When developing any business strategy, competitor analysis is so important. We create strategies through our own by A/B testing variations. When developing SEO strategy, you need to look at your competitors to see what is performing and what is not. Then we use this information to help streamline your business to rank number one on Google. Everything read here will allow you to use SEO competitor analysis to help build your websites rankings.

Step 01: Bookmark This Page

We highly encourage that you bookmark this page. Competitor analysis should be done frequently when you are active in ranking for more keywords.

Step 02: Determine Competitors

Let’s move along to use the MOZ website analyzer tool. This tool will break down everything from your website’s domain authority, linking root domains, keywords rankings, top search competitors, and more. Start with your website first to compare stats as a baseline. This will also show MOZ suggestions as to who your top search competitors are. Many times, these will not be direct competitors but displayed value targets.

Next, head over to Google and type in the exact keyword you think your customer would search when looking to find your business. Be sure to document that URL and the top three keywords for that search query. Our recommendation is to not to search more than 5 keywords. We will narrow our competitors to 5 before moving to the next step.

From here, run each of those documented website URL’s into the MOZ website analyzer tool. Print each one to read over. Choose your top 5 of your competitors and these businesses are where we can learn how to take control of your website’s SEO.

Step 03: Keyword Gap Analysis

Be sure to create an account with MOZ to use their keyword analysis URL comparison tool. This tool allows you to compare up to 10 URL’s.

We’ll use this keyword gap analysis to establish which competitor websites to take tips and tricks. Narrow those competitors to three and those will be your target websites. Learn from them, set goals based on performance, and A/B split test variations of their strategy.

Step 04: Link Gap Analysis

Let’s explore the differences between your website’s links and the three narrowed competitors. Knowing where those competitors back links are can be critical to your SEO competitor analysis. Back links are extremely beneficial to any SEO strategy because they tell Google’s algorithm your website is trustworthy. You want to establish your website with the back link to better your search rankings.

Enter your competitors website here to determine where these keywords are coming from. This will show you which keywords are giving that website the most “juice” and you can now use that toward your website. We love this tool because it helps us find many resources for quality back links. It saves time from developing content that will not help with your search rankings.

Step 05: SERP Analysis (Search Engine Results Page) Analysis

The SERP analyzer will analyze different keywords that our top three competitors are using to find the lowest hanging fruit. Any keyword having a SERP analysis showing higher than average monthly search volume with a lower than average keyword will prove difficult. The first keywords we tackle will help to get your page traffic and improvement on your domain authority.

Use this information to learn as much as you can about your competitors. The SEO competitor analysis will allow you to put things in motion to develop your strategy.

Keyword analysis will be next up in our 2023 Comprehensive Guide to Take Control of your Websites SEO, We know and fully understand that some of the terminology used may be out of your scope of knowledge. We highly recommend taking the time to Google any term you might not be familiar with.