{"id":946,"date":"2011-06-28T10:49:46","date_gmt":"2011-06-28T10:49:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.adlift.com\/?post_type=blog_post&#038;p=946"},"modified":"2024-02-28T10:42:21","modified_gmt":"2024-02-28T10:42:21","slug":"seo-competitive-analysis-know-competition","status":"publish","type":"blog_post","link":"https:\/\/www.adlift.com\/in\/blog\/seo-competitive-analysis-know-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"SEO Competitive Analysis &#8211; Know Your Competition"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_66_1 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-grey ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title \" >Table of Contents<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" aria-label=\"Toggle Table of Content\"><span class=\"ez-toc-js-icon-con\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=https:\/\/www.adlift.com\/in\/blog\/seo-competitive-analysis-know-competition\/#How_do_my_competitors_rank title=\"How do my competitors rank?\">How do my competitors rank?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=https:\/\/www.adlift.com\/in\/blog\/seo-competitive-analysis-know-competition\/#How_much_SEO_traffic_do_my_competitors_drive title=\"How much SEO traffic do my competitors drive?\">How much SEO traffic do my competitors drive?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=https:\/\/www.adlift.com\/in\/blog\/seo-competitive-analysis-know-competition\/#Why_are_my_competitors_out_ranking_me title=\"Why are my competitors out ranking me?\">Why are my competitors out ranking me?<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-19\" title=\"Google analytics\" src=\"https:\/\/www.adlift.com\/in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/seo-analytics.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"185px\" height=\"185px\" \/><br \/>\n&#8220;The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage.&#8221;<br \/>\n<span style=\"text-align: right;\">&#8211; Geus, Arie de<\/span><br \/>\nSEO is one of those traffic acquisition channels where it&#8217;s easy to get completely engrossed in the day to day activities and hence forget to ask yourself key questions around the larger strategy piece &#8211; what are the latest trends in the SEO space, what is the competition doing? It&#8217;s important to stop and smell the competition!Applying the theory of Causality (cause-effect relationship) &#8211; SEO competitive analysis can be broken down into 3 basic segments:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Cause &#8211; How do my competitors rank?<\/li>\n<li>Effect &#8211; How much <a href=https:\/\/www.adlift.com\/in\/search-engine-optimization\/>SEO<\/a> traffic do my competitors drive?<\/li>\n<li>Reason &#8211; Why are my competitors out ranking me?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"How_do_my_competitors_rank\"><\/span>How do my competitors rank?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>It&#8217;s important to know where you rank versus your competitors. There are a number of different tools out that that can help you figure this out &#8211; my personal favorites are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Advanced web ranking\u00a0&#8211; The thing I like most about this tool is its flat pricing ($99-$599\/year) and the control it gives you with reporting.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.adlift.com\/in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1-300x157-1.jpg\" alt=\"Advanced Web Ranking Tool\" width=\"300\" height=\"157\" \/><\/li>\n<li>SEOMoz Rank Tracker\u00a0or\u00a0Raven Tools\u00a0&#8211; These are both great online rank tracking tools, they come bundled with other great value ads like &#8211;\u00a0linkscape, link manager or social monitor. You can take this a step further by segmenting your ranking report in to different bucket &#8211; head, torso and tail keywords. This gives you an idea of where you&#8217;re doing better than the competition versus where you might need to improve. Example: Competitor A is much better in ranking for key head terms but your site does a much better job in ranking for torso\/tail keywords.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"How_much_SEO_traffic_do_my_competitors_drive\"><\/span>How much SEO traffic do my competitors drive?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>After we&#8217;ve figured out where we rank with respect to our competitors, the next logical step would be to try and find out the amount of traffic that these rankings might be helping drive. This analysis also helps answer other key questions &#8211; What&#8217;s the gap between you and your competitors? What&#8217;s the overall market opportunity here? Are you overlooking some crucial area of opportunity? There are several tools that help with this analysis -,\u00a0Comscore.com\u00a0and\u00a0Hitwise.com\u00a0to name a few. All tools are paid, so this might require a little investment, comscore and Hitwise are a little more expensive compared to compete. Compete&#8217;s search referral report breaks up traffic by paid and unpaid (see image below)<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-47\" title=\"compete\" src=\"https:\/\/www.adlift.com\/in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/compete1-300x219-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"219\" \/><br \/>\nYou might also want to use Hitwise to validate these results &#8211;<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-48\" title=\"hitwise\" src=\"https:\/\/www.adlift.com\/in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/hitwise-300x205-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"205\" \/><br \/>\nThis report might also help shed some light on what other channels the competition is using to drive traffic to their website &#8211; PPC, Affiliate, Facebook etc.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Why_are_my_competitors_out_ranking_me\"><\/span><strong>Why are my competitors out ranking me?<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Probably one of the most asked questions in the field of SEO &#8211; why is my competition out ranking? Although, there are 1000+ signals that Google &amp; Bing use to rank websites, the one that has the most weight are links &#8211; where content is king, links are God! The best ways to analyze the competitions backlinks are using\u00a0SEOMoz&#8217;s OpenSiteExplorer Tool. OpenSiteExplorer gives you an in-depth look in to<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>External Links &#8211; Links from external websites point to: Sub-domain, Root Domain<\/li>\n<li>Linking Domains &#8211; Pages and websites that link to a website, sorted by Domain authority [1]<\/li>\n<li>Anchor text distribution &#8211; Distribution of the various anchor text links that are pointing to a website. This helps analyze and understand the competition&#8217;s link development strategy! (wink, wink).<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-49\" title=\"seomoz\" src=\"https:\/\/www.adlift.com\/in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/seomoz-300x207-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"207\" \/><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The analysis of competitor ranks, traffic and links gives us a holistic view of the competitive landscape which in turn helps us to form informed decision on key SEO projects and prioritization. Lastly, I would recommend using Google insights &amp; Blekko &#8211; Google insight keeps you in touch with the growing trends and seasonality the affects these trends. You can narrow by &#8211;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Web, Image, News or Product<\/li>\n<li>Zone in by Geography<\/li>\n<li>Filter by month or year<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-50\" title=\"google insight\" src=\"https:\/\/www.adlift.com\/in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/google_insight-300x136-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"136\" \/><br \/>\nBlekko.com\u00a0is great to quickly analyze a number of metrics all in one go &#8211;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Inbound Links by state &amp; country<\/li>\n<li>Duplicate Content<\/li>\n<li>Crawl stats<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-51\" title=\"blekko\" src=\"https:\/\/www.adlift.com\/in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/blekko-300x196-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"196\" \/><br \/>\nUnderstanding what the competition is doing is pivotal in the race for #1 &#8211; It&#8217;s important to figure the reasons behind the &#8220;cause-effect&#8221; to outperform the competition.<\/p>\n<hr size=\"1\" \/>\n<p>[1] Domain Authority: Predicts this domain&#8217;s ranking potential in the search engines based on an algorithmic combination of all link metrics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage.&#8221; &#8211; Geus, Arie de SEO is one of those traffic acquisition channels where it&#8217;s easy to get completely engrossed in the day to day activities and hence forget to ask yourself key questions around the larger strategy piece &#8211; what &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.adlift.com\/in\/blog\/seo-competitive-analysis-know-competition\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;SEO Competitive Analysis &#8211; Know Your Competition&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":2142,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"post-tag":[],"blog-category":[87],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v17.4 - 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