Competitive Analysis Guide

When you're laying the foundation for a search engine optimization strategy, you don't want to give short shrift to a competitive analysis. Obviously, the shape, size and effort for such an analysis can vary based on your specific needs.

This guide will help you along that process - ensuring that you don't go through the analysis too quickly or with the wrong perspective.

You can look at many factors, but you'll mostly care about keywords--what terms are they using and how are they ranking?

Biggest Mistake

Don't be shallow. You don't want to examine a competitor's website, grab their keywords from META data, and then walk away. Even if you look at a few websites, you may miss something by taking only a cursory look at the META data or any number of other variables that can affect search engine positions.

Our Best Advice

You don't know who your competitors truly are - really. You're fooling yourself if you think you're familiar with your major competitors if you don't conduct some research on the major search engines.

Your known competitors may rank above or below you for your preferred search terms. But you've got some other companies too - websites and companies you've never heard of that often rank higher than you. They are your competitors as well. If they're #4 and you're #8, they've got a competitive edge among the rankings. And they're likely getting more traffic than you. Search them out using your industry's terms on major search engines to get a better perspective of your competition.

No. 1 Tip

Grab their keywords with a grain of salt. Competitors are notorious for making poor keyword choices. You don't want to incorporate their horrible selections into your program.

Often, you'll find VERY broad keywords or keywords that aren't the least bit related to what's being offered on the website. For example, one competitor we encountered sold clothing, but one of the keywords was laundry. Sure, it seems like a fit - laundry and clothes are in the same house. And you clean clothes with NEW and IMPROVED detergents. But really, specific types, colors, styles and brands of clothing might be better sources for keywords in this particular case.

Ranking Reports

Don't run ranking reports too quickly in your quest for potent search terms. In the early stages, you'll get a huge basket of potential keywords simply by looking at competitors. You may find that you've picked some bad apples (i.e. keywords related to what they do but not really a good fit for you) if you move too fast in the analysis process.

Ultimately, you'll want to define your keywords, see how you're ranking, and then find out how competitors perform.

Titles

Look for keywords in page titles. But be sure to survey a variety of pages that match your own products and services.

META Description

Often, companies will use the same META descriptions throughout the website. Check a few of them on diverse pages and move on to another website if you see too much duplication.

META Keywords

The funny thing about these keywords is that search engines often ignore them because of past overstuffing abuses. But don't neglect these keywords. You may find some good ones to consider for your program.

Page Headers

Many websites still "trap" invaluable keywords in graphic page headers. You can still see the words, so write them down. Even if search engines can't read the images, you can, so grab the best terms you see in graphics.

Many image alt tags feature innocuous words or phrases like "about" or "image012." But be sure to hover over many of them, especially at the precise product level. Your keyword hunt may discover gold in these tags.

Content

Again, many people simply go to the META data to retrieve keywords. But you can mine the visible text for all sorts of phrases. Product pages are valuable, but don't neglect the corporate About Us section, including the history, for some appropriate phrases. Their search engine visibility will depend on how well they're using keywords in text headers, subheaders, links within text, and the navigation. Don't be surprised if some of their pages rank well even if they have limited text. It happens! Rankings can be influenced by other factors, such as the popularity of the website, including incoming links.

Linked Keywords

Pay special attention to any keywords the competitor is cross-linking between pages.

Navigation

Whether text or graphics, navigation often includes choice keywords.

Link Popularity

It's easy to find out how many websites link to your competitor. For example, on Google just enter link:www.yourbiggestXYZcompetitor.com. Of course, Google tends to under-report this data, but it's good perspective. See who is linking to them. Search for "link popularity checker" on Google or visit http://www.axandra.com/free-link-popularity-check.htm

Other Competitive Analysis Considerations

Other websites may rank better than you for a number of reasons. You'll want to weigh the following:

• Location and amount of content
• Age of site
• Keywords in domain
• Keywords in folder names
• Keywords in page names
• Number of pages on the website
• How frequently the website is updated
• Page load times
• Search engine page cache trends

In the end, you can pick apart any competitor. You might be critical of the way they write page titles or copy content. But if they're performing well for your favorite phrase, you'll need to study what gives them this edge. Search engine optimization and usability go hand in hand. If the search engine spiders like what they see and the competitor's website has been around a long time, they may outpace you in the search engine ranking game. Fight back with extra pages, more content, improved design/source code and more incoming links with diverse descriptions.

When you take a look, especially if you're trying to determine what keywords they're targeting, be sure to keep an open mind. On the surface, you might see that they're using a broad keyword and then dismiss it as a possibility for you. That would be a big mistake. When you look at keywords, identify potential permutations. Any analysis should prompt you to think of related keywords or phrases or even a completely different search term.

Fathom SEO is a market-leading search engine optimization firm dedicated to complete SEM services, with an emphasis on organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO). As an SEO firm, we also provide PPC management, link building, web analytics, Opt-in Email Marketing , and other SEO services; search engine marketing firm based in Cleveland, Ohio.