If you are in a business that competes for similar products or services chances are you are competing in the same space of customers. This is not different in digital marketing. With regards to search engine optimization (SEO) competitive analysis is a strategy for determining your online competition and what necessary steps to out-compete them in rankings on search engines.
Why is Competitive Analysis Important?
Move than ever people are turning to search engines to find products or services they need. Unlike yellow pages of the past search engines rank websites on a number of factors. The most prevalent factor is content. Having well written relevant content is key to ranking on search engines.
Ranking on search engines is important if you want online visitors to your website. Studies show that the number of clicks to websites drops off dramatically as the ranking numbers increase. Getting to page one is important but even more important is to get to the first 5 positions.
This does not include paid advertising spots. Paid spots are more competitive as there may only be 3-4 positions available at the top. Here different set of rules is in place to rank in these spots.
Whether it is organic (earned) rankings or paid-per-click (PPC) advertising effective competitive analysis will tell what your competition is doing to rank on page one in search engines.
How does it Work?
There are few secrets in determining how a website ranks. Deconstructing a competitor’s website will show what they are doing to rank on search engines. Everything from keyword research, content, internal and backlinks from other websites, to technical issues like speed of the website are analyzed.
One Step Further
A complete competitive analysis will not only show what your competition is doing to rank on search engines but will show potential weaknesses in structure and content that can be leveraged against them to rank higher on search engines. Having this information can prove invaluable to the business owner and help set a good SEO strategy moving forward to compete for search engine ranks.
Effort not Taken Lightly
Proper competitive analysis involves looking many aspects of why a competitor’s website is ranking on search engines. Many steps and areas are carefully looked at before making a determination on a course action to compete online. For both organic and paid traffic the payoff is rewarding; your getting someone else’s customers.
Success Media Services can help your online marketing efforts by designing a right-sized digital marketing strategy for your organization. Our services include website design, SEO, social media campaigns, and video content. Contact us today to see how we can grow your business on the Internet.