After you’ve determined your SEO keywords (that is, the phrases for which you want your site to be found on Google Search), your next obvious task is to get your website to show up as high in the Google Search rankings as possible for each keyword phrase.
Which begs the question: who else is optimising for those same keywords? Not to mention, how can you oust them in the rankings? Here’s a quick guide to getting started with SEO competitor analysis.
Armed with your trusty list of keyword phrases, search for each one on Google and make note of all the sites that show up in the Top 10.
Many of these are your competitors. Sites that are likely not your competitors include:
Also make note of the sites that rank for multiple of your keyword phrases. These are your top competitors.
Next, it’s time to determine what your competitors are doing in order to rank highly for their keywords. It’s important to note that there’s no one SEO recipe to follow in order to rank in the Top 10, so each of your competitors is likely employing a different SEO strategy. By analysing each one, you can take bits and pieces from every competitor and devise your own unique SEO strategy.
The foundation of your SEO strategy should be on-page optimisation. It’s the element you have the most control over, and depends primarily on how much effort you put into it and how well you implement these tactics. If you invest time and/or resources in both learning proper on-page optimisation techniques and implementing them, you’re well on your way to climbing the Google search rankings.
Browse your competitors’ websites and observe their SEO on-page optimisation strategy. Have they used keywords in all of the elements below?
No recipe for SEO success is complete without including some off-page optimisation, namely by acquiring backlinks to your site. A backlink is a link to your site from another site, which is ideally of high domain authority. (For tips on how to formulate SEO link building strategies, we recommend perusing Backlinko).
There are a few backlink checker tools out there, but the best free one is Moz’s Open Site Explorer, which you can use just by plugging in the domain of your competitor.
Of the backlinks that your competitors have acquired, are they:
Odds are, your competitors are also using social media to improve SEO and drive more traffic to their website. In your competitor analysis, take the time to check out your competitors’ accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google +, and Instagram and observe the following:
For more information on how to succeed with SEO, check out these other articles we’ve written:
Rock Solid Marketing is a trusted Mildura marketing agency servicing the Sunraysia and Mallee region since 2017.
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