It’s great to have your own website. Even more so when it’s more than just a hobby to you. A serious project with a clear purpose to make someone’s life better – I think everybody should attempt this at least once. Of course, it’s a bumpy road with many challenges and numerous problems.

For example, here’s one problem known to every webmaster in the world: never seeing your site on Google’s page #1. With over 200 million active sites on the Internet, it’s always a wild race to the top with no end in sight regarding competition and frustration. Unless you know what you are doing, you will be struggling to get any user traffic at all, let alone turn it into anything profitable.

But what if you are doing everything you can and somebody else is still ahead of you? Why, if they insist on getting in your way…

This means war!

And wars begin with collecting information. In this case, SEO intel.

SEO competitor analysis can be used to rob your opponent of all the spoils: rankings, user traffic, even conversions. And the more thoroughly you research your competition, the better the results. Let’s see how you can analyze them and what you can do with all the information you’ve obtained.

1. Perform a SWOT analysis

Before you take on your Internet rivals, turn your attention to your current state of affairs. There are sites out there which are your competitors, and you are theirs. How good of a competitor are you right now? And how well are you prepared for fighting someone who’s bigger than you are?

Just like a shopping trip starts with checking the contents of your wallet, so should you check what your own site has to offer. Self-reflection for sites is sometimes called a SWOT analysis.

What’s in a SWOT analysis?

• Strengths: all the things you are currently good at. For example, your site may have an awesome design that impresses your visitors.
• Weaknesses: all the things you are supposed to be good at, but are not. Do you notice that users largely ignore your calls-to-action? That is definitely something to worry about.
• Opportunities: all the things that you could use for your site’s benefit right now or in the near future. Are any big holidays coming soon? They are always a good opportunity to lure in more customers with special offers and juicy discounts.
• Threats: all the things that are or may become present in the environment and could hurt your site. Threats are external, unlike weaknesses which are innate.

For example, a thorough check might reveal that your site is a charm to use thanks to its efficient design and fast loading speed. But on the other hand, it may lack interesting content that would appeal to users. Or you might find out that your hosting is about to expire and soon you won’t have a website anymore.

The possibilities are endless here. The realities, however, are not. Find out as much as you can about your reality – it will serve as the basis of your SEO strategy.

2. Find your direct competitors

Now we can move on to competitor research. First things first, you need to know who, exactly, you are competing with. Look for sites which:

• Target the same audience as you;
• Rank in search engines for your keywords higher than you.

Feel free to ignore the sites which don’t fit this description – they are not your competition. Waste your time on them, and your competitor SEO strategy will become harder for no good reason. Focus only on the pests leeching off of your traffic. Soon, very soon, the tables will turn…

But that’s only after you find them.

To start, boot up the Dangerous Competitors tool in WebCEO.

And click on Settings to begin.

1. Enter your ranking keywords in the Keywords tab.

2. Click on the Search engines tab, then click on the Add a search engine button. In the new popup window, select your target country and language. The tool will find relevant search engines, from which you’ll need to choose those that are relevant to your situation (Google and Google Mobile, most likely). Press Add.

Click on Save, and the Rank Tracker tool will begin searching. Once it’s finished, it will generate a graph and a table.

Look for the websites we determine to have a higher traffic score than you (they will be above you in the table). You should pay them a visit to make sure they actually share a niche with you and are competing for the same users. Once you determine a site is your competitor, find it in the table and click on the flag next to its name. This will automatically add this website as a competitor in Settings.

In Settings/Competitors you can type in other competitors’ URLs. WebCEO will be able to show data for them in its other reports.

One more pro tip: to best hone in on your real competitors, filter your keyword list for words that most directly state what you do. For example: “Cleveland marketing agency” as opposed to “marketing agency” or “Cleveland marketing”.

You can use tags to designate the words that most exactly state the business you are in. In this way you can weed out websites for business journals and college marketing courses or marketing agencies in, say, Cincinnati, all of which are not your competitors.

3. Analyze the user experience on their sites

Okay, you have a list of your competitors. Now let’s start with the easiest part of competitor SEO: visual analysis. Time to spy with your little eye all their weak spots! …Although, it’s more likely you will end up unearthing your own.

What should you do when you visit their sites? Start from their homepages and see where it takes you.

