Competitive Research

Competitive research involves analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors’ SEO strategies to gain insights that can improve your own. This process includes evaluating competitors’ keyword usage, backlink profiles, content strategies, and overall online presence. By understanding what your competitors are doing well and where they fall short, you can identify opportunities to enhance your site’s performance and gain a competitive edge in search results.

To conduct thorough competitive research, the following steps should be taken.

Identifying Competitors

The first step in competitive research is identifying your main competitors, websites that take place in search results for the keywords that you would like to rank high to. Usually, they can be fractured to the following categories:

• Your local competitors, businesses with a similar product or service offering working on the same market. They are the most interesting sources of insights about best SEO practices on the local market.
• Global companies that are at any SERP just because of their huge size. They are not so interesting for obtaining information for local SEO but they can be used for keyword research, for example.
• Media websites, job boards, firm catalogs etc. like Forbes, Medium.com, Reddit, Quora, YouTube, Yelp, sometimes Amazon, AliExpress and so on and so forth. These websites are not competitors as they are but they are unbeatable in the competition because of their extremely high authority so sometimes it could be better to change keywords and get deeper to the niche to avoid such a competition.

So, after checking search results for 50 – 100 keywords we can find head competitors (which can be not competitors at all), websites that medium presence and websites that are not displayed in our target keyword dataset more than once or twice.

Then we can estimate which websites from this list are our real competitors and go ahead with their analysis.

Analyzing Competitors’ Keywords

Understanding the keywords that the competitors are ranked well helps reveal valuable insights into their SEO strategy.

• Extending Keyword List. The keywords for which the competitors rank well can replenish our own keywords list and inspire to the new keyword ideas.
• Finding Keyword Gaps. Keywords the competitors target that you don’t, presenting opportunities for creation of the new content or optimization the existing one.
• Getting Ideas on the Keywords Landing Pages. Some competitors’ pages that take place at SERP top may surprise, sometimes these are project or case studies, sometimes FAQ pages, reviews and so on. Discovering facts like these can inspire marketing team make valuable updates on the own website and extend its sitemap.

Evaluating Backlink Profiles

Backlinks are a crucial factor in SEO, and analyzing your competitors’ backlink profiles helps identify opportunities for acquiring high-quality links. I examine:

• Backlink Quantity. The total number of backlinks following to competitors’ websites.
• Backlink Quality. The authority and relevance of websites linking to your competitors.
• Link Building Strategies. The methods competitors use to acquire backlinks, such as guest blogging, partnerships, or content marketing.

As soon our competitors work at the same market, their backlink strategy and even some or their source websites can be useful for use.

Reviewing Content Strategies

Analyzing the content strategies of your competitors provides insights into what works well in your industry.

• Content Types. The types of content competitors produce (e.g., blog posts, infographics, videos) and their performance. We can also estimate which categories on the competitors’ websites work better, which work worse and use this information for our own benefit.
• Content Quality. The depth, relevance, and engagement level of competitors’ content and the content metrics like text lengths, use of headers of different levels, internal linking and so on.
• Content Frequency. How often competitors publish new content and how it impacts their SEO performance.

This information let us know which content in which categories work better for which keywords or groups of keywords because where can be correlation between certain keywords and types of pages for their landing, especially in consideration with users’ intents.

The Process of Conducting Competitive Research

Here’s a step-by-step overview of how I approach competitive research:

1. Identify Main Competitors. I start by identifying the main competitors using search results for chosen keywords. This helps establish a list of brands and companies to analyze.
2. Conduct Keyword Analysis. I use SEO tools to analyze the keywords these competitors are ranking for, identify keyword gaps, and determine opportunities to target new or better keywords.
3. Analyze Backlink Profiles. I review the competitors’ backlink profiles to assess the quality and quantity of their backlinks. This helps identify potential link-building opportunities and strategies.
4. Evaluate Content Strategies. I analyze the content strategies of the competitors, focusing on content types, quality, and performance. This provides insights into what content resonates with our target audience.
5. Develop Actionable Insights. Based on the research, I develop actionable insights and recommendations to improve your SEO strategy. This includes optimizing our keyword strategy, enhancing content, and implementing effective link-building tactics.

Benefits of Competitive Research

• Enhanced Strategy. Gaining insights into competitors’ strategies helps refine our own SEO approach and address weaknesses.
• Opportunity Identification. Discovering keyword gaps, backlink opportunities, and content strategies allows you to target new opportunities and improve performance.
• Comparing our site’s performance against competitors provides benchmarks for evaluating and improving your SEO efforts.
• Informed Decisions. Competitive research provides data-driven insights that support more informed and effective decision-making.

Competitive research is a vital component of a successful SEO strategy. By analyzing competitors, I can uncover valuable insights that can improve your SEO performance and provide a competitive edge. If you’re ready to gain a deeper understanding of your competition and enhance your SEO strategy, contact me today to get started with comprehensive competitive research.