One of the best ways to beat your rivals is to look at what they’re doing and improve on it.
It’s not always easy to figure out what your competitors are up to, though. Where do you begin your search? Is it the same process for old and new sites? What is the best way to do a competitor analysis?
To outrank your competitors on Google by using their own strategies against them, try the following actionable and repeatable competitor analysis methods. They should do the trick.
1. Analyze competitor keywords
Other companies have already ranked on Google for services or products similar to yours. So why not look at the keywords they’re ranking for?
You can spot the keywords that everyone in your industry is trying to rank for by using Google Keyword Planner and Google Trends. It’s possible to filter based on location, commercial value, purpose, and search volume.
Third-party keyword analysis software can also help you with your keyword strategy. SEMRush and Ahrefs are go-to tools for finding out which keywords your rivals are using. You can fine-tune your keyword research even further with their help.
Make a list of your rivals in a spreadsheet with their main internal sites, including the homepage. You can manually go to any of those pages and open the source code to check out the title, metadata, headings, and content. That allows you to quickly find out the keywords your biggest rivals are using to push traffic to their websites and landing pages.
Jot down your rivals’ keywords and put them into the spreadsheet.
Now your marketing and on-page SEO experts can customize your content and pages around those keywords.
2. Write high-quality, informative content
Creating amazing content that both your current and future customers want to read is one of the most important things you can do to outrank your competitors on Google.
Look at what’s ranking well on Google and social media to get a clear understanding of what people want. Focus on creating content that satisfies users’ search intent—that is, content that assists users in achieving what their goal was when they typed the query into Google search.
Ensure that you’re providing useful information in your content, and try to answer questions thoroughly. It’s simple enough to find subjects you may like to discuss in more detail by using Google’s People Also Ask boxes and related keywords.
3. Master on-page SEO
On-page SEO, which includes the elements on your site that influence your search engine results, is another important aspect of how to rank on Google. On-page SEO is affected by a variety of factors:
- Title tags should identify the page’s subject and include keywords.
- The meta description for each page should explain what it’s about. Meta descriptions appear on the pages of search engine results (SERPs).
- Headings divide your content into parts and include keywords.
- URLs should be simple to read and descriptive, and, if possible, they should include your keywords.
- Alt tags that identify the image’s content in a few words should be added to all photos.
- Loading speed is considered by Google when rating websites, because users expect pages to load quickly.
- Internal linking among the pages of your website gives users a direct path to the details they need. Keep an eye out for broken links.
4. Build backlinks
There’s no better strategy that will allow you to outrank your competitors on Google than backlinking.
Your on-page approach will take you only so far in improving your organic rankings. To go a step further, create backlinks. Look at the number of backlinks your rivals have to a particular page that is outranking yours; you’ll get an idea of how many backlinks you’ll need.
It’s not easy to create backlinks. Google will reward backlinks from websites with a high Domain Authority (DA), so it’s critical to prioritize quality over quantity for backlinks.
Create excellent outreach materials to aid in the acquisition of high-quality connections. Infographics, blog posts, and video production are all excellent examples of outreach that can result in backlinks.
Always keep an eye out for opportunities to create links on related websites. CRMs and software tools that help with SEO and SEM are also available.
5. Optimize your page speed
Page speed affects your SEO rankings in the same way it affects your PPC campaigns. Suppose you notice that competitors are outranking you for keywords for which you have the same number of backlinks, domain authority, keyword density, or on-page variables. In that case, it’s time to take a look at your mobile and desktop page speed.
Google PageSpeed Insights is a great tool for checking your website speed and figuring out what factors are slowing it down.
Text compression, server response times, unused CSS, and off-screen images are potential issues that could be the culprit behind your slower loading speed.
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This article first appeared in www.marketingprofs.com
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