• Compare their site designs to yours. First impressions matter; users will be more willing to browse a site that’s easy on the eyes. Which of your competitors look better than you and how do they do it? What do they have in the looks department that you don’t?
• Check how secure they are. Are their sites HTTP or HTTPS? Do they use cookies? Do they redirect you anywhere suspicious or load any dubious popup windows? Or, here’s a simple test you can use as a rule of thumb: would you trust those sites with your own credit card information?
• Test their loading speed. You can use your browser’s in-built tools like Chrome’s DevTools to measure it, but you should be able to get a good grasp of it even without counting milliseconds. If it’s fast, it’s fast.
• Test their navigation. Do they have it to begin with? If they do, what pages can you visit from there? Does it link to all the important pages users would need to visit (such as contact information)? Is it easy to navigate on PCs, smartphones and other devices?
• Check them for intrusive interstitials. Do any ads or banners appear and block the view or otherwise distract visitors from the main content?
• Check their pricing plans and other terms of use. How do they compare to what you are offering? Between you and them, whom would the users rather choose?
• Check their calls-to-action. Do they look clickable and compelling? Do they give users what they want in as few steps as possible?

If this brief analysis reveals why your competitors are better than you, don’t get depressed. Sites rise in rankings by changing for the better, and you can do the same after a little brainstorming. Take your time and turn your weaknesses into strengths one by one.

4. Plan your content strategy

Users of Google only care about solutions to their problems. Whether the first thing they see is a featured snippet or an organic result is of no concern to them. They will be fine with either as long as it promises help.

As a site owner, it’s up to you where you want to rank. But if you want traffic, then your solutions must be better and more available than anybody else’s.

In other words, it all boils down to content and how to present it.

How to make your content competitive?

1. Satisfy user search intent. Anticipate every question, want and pain you can think of – then address them all.
2. Make your content superior to everything you can find for your keywords on Google’s first page.
3. Optimize your search snippets to be eye-catching and clickable. This means a readable and uncropped title, description and URL, using power words. Enhance your snippets with structured data.
4. Optimize your content to be featured at Position Zero.

Next comes the harder and more thankless part: promoting your content.

You will need to find people who link to content like yours, then make them notice you. This is much easier done when you have already spent plenty of time growing your online presence and building a network. Starting fresh will be a pain. Whichever is the case for you, the first step will be the same: making a list of potential backlink donors.

Time for the Competitor Backlink Spy to shine! Look for sites which have linked to your competitors’ content.

Once you have a list of suitable candidates, you can start building backlinks on their sites. Or rather, start trying to. It’s very unlikely that all or even many of them will agree to work with you, but keep doing your best.

To be more specific:

• Reach out to as many sites as you can. Your success rate is going to be low, so you will need to cast a wide net. It will increase your chances if two or more of your competitors have a link from a particular website, of course.
• Prepare multiple different email templates for outreach. Don’t send everyone the same text; what if it turns out so bad that you get no backlinks at all? Use a variety of approaches and keep improving.
• Mention why linking to your site is a good idea. What benefits are there for the donor? For example, your piece of content could be really unique or more in-depth than others on the same topic. Or maybe you found a broken link on their site and your content is a good replacement.

5. Analyze competitors’ keywords

If your competitor has keywords for which they are already ranking high, it’s going to be hard to outrank them for the same keywords. Not impossible, but still hard. You will need to increase your site’s authority significantly for that to work, and only high-DA backlinks can do the trick.

Getting such backlinks should be your goal, but your initial efforts would be better off spent elsewhere. There are easier and faster ways to shorten the distance between you and your competitors. You might even end up overtaking them sooner than you think!

For starters, find out how they are ranking for the keywords you are using yourself. This can be checked in the report called Competitor Rankings by Keyword.

If it turns out you are already outranking your competitors for some of your keywords, that’s great! Of course, it could also mean you should find somebody else to compete against in order to achieve better results. But let’s assume that’s not the case at the moment.

Search the table for the keywords which fulfil both of these conditions:

• You aren’t ranking well for them;
• Your competitors aren’t ranking well for them, either.

Why those keywords? Because it’s easier to overtake pages that don’t rank well. If you double-down on those specific keywords and improve your own rankings, you can steal a nice chunk of user traffic your competitors would want for themselves.

