Both newly established and those already on the network for a long time companies that base their business mainly on a website should pay close attention to competition analysis. It is a key element in the optimization process to achieve high results of promotional activities. What elements should you pay attention to in the case of online stores and business cards or blogs?

Monitor effects

Monitoring the effects of actions is key – what is the point in making changes without being able to compare data before modifications? Constructive conclusions cannot be drawn in this case.

Position monitoring

The tool is useful primarily in the positioning process. It allows (in most cases) to constantly monitor the position of our website on individual key phrases. Most of them, in addition to displaying our page, also point to other pages, which allows us to monitor competition on an ongoing basis.

The growing popularity of mobiles devices has also contributed to the creation of mobiles applications presenting position information. Most of them allow free monitoring of at least one page and a dozen or so phrases.

Phrase monitoring and search

An ideal tool for both SEO and SEM specialists. Tools of this type present information on the number of phrases for which a given site is ranked (usually from TOP1 to TOP50), divided into various groups, present information on traffic from a given expression, present information on ongoing CPC campaigns with amounts, and even help choose new words to start promoting.

The big advantage of this type of tools is the fact that as soon as the site is indexed by the search engine crawler, the tool will collect information about this site and its “performance” on an ongoing basis. Such tools also allow direct comparison with competitors’ websites and check them for:

– the number of ranking phrases and the phrases themselves,
– traffic generated from positioned expressions and campaigns,
– phrases to which competition is promoted in paid campaigns.

The data set will easily compare our competition and help increase traffic to our site.

Link profile

An important element also in the positioning process. Tools of this type present information about links leading to your website, showing details about:

– the number of backlinks from individual domains,
– anchor text,
– the locations of the domain where the backlink is placed,
– link ratings,
– the history of links leading to the site,
– theme of the domain on which the link to our site was placed.

Webmaster Tools

We can not forget about the tools that provide information only about our site. This is important because all of the above proposals present most of the information based on their own data, which they do not have direct access to. Often, these results are simulated or calculated based on original formulas.

A series of information related to our website in Google search will show us the Google Search Console tool.

This tool offers detailed information about links leading to the website. It also has information about traffic as well as about the impressions for individual expressions. What’s more, GSC is expanded with additional functionalities to manage our website in a dedicated search engine.

Analytical tools

Having such a tool on your site should already be standard. The market provides us with very good free solutions and more advanced paid counterparts.

In addition to traffic information, tools of this type also include detailed data on users, traffic sources and the effectiveness of marketing activities, as well as allow to view the data in real time.

Brand popularity research

Verifying the popularity of the brand is also important when performing competition analysis. With a more recognizable brand, promoting competitive phrases can be much easier. Numerous opinions on the web, mentions on forums or other partner portals testify to their popularity. For this purpose, you can use both the free Google Alerts tool.

Elements of competition page analysis

All of the above tools are a treasury of knowledge for every specialist. Although some of them have the ability to generate audits, the classic approach for analyzing a competitor’s website may prove to be the best, because the tool will not necessarily focus on elements that attract human attention.

Are we choosing the right pages for the promotion?

Before starting any promotion – both positioning and paid campaigns – it is worth analyzing which subpages the competition promotes for a given phrase. Then, answer the following questions: Is my site themed for a given phrase? Does my offer match the expression? Did I choose a good positioning page for the given expression?

Before starting any promotion – both positioning and paid campaigns – it is worth analyzing which subpages the competition promotes for a given phrase. Then, answer the following questions: Is my site themed for a given phrase? Does my offer match the expression? Did I choose a good positioning page for the given expression?

In the positioning process, the promotion of subpages by force, in addition to the effects described above, can also contribute to a manual penalty from Google Rater or an automatic algorithmic filter for excessive linking of a given expression or unnatural phrase saturation, which is an attempt to artificially replace the lack of an offer.

Is my text as valuable as it is for competitors?

Under the slogan “valuable text” there are several elements and questions to answer:

– user-friendliness – does my text answer potential customer’s questions,
– expertness – does the text exhaust and provide all the information sought by the client,
– length – is my text comparatively long,
– formatting – is my text properly formatted to easily find the information I am looking for,
– extended elements – does my text contain useful infographics, charts, attachments or other elements,
– phrase saturation – does my text have artificially placed expressions, or do they occur naturally

Of course, if any of the above-mentioned elements does not appear on the competition page, and we have an idea to place it, it is advisable as much as possible. It is this element that can determine the position achieved or more contacts compared to the competition.

Do I have a similar number of products as the competition?

However, placing new products artificially will not give us the effect of adding a unique product description and your own photos every time (if possible). The subpages prepared in this way will also allow you to appear on the so-called long tail, i.e. complex and precise expressions, e.g. interior wooden brown doors.

Do I get competitive links?

For this point, the tools for analyzing link profiles indicated above will be useful. It’s worth getting links from sites such as competition – if your partners link your competition, let’s do it too, if your competition’s website has links from blogs, let’s think about a whisper.

