{"id":13758,"date":"2020-10-19T09:25:05","date_gmt":"2020-10-19T09:25:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.improvemysearchranking.com\/?p=13758"},"modified":"2023-11-22T13:54:07","modified_gmt":"2023-11-22T13:54:07","slug":"4-tips-seo-competitor-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.improvemysearchranking.com\/4-tips-seo-competitor-research\/","title":{"rendered":"4 tips for SEO competitor research"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Search engine optimisation or SEO, if done correctly, can open the floodgates for free, organic traffic. However, getting started with SEO is not always an easy task.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is so much to do, and it almost always becomes overwhelming.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The easiest way to kick off your SEO plan is to start with competitor research.\u00a0<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Chances are that other established players in your industry have already done their keyword research, SEO testing, and content planning. They would already be driving a reasonable amount of organic traffic to their site. By doing competitor research, you can reverse-engineer many of their tactics and get started relatively quickly.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But how do you do good SEO competitor research?<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here are a few tips to help you with this:<\/span><br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<h2><b>1. Dive into technical SEO<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">First, start by analyzing how their website is structured and how it performs. Technical SEO has become a key part of an SEO plan and must not be ignored.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the key factors here is the loading speed of the website. How fast your competitor\u2019s site loads may be a big differentiator.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Other than the loading speed of their website, also analyze other factors, such as mobile-friendliness, the overall user experience, the number of ads, interstitials, sponsors, multi-language support, website structure, internal links, canonicalization, etc.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>2. An in-depth backlink analysis<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We have noticed that sometimes the only differentiator between a #1-ranking page and a page ranking on #10 is the number and quality of backlinks each page has.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SEO competitor research is not complete without an in-depth analysis of backlinks and referring domains.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">During the competitor research, you should focus on the following:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The number of backlinks each competitor domain has.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The number of unique referring domains they have.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The number of backlinks and referring domains they increase, on average, month over month.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The high-profile websites that link to your competitors.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Websites that link to them but don\u2019t link to your site.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The types of content that get the most backlinks for your competitors.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lastly, try to figure out the strategies that each of your big competitors uses to get these backlinks. For example, it could be a strategic use of infographics, publishing guest posts on other websites, using PBNs, or a well-executed PR strategy.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>3. Content analysis<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Content is king and is usually the centerpiece of a well-crafted SEO strategy. SEO Competitor research is incomplete without a thorough content analysis.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When you are analyzing your competitors\u2019 content, you should look into the following areas:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What type of content do they usually produce?<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What type of content has been most successful for each competitor?<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What is the average word count on each page?<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In how much depth a content piece covers a topic?<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How does each competitor structure their content pages? This includes headlines, paragraphs, bullet points, visual aid, etc.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What is the ratio between blogs, product pages, category pages, etc. for each competitor?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><b>4. Don\u2019t forget keyword analysis<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Even modern-day SEO has a lot to do with keywords and keyword research. By identifying the keywords your big competitors are optimising their pages for, you can cut down your research work significantly.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are a few things you can do with keyword analysis:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Identify the keywords your competitors rank for but you don\u2019t.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Identify the keywords and keyword phrases that bring them the most amount of traffic.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Identify the keywords that trigger featured-snippet opportunities for your competitors.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Identify the total number of keywords each website ranks for.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can do all this and more with manual research (which can be tough and time-consuming) or by using a paid SEO software like\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ahrefs<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0or\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.semrush.com\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SEMRush<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0(a slightly expensive option but one that can simplify this process dramatically).<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Conclusion<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Competitor research is a fundamental step in creating a well-rounded SEO strategy. If you do not know what your competitors are doing and how they have so far achieved their success in the search engine results pages (SERPs), you won\u2019t be able to overtake them.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SEO is full of tests and trials. The good news is that even if you have a new website, chances are that your competitors would have already gone through some of those hoops and tested plenty of things to perfect the formula.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You don\u2019t need to reinvent the wheel. Use their data and strategies to perfect your SEO plan \u2014 and that is arguably the quickest way to get started with SEO.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Search engine optimisation or SEO, if done correctly, can open the floodgates for free, organic traffic. However, getting started with SEO is not always an easy task. There is so much to do, and it almost always becomes overwhelming. The easiest way to kick off your SEO plan is to start with competitor research.\u00a0 Chances [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":17862,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oct_exclude_from_cache":false,"inline_featured_image":false},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>4 tips for SEO competitor research | IMSR<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Unlock the secrets of competitor SEO strategies. 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