Be sure to check the rankings in search engines other than Google, as your competition’s rankings might be weak there as well. You can find this information in a different report: Competitor Rankings by Search Engine.

Another tool you should try is WebCEO’s Competitor Keyword Spy (better known as Spy on Competitors). As the name suggests, this tool shows you the keywords used on your competitors’ sites. What’s the best way to use it?

1. Enter a competing website’s URL and press Search. The tool will show the keywords in a table.

2. Find the keywords you’d like to use yourself. Add them to your keyword basket by clicking on the “+” next to them. If they are already in your basket, that’s good.

3. Go back to the Competitor Rankings by Keyword report. Run a rescan to see the rankings for the keywords you’ve just added.

4. And just like before, find the keywords for which your competitors aren’t ranking well. You already know what to do with them.

6. Analyze their backlinks

It’s hard to imagine competitor SEO analysis without looking up their backlinks. It’s one of the best ways to build your own links, after all – and one of the main reasons to analyze your competitors in the first place.

Allow me to recommend the tool for the job. The name is Spy. Backlink Spy.

Open its Settings and feed it your competitors’ domain names. Press Save, and the tool will generate a table with this information:

• Pages with each competitor’s backlinks
• Pages with your own backlinks
• Each backlink’s Domain Trust Flow
• Anchor texts

Some of the sites that link to your competitors may already be linking to you as well. So the main point of interest in this table is the backlinks more than one of your competitors have, but you don’t have. It’s also a good idea to check the backlinks sporting the highest Domain Trust Flow. Sort the table by that column and check the sites where your site doesn’t have a backlink.

It also helps to track your progress by marking up the sites you are trying to butter up. The table’s rightmost column is reserved for your own site and its backlinks. Unlike competitor sites, your empty fields aren’t exactly empty; they have dropdown menus where you can associate a status with the current or potential backlink donor. For example, you can choose Rejected if you failed to negotiate a backlink.

Be sure to check up on your competitors’ backlinks every now and then. There’s no way to tell when they will get backlinks from more sites you could get for yourself, and you won’t know until you run a check. Use the Scan Schedule feature to have the tool do it for you automatically – for example, once a month.

7. Check their social media activity

It’s arguable how much social media activity helps to boost your rankings. But that doesn’t mean you can just write it off as undeserving of your time. Where social media lacks in supporting your SEO, it shines at building reputations online – and for a brand, reputation is everything.

So if your competitors have pages in social media where they keep in touch with their users, not only do you need to follow their example, you should also watch how they do it. Assuming they are good at it, of course.

Check their social media activity for these things:

• What kind of content do they post? It could be advertising content on their sites, making announcements, asking for feedback or anything else. If your competitors communicate with their users in a manner that you don’t, take note.
• How often do they post? This is most often directly tied to how much content they have to share, but not always. The question is, can you match or surpass the frequency of their updates?
• Do their posts naturally spur you to take some sort of action, such as leave a reply or share? In other words, are their posts engaging? This applies to everything in a post: text, images and calls-to-action where they openly ask you to like, share or buy.
• How much engagement do they get? Likes, upvotes, shares, retweets, comments – everything counts. These signals demonstrate a post’s ability to provoke a response from users who ignore most of what they find online, so it’s a metric you can trust. Use a tool like Competitor Social Citations to track this metric.

As with your competitors’ actual sites, the purpose of their social media pages’ visual analysis is to figure out what they do better than you do. Seeing with your own eyes what works is the best way to find inspiration and start creating your own high-quality content.

8. Evaluate their online reputation

Of course, checking keyword rankings and site traffic aren’t the only ways to tell if your competitor is good. You don’t even need to touch any SEO tools for that if you just listen to what people say. If you hear things like “They are fantastic, I’m their regular!”, then you can be sure their website is a force to be reckoned with.

So, which one of your rivals is the most popular? If you don’t know yet, or if you want to do a more thorough check, there are lots of ways to find user feedback.

• Review platforms. User reviews are often very detailed, which is why they are the best way to analyze a brand’s reputation (and why it’s always recommended to get as many positive reviews as you can).
• Comment sections. If your competitors have these on their sites, it’s also worth checking how they respond to their commenters.
• Brand mentions. They can be easily tracked with free tools, such as Google Alerts (which will be sent to you by email) or WebCEO’s Web Buzz Monitoring (same as Google Alerts, plus mentions from Twitter).