However, we should remember that link building is a difficult task, especially when it comes to selecting the anchor text, and after the last update responsible for backlinks assessment it is not as important anymore as it used to be. Therefore, actions should be carried out very carefully. It is still the safest way to obtain links from YellowPages directories.

Does my site have a similar website structure?

This is very important when promoting online stores. If our product categories are too general and competitors have more specific subcategories, it may be important to implement this change.

It may be similar in the case of a catalog and offer page. It is important to have a similar hierarchy, e.g. interior door offer, external door. If everything is thrown into one bag, it may be necessary to change this structure.

It is also worth remembering that competing with a corporate website with online stores can be extremely difficult, and sometimes even impossible, because these websites do not have the opportunity to buy, and in most cases the structure of the website is radically different.

Like the competition, do I follow UX rules?

Please note that the page you are analyzing adheres to UX principles and is fully user-friendly. If it is difficult for you to assess the satisfaction of using the site, ask your friend to click through your site and the competition, and finally talk to him, which was not friendly to him and what he liked on both sites. You can ask him to pay attention to features such as:

– consistency – simplicity in using the website,
– instructions – the user does not need information on how the site works,
– color scheme – whether individual elements are clearly visible and marked according to the rules, e.g. delete button – red.

Do I use https like the competition?

According to the latest Google guidelines for Webmasters, if you have forms on the website that send information about logging in or credit cards, it is advisable to have the https protocol, i.e. an SSL certificate to secure data transfer. Even if your competitors do not yet have this certificate, it is worth considering its implementation now.

Do I have useful subpages like the competition?

FAQ, Price List, Gallery, About the company, Tips and Blog are just some of the most overlooked pages. It is worth analyzing whether the competitor’s website has them and prepare similar ones on their own website. These types of subpages provide information in the simplest and quickest form for the user – that’s why they are so valuable.

Does my site adapt to mobiles devices?

In the light of the constantly announced changes regarding the change in the algorithm called mobiles-first index, it is worth verifying whether the competitors’ websites are adapting to mobiles devices. Even if not, as in the case of the https protocol, it is worth implementing it before the competition and following the trends, because currently mobiles traffic is almost identical to the traffic from desktop devices. In order to verify the correct display on mobiles devices, one of the external tools should be used, e.g. Google’s mobiles page compatibility tester, available in the Google Search Console tool.

Do I have similar interaction elements on the same types of pages?

With each change, the site evalsuation algorithms are increasingly demanding and try to receive the site as a user. Therefore, the lack of important elements that competitors have can also block you from gaining top positions or building more traffic.

At this point, it’s worth comparing page types, e.g. product pages, category pages, blog entry pages. Examples of items for product pages may be:

– social media buttons (share buttons),
– the ability to add reviews,
– table / dedicated tab with product technical specification,
– related products,
– products that are worth buying with a given product,
– attributes, product configurations,
– the ability to ask questions about the product.

Do I also have internal links to key subpages?

To make it easier and at the same time indicate valuable pages to which the user should reach, it is worth using internal linking not only in the top, bottom or crumb navigation, but also in the texts themselves. Finding such linking with competitors also shows us the phrases to which the site is promoted.

Are key pages easily accessible in navigation on every subpage?

Verify accessibility to key pages. Like your competition, are your pages in the drop-down menu or footer? If not, it is necessary to take measures to improve navigation.

Do I run similar off-page activities?

The website visibility in search engines and the website traffic itself is not only affected by good optimization. It is also worth doing a number of additional activities outside the site. If you operate locally, check if the competition has a business card on Google My Business and in the absence of it for your business, be sure to create one. In addition, analyze how your competitor’s business card was filled in to see if all items are completed and do so similarly. In the case of an incomplete competition card, do not make their mistake and fill in yours 100% by adding elements such as photographs of the place, team and virtual walk.

Is my brand recognizable enough to promote competitive expressions?

Monitor your brand and the biggest competition brand to analyze how cyclical mentions of it appear on the web. If you get more notifications about your competition, it may mean that people are more familiar with this brand and are more likely to mention it on the web and share materials from it. Try to work towards natural sharing of your site by users for whom your offer or content will be so attractive that they will want to share it with friends.

Summary

As you can see, the amount of data and elements that should be verified when analyzing competition is large. Performing all of the above actions and using one of the indicated tools gives us some SEO audit.

What they should give us and how we can use the collected data:

– reaching new keywords,
– increasing traffic on our site,
– a website fully adapted to the needs of potential customers,
– obtaining valuable links to our site that affect the site’s ranking,
– long-term strategy of actions,
– monitoring your own website,
– good knowledge of competition.

We should remember that we are not only interested in reaching the widest possible range of potential customers, so the competition works equally intensively. That is why it is worth following her actions on an ongoing basis and always trying to be one step ahead of her, implementing innovative solutions useful for the user, as well as filling the gaps that emerged during the analysis.