realistic picture of the market. Businesses that fit into each of the three categories of competitors should be taken into account.
- Direct competitors
- Indirect competitors
- Replacement competitors
When doing a competitor analysis, direct and indirect competitors should receive the greatest attention. Even so, it’s worthwhile to quickly assess any potential substitute rivals that can jeopardies your company’s prospects.
2. Create a Matrix of Competitors.
Take some time to organize yourself before beginning your competitor study. A table or spreadsheet that you can use to organize your research is called a competitor matrix, often referred to as a competitor grid. This will make it simpler to compare your results.
Start by allocating one row or column to every opponent you’ve chosen. List the categories or data points you’d want to know about each rival on the other axis. If you’re uncertain of what to search for at this point, don’t worry. As your research develops, you may always add more categories.
3. Gather Background Information
Once you’ve compiled a list of competitors to investigate, begin researching about their operations. In order to progress, start by looking for the most fundamental knowledge. Look at the company websites, social media profiles, and any news items that have been written about them to start. You might wish to seek for the following basic information.
- Company history
- Location
- Company size
4. Profile your Competition’s Target Customers
A corporation is nothing without its clients. Knowing who your competitors sell to might reveal a lot about their businesses. To identify a company’s ideal customer:
You should read their mission statement.
Observe the type of messaging they employ.
Keep track of the social media contacts they make.
Check to see whether they include any existing customers in their article.
Create a profile of the market that your rivals are targeting with their goods or services using the information provided here. These client profiles will most likely mirror your own target customers—after all, these are your competitors—so pay attention to even little variances.
5. Concentrate on the 4 Ps
Once you’ve determined who each competitor’s ideal client is, it’s crucial to analyze how they approach that market niche.
This will necessitate an in-depth examination of their marketing techniques.
The marketing mix, commonly referred to as the four Ps—product, price, promotion, and place—covers the essential components when launching a product.
Consider the following inquiries when you conduct research on each of your chosen competitors.
Product or services:
What do they market?
What features does their product or service include?
What features of the product or service most appeal to consumers?
What are the product’s or service’s flaws? (Pro tip: Look at customer testimonials.)
Price
What kind of price structure do they employ? Is it a one-time payment or a recurring subscription?
What price do they set for their goods or services? Do they provide promotions or discounts?
What relationship exists between their pricing and the actual or perceived quality of their goods or services?
Promotion
How do they spread the news about their offering?
What media do they utilise for advertising, such as social media, email marketing, print ads, etc.?
What features of their goods or services do they place an emphasis on? What makes them stand out from the competition?
What is their business’s history? How do they describe their company’s brand?
These questions are intended to be a jumping-off point. Feel free to elaborate on these and modify your questions to fit your business sector and the objectives of your study.
There will probably be a tonne of information available. Try to summarise your observations into brief bullet points that you can later readily refer to. If you can discover it, include quantitative data where applicable.
6. Analyze Strengths & Weaknesses—Yours & Your Competitors’
Use the data you’ve gathered to think about the advantages and disadvantages of each of your chosen competitors. Consider why customers pick one company’s product or service over others. Make a note of your findings in your spreadsheet.
Finally, think about the advantages and disadvantages of your own business. In what ways does your company differ from the rivals you’ve studied? Knowing what distinguishes your company from the competition, as well as where it falls short of expectations, can help you better serve your target customers.
A Competitive Analysis helps you Succeed
A competitive analysis should be used as part of your strategy planning on an ongoing basis. Whenever you need to decide something crucial for your business, you can always go back and review your study. To keep ahead of the competition, you should evaluate and update your competitor analysis on a frequent basis.
It’s crucial to consider your competitors, regardless of how big or little, established or brand new your business is. Conduct a competitor analysis today to establish your position.