How does all this help you? Some brands are more popular with their audience than others. Not everybody’s reputation is on the same level – and that is what you are going to exploit. Just like with Google rankings and site traffic, it will be easier to “overtake” competitors whose reputation isn’t that hot.

By making a name for yourself, you will be killing two birds with one stone: you’ll shorten the distance between you and your biggest competitors, and you will leave others in the dust.

9. Engage with their audience

If you aren’t fighting dirty, you aren’t actually trying to win. Strike your competition where they least expect it!

Seriously, you couldn’t think of an easier way to steal your competitors’ audience if you tried. Why wait for them to come to your site when you can make the first move? Find the places where they hang out often and engage with them there, both online and offline:

• Social media
• Blogs and forums
• Review sites
• Comment sections
• Networking events

10. Find out what tools and plugins they are using on their sites

Plugins can be found almost everywhere. Why are they so popular? If you are a webmaster, you will likely want to add a few features for your site, but you might lack the time (or knowledge) to code them with your own hands. And from a user’s perspective, plugins often enhance UX, which is another good reason to use them.

So you can expect that your competitors will be relying on plugins themselves. And if they are, it will help you to know:

• What plugins are your competitors using?
• What do those plugins do? Do they perform tasks you may want on your own site?
• Are there better alternatives to those plugins that you could use?

You can use BuiltWith, a free Chrome browser extension, to scan your competitors’ sites for the plugins and tools they use.

Summary

As you can see, competitor SEO is a complex task with a lot of steps. But no matter how hard it can get, the first step is always the same: analyzing your current SEO situation. Overall site quality, rankings, traffic, backlinks and online presence.

So give your site a thorough check now. See how you are doing against your current online competitors – and then find more of them to overcome.

The post SEO Competitor Analysis: Moving Up the Food Chain in 10 Steps appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.

Two SEO facts that everybody knows:

1. Backlinks from reputable sites help you rank in Google;

2. You can find new link building opportunities by spying on your competitors’ backlinks.

If somebody links to sites that share a niche with you, they can be persuaded to place a link to your site, too. Sounds easy in theory, right? But once you actually try it, it turns out to be a complete headache. Link building is hard, folks.

“Who cares if it’s hard? I’m motivated to build links and rank high!”

That’s what I love to hear. Motivation is the foundation of success! Don a black cape and put on your mask. A noble thief who wants to steal competitor backlinks needs two things: charm and SEO tools. Let’s go into detail about how to use each.

1. How to Find Competitor Backlinks with SEO Tools

Before you can go rummaging through your competitors’ link profiles, you need to identify your competitors (obviously). If you don’t know them yet, read on! If you do, consider staying here for a little longer. You might learn how to find more competitors – and more backlinks to steal.

The most optimal way is to use an SEO competitor analysis tools, such as WebCEO’s Dangerous Competitors. As the description of the tool says,

“This report shows sites that you compete with on the search engine results pages. It uses the list of your keywords and search engine organic & vertical results (except ads) to find your niche competitors.”

Input your keywords in the tool’s settings and press Save. If you have used the Rank Tracking section in WebCEO before, the keywords will already be there, and you won’t have to open the settings again. You’ll just need to press Rescan.

The report will be made of two parts: a graph and a table. The graph shows how much traffic your competitors get for the same keywords as yours.

The table shows other information, such as the competitors’ total backlinks and the number of ranking keywords that overlap with yours.

Tip: competitors with a smaller keyword overlap will be easier to beat.

Be warned: not all sites shown in the report will be your direct business competitors. Their services might be very different from yours, but they could still outrank you for your keywords. Choose your competitors from that list wisely – in other words, choose the ones whose audience you want for yourself.

Once you’ve decided on who to compete with, it’s time for a competitor backlink checker to take the stage –  WebCEO’s Competitor Backlink Spy. Enter your competitors’ URLs in the settings and start scanning. Once the report is ready, it will show the pages that link to you and to the competitors.

Look for the rows where your competitors have ticks, but your site doesn’t. That’s how you can find domains where your competitors have backlinks and where you might be able to build some of your own. The Competitor Backlink Spy report displays the linking domains’ authority as well, so you’ll know if reaching out to them will be worth the effort.

And now you just add your potential backlink sources in an Excel spreadsheet. There! With that, your link building strategy has tangible goals, and your work is cut out for you.

