Why conduct a website competitor analysis
A website competitor analysis provides a complete overview of the activities of companies in a particular market segment. It helps identify competitors’ characteristics, strengths and weaknesses, and the target audience’s needs. The analysis takes place with the help of SEO tools.
The analysis starts with the identification of competing companies. Here it is essential to distinguish between competitors in the industry and those who are ahead or catching up in the search engine rankings. Only those that operate in a particular niche are taken into account. You can search for competitors in different ways, e.g. manually. This involves compiling a semantic kernel, entering keywords from it and tracking the sites that appear in the search results. Incognito analysis can improve the results as the user experience does not affect the results. Once the list of competitors has been identified, the next step is to proceed.
The manual method of collecting companies in a niche is not very convenient or reliable. Its main disadvantage is that it is time-consuming. In addition, it is difficult to get a comprehensive picture of the development of the niche. Automated services are a more practical option for identifying competitors. Such solutions take care of everything. All the user has to do is provide a link to his website. The software then independently analyses the companies operating in the same niche and displays them in the list.
Analyse competitors individually
Now you can start looking at each competitor individually. You need to look at them through the eyes of the consumer, highlighting the attractive aspects and the peculiarities of interaction with the target audience. This will allow you to spot the company’s weaknesses, improving your approach to running your business. The analysis should focus, in particular, on the competitor’s product. You must understand what makes it unique and how the pricing policy is structured. The next step is to evaluate the marketing strategy and its effectiveness. The analysis involves a variety of channels, including the website and social media. Feedback and comments from competitors’ customers can provide useful information.
In terms of SEO, it is vital to check the age of the site. Search engine crawlers look for trustworthiness – trust in a resource. This trust is built up for a year, so it is difficult for young sites to achieve high search engine rankings. Trustworthiness is influenced by link mass, thematic content and much more. For example, resources in existence for around 4 years will be the highest ranked. This information can reveal the good search positions of competitors, especially if your own site is still young.
It is also worth checking the indexation and presence of pages. Look at the sources from which your competitors are getting traffic. You may also need to increase your presence on these channels.
It is better to use automated solutions for competitor analysis. They are more effective than manual research. In addition, this option does not take much time.