2. How to Ask for Backlinks with a Noble Thief’s Charm

Next comes reaching out to those sites and convincing them to give you a backlink. But how? Unfortunately, there is no failsafe plan that is guaranteed to produce backlinks. But there is a strategy that has helped many people before and may work for you, too.

Step 1: Create excellent content

Bait is often used to catch thieves. Great content is a special kind of bait that works in reverse.

Why does it work? Because people won’t link to just any dubious page. They’ll be ashamed of themselves if they tell their users to go somewhere shoddy. Save your targets from embarrassment and put on your site a great piece of content.

What counts as great?

• Meaningful: it has a point. If people read it and think “so what?”, it isn’t worthy of a backlink.
• Valuable: it satisfies the needs of the users who read it. If they want information, it’s there; if they have a problem, you have a solution.
• Premium quality: it’s even better than what those sites usually link to.

Mind you, even the highest quality doesn’t guarantee your content will be accepted. What can you do to increase your chances? Make your content useful not just for its readers, but also for the person you’re offering it to.

What exactly does it mean?

Suppose they have a broken link pointing to your competitor. You have content similar to what the competitor had on the other side of that link. Your target would certainly like to fix the broken link on their site. If you offer them your content from that angle, you’ll most likely hear a yes.

Or a different scenario: they have a link pointing to an outdated piece of content by your competitor. If you have something that’s more relevant and up-to-date, that link might be changed if you ask. See the pattern? When giving you a backlink solves someone’s problem, you have a very good chance to get that backlink.

This will be reflected in the emails you can send, the examples of which you can read a bit further down.

Step 2: Connect with your target

Some people have been lucky to get a backlink after asking once, despite having never talked before. However, I think you’ll agree that it’s much better to build a cordial relationship before asking. Friends and even mere acquaintances tend to receive consent more often than strangers.

Where can you connect with your future backlink buddies? Anywhere you can freely talk like equals will do. Facebook, Quora and other major social media platforms; comment sections on their websites and on your own, too; any site you can think of works. Chat them up until you feel you are ready for the next step, which is…

Step 3: Reach out and ask

If you never ask, the answer will always be silence. This is where you are put to the test and judged for being worth your salt. Once preparations have been made, it’s time for you to have a shot at asking for a backlink.

Email outreach is a popular option, but not the only one. Any means of sending a private message (for example, via social media and forums) will do. If anything, if you happen to know what channel your backlink buddy uses most often – use that one to send them a message.

Here are a few examples to inspire you:

Example 1

Hello John!

I’ve been looking through your blog for articles about client outreach and really liked (article’s title). Some of its points were exactly what my marketing strategy had been missing. You’re amazing! I can’t thank you enough for your help.

I’ve also noticed that you talked about outreach templates in that article. I happen to have a post on my blog with examples of the best email outreach templates: (link). I’m sure you’ll like it, so feel free to check it out! Your readers may find it helpful if that part had a link to my post.

Keep up the good work with (your website) and your blog.

Sincerely,

Dave

Example 2

Hi Steve!

I’ve been looking through your blog for articles on client outreach and noticed a broken link in (article’s title).

Judging by the context, it used to lead to a resource about outreach templates, and my blog has a post with exactly that: (link). If you find it a good alternative, would you consider linking to me instead? I’m sure it will be up to your standards.

Best regards,

Mary

Example 3

Hey Laura,

I’ve been looking through your blog for articles on SEO and noticed a link pointing to (another site) in your post (title). Their article appears to be outdated: it recommends using obsolete techniques like writing in the <meta keywords> tag and even harmful ones like keyword stuffing.

I happen to have a more up-to-date post on the same subject on my blog, titled (post’s title). Would you consider linking to it instead of the other article? Here’s the link if you are interested: (link).

Best wishes,

Kate

Can you see the key points? Let’s sum them up:

• Write as you’d write to a person. It sounds like it goes without saying, but it can be harder than you think! Be careful not to write up a cold, impersonal email that reads like an obvious template.
• Show interest in their work. It’s a nice way to close distance when it’s your first time writing to that person. You won’t instantly graduate from a stranger, but you’ll score some points if you show you are familiar with their website and its content.
• Make it mutually beneficial. As was said earlier in this post, people like it when the deal isn’t one-sided and benefits them in some way, too. Say what they have to gain by giving you a link.

Be aware, though: not all will accept your offer or even reply. But those who will, no matter how few, will be a tremendous help. So if you want to get more backlinks, you need to cast a really wide web and befriend a lot of people. Turn up your charm up to eleven!

Is your motivation still strong? Then there’s no time to waste. Find your competitors and break into their link profiles. They’ll never see it coming.

The post How To Do Link Building by Exploiting Your Competitor Intelligence appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.

How can you beat your competitors in business? The curse of always having someone better than you plagues all but the best businessmen. And even those can’t afford to let their guard down, because as soon as they do, someone will overtake them at that instant. When every business has a site (if yours doesn’t – go make one, pronto!) and actively uses it to make money, you can often tell how well they are doing just at a glance.

Certain SEO tools can give you a lot more than just a glance. With them, you can look past the various facades and monitor competing websites in greater detail. Then you can draw conclusions about your opponents’ marketing strategies and compare them with your own.

How does conducting a competitive analysis help you? Your competitors are there so you can:

• Learn from them. They’ve got to be doing something right if they are more successful than you. The opposite is also true: by looking at companies that are less successful, you might spot their mistakes and teach yourself not to repeat them.
• Do better than they do. That’s your ultimate goal: to grow bigger, to drive in more traffic, to attract a larger clientele and to become richer than your rivals. All that is virtually impossible without analyzing your opponent… unless you are a one-of-a-kind marketing genius.

Let’s take a clever competitor analysis strategy and break it down into simple steps.

1. Revise Your Current Strategy

Before you begin analyzing your competitors’ marketing strategies, it’s a good idea to assess what you have first. When your own strengths and weaknesses are unknown, how are you going to make accurate comparisons to your competitors later? When you aren’t aware of the opportunities you have, how will you grow in the right direction? You can’t build a strategy without a basis for your future judgments.

To start, answer the following questions:

• Backlinks: how many do you have right now? Are they all beneficial to your site, or maybe there are a few bad apples among them? If you have doubts, be sure to scan your site for toxic backlinks with WebCEO.
• Keywords: are they niche, long-tail keywords, or are they too general and competitive for your site to take the lead anytime soon (if ever)? Check them with WebCEO’s Get Suggestions tool just to be safe.
• Social media activity: have you created a page for your site on each prominent social network (e.g. Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn)? Do you post there regularly? Is the content on those pages diverse? Refer to WebCEO’s Social Engagement tool for a quick rundown on your social activity.

While you’re at it, you may also want to check your site for any technical issues with WebCEO’s Technical Audit tool, just to avoid any sudden unpleasant surprises. Act of your own accord here.

2. Choose Your Competitors Carefully

A competitor is someone who targets the same audience and pursues the same business objectives as you. Be careful not to pick a fight with a company that isn’t even trying to steal your slice of pie; that would be a waste of your time and effort.

The easiest way to choose your rivals is to punch a keyword in Google’s search bar and choose whoever appears on the first page. It’s also the least optimal way. A page with nothing but links to a bunch of sites (sometimes pages of the same site) is a rather scant source of information. Instead, you could use WebCEO’s Dangerous Competitors tool. It asks for more information than just a single keyword, but the results it returns are appropriately more generous.

Enter your keywords plus the search engines you want to check for and you will get a long list full of relevant and helpful information about the best websites competing for your set of keywords. Optionally, you can also punch in a few competitor URLs that you are sure about. It will save you a little time.

But you shouldn’t stop there. Be thorough and talk to your prospective customers next. Ultimately, it’s the customers who decide whose business is the best and most-deserving of their patronage. They can be a goldmine of useful information if you ask them to answer a few questions… for example, in a survey.

Let your imagination go wild with the questions. Some of them may include:

• What kind of keywords do you use in your online research?
• What companies’ services in this niche do you use? What are their websites?
• What do you like about the service they provide online?
• What do you like about their websites?

The voice of the people can speak with more conviction than a silent SERP and is more trustworthy.

3. Visually Analyze Their Sites

Now that your list of competitors is ready, it’s finally time to dissect them. I mean their sites. Start with a visual analysis and look for the speck in their eye, just like you tried to find the beam in your own eye before. Try not to lose your spirits when your competitors prove to have much better designed websites than yours; more often than not, it’s a case of the grass being greener on the other side of the fence.

Keep your eyes peeled for things like:

• Design
• Titles
• Headers
• Content
• Calls-to-action

Think about what makes them good or bad and how you can come up with something superior in terms of user experience and engagement. Then make the necessary changes on your own site.

4. Analyze Their Ranking Keywords

There’s a good possibility your competitors are using the same keywords as you, and they are most likely outranking you, too. How do you make sure your keyword set doesn’t overlap with theirs and put you at a disadvantage?

You can spy on competitors with WebCEO’s Keyword Research tools and bring up a long list of their keywords. You aren’t going to need all of them. You just need to make sure you aren’t trying to strategically rank for the keywords that are doing much better for them than they would for you. And if you can, find in that list keywords that are relevant to your site, but aren’t placing your competitors too high in Google search results. This task, however, is better suited for a different tool: Competitor Rankings by Keyword.

5. Monitor the Competitors’ Backlinks

Backlinks are one of the most significant factors that decide how a website ranks in search engines. Monitoring your competitors’ backlink profiles in addition to your own is a good way to monitor your progress. See everyone who links to you and your competitors in a single table with WebCEO’s Competitor Backlink Spy.

You want to track the domains linking to your competitors because some of them could be persuaded to link to you, too. Additionally, it’s worth checking if there are domains that could be giving your competitors backlinks, but aren’t. Act fast and be the first to secure a backlink from them!

6. Evaluate Their Activity on Social Media Platforms

People of the 21st century like spending their time on Facebook, Twitter and such. That’s why dedicated pages with engaging, diverse, linkable content make for a good source of extra traffic. And while you can’t always predict how engaging your content will be, keeping an eye on your competitors’ pages in social media may give you a hint. Visit their pages and see for yourself: which type of content attracts more likes, shares and comments? Regular text posts? Images? Polls? Links to their blog posts? Other downloadable materials?

Get to know your target audience better, and they might just shower you with affection. Also, social media signals get picked up by search engines and provide a slight ranking boost to your site.

7. Assess Their Social Reputation and Build Your Own

The road to success is a bumpy one; you’ll most definitely receive some negative feedback on your way. I bet your rivals already have. If they have a page for user feedback and reviews on their site or on social media, it’s a good idea to read it carefully and see how they respond to criticism. A stain on your online reputation could delay your campaign’s progress, if not set it back, by months or maybe even years (depending on how badly you mess up). It’s best to know how to avoid sticky situations before you are forced to learn how to get out of them.

And it’s just as important to learn the proper ways to respond to niceties from your customers.

And remember: it’s one thing to pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of your rivals, but your competitive strategy will succeed only if you can consistently come up with ways to outperform them. Grow big, so one day your competitors will try to use the same tricks against you!

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The post How to Do an SEO Competitor Analysis in 7 Steps appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.

Yesterday, we gave you some practical advice on how to avoid the Google Panda Penalty. Today we would like to get a view of how some websites applied (or did not applied) the SEO tactics mentioned in the previous post.

The Google Panda 4.0 Update that was rolled out a few weeks ago has now shown some early results, which reveal both a negative and positive effect on the content shared on the web (depending on the point of view, a user’s or website owner’s).  Users are receiving more relative results for their queries. Given the first reports and complaints I would say that positive effects are greater than negative. Let’s have a quick view of the sites being penalized and rewarded by Google’s Panda 4.0.  The list is not comprehensive, but we can see a definite trend of search visibility losses/gains for some giant websites.

Among outsiders we can find websites which post and promote rehashed or duplicate information (Celebrity and Showbiz news portals etc.), create content that links to external sources (Discount Coupon & Codes websites etc.), or show skinny content from third parties (Weather and Price comparison sites).

We at WebCEO decided to take a closer look at those sites that were most affected:

Outsiders:

isitdownrightnow.com – 50%

aceshowbiz.com – 75%

starpulse.com – 50%

 Favorites:

Emedicinehealth.com 500 %

Medterms.com 500 %

Zimbio.com – 500%

Interesting fact is that very similar sites (starpulse.com and zimbio.com) appeared both in the lists of favorites and outsiders. But what makes them different? Is it really all about content quality?

I have made a quick competitive analysis of the backlink profiles of these two websites with the help of our Backlink Quality Checker. A website’s backlink profile is one of the main factors measured by Google, even if a Google update affects content only. Backlinks together with anchor texts linking to relative and useful content on other sites are considered to be part of the algorithm. This truth is confirmed by SEO experts like Jayson DeMers, Founder & CEO at AudienceBloom who has stated that one must: “Implement the three pillars of SEO: Content, links and social media, via a solid content strategy”.

In the Web CEO Online Competitor Link Profile report, we see few obvious reasons why the above two websites are on opposite sides of the Panda 4.0 fallout. Both of the sites have a high PR of 6. But a closer look reveals the factors that clearly caused starpulse.com to fall in the rankings and zimbio.com go up:

1. Zimbio had a greater number of backlinks.
2. Zimbio had more links with .GOV and .EDU link status.
3. Zimbio had more dofollow links as opposed to nofollow links.
4. Zimbio had a lower percentage of sitewide links which are considered more and more by Google to be more spammy.

Among absolute favorites there are websites which serve as original sources of interesting and helpful information. Their content is user-focused and that’s why they earn more points in the high quality content promotion battle.

The point is that you might source information from other related websites, but keep away from aping.  One of the winner sites with a well executed content strategy is buzzfeed.com. Though there is an excessive number of viral articles like “15 things you should avoid on the first date”, the content is diverse and fits almost everyone’s content needs. Are you raving for useful articles, would you rather read politics or business news, or do you just want to relax and look through interactive content? Buzzfeed gives people a variety of interesting content, fact and fiction, with strong visual assets here and there (video selections, quizzes, gif feed etc.).

Let’s take another one of the winner sites into consideration. Medterms.com has earned more Panda points (500 % improvement in rankings) than other websites. The SEO factors that might have taken them to the top of the favorites list are:

• Clear and clean navigation
• Well-implemented 301 redirects.
• User-friendly interface with a search box to provide quick access to desired content.
• Different types of content including original visual assets:  slideshare shows, image carousels, interactive content distribution like quizzes etc.
• Well-performed internal links optimization with diverse link text
• Strong presence on social media with a high social reach.

If you want to feel secure with the Google Panda 4.0 and become a favorite of users and of Google, be sure to implement the tried and true SEO tactics mentioned above.

The post Panda 4.0 Update: Favorites and Outsiders – What Are the Factors of Google’s Betting System? appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.

It’s hard to have a successful online business without sometimes spying a little on your competitors and their adoption of best-practice marketing tactics. We prefer to call this a competitive analysis. Now you can learn your competitors’ best practices even more easily with the help of our newly added Competitor Metrics reports.

First, choose the 3 or 4 sites that you really compete with. These will be the sites you will watch regularly.

The main aim of a competitive analysis is to predict where your competitors may outrank you and fine-tune your marketing strategy to avoid this. The WebCEO Online Competitor Metrics reports provide you with a lof of key information.

Go to the ‘Competitor Rankings’ report, add up to 20 websites you want to monitor the search engines results positions for. With this report you will always be informed about the pages of your site that need to be fine-tuned to outrank your competitors.

Then use the ‘Competitor Link Profile’ report to research how well your website is doing compared to your competitors (you can investigate the link profiles of several competing websites at once). Here you will find PageRank data, the number of total backlinks, the diversity of linking domains, the number of .GOV and .EDU domains links and nofollow links that pass no link juice to the linked pages.

Every marketer’s dream is to know how many customers the competitors have. No one can tell you, however the WebCEO Online ‘Competitor Traffic Overview’ report can help you to analyze your competitors’ traffic and estimate how many prospects they may get over a given time period.

Do not forget that researching your competitors’ backlink profiles is a great way to earn those same backlinks for your website. The WebCEO Competitor Backlink Spy tool helps you to find who links to your competitors but do not yet link to your site. A simple email or tweet can get you listed at these sites as well.

WebCEO Online provides you with an easy way to analyze your competitors’ social activity. Use the Web Buzz Monitoring tool to monitor important keywords as well as your and competitors’ brand names. The ‘Social tracker’ report allows you to analyze your competitors’ activities on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter and to, thereby, set realistic social benchmarks for your brand.

The post Be Informed About What Happens Behind Competitor Lines appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.

One of the best ways to help develop a social media strategy for your brand is to research what your competitors are doing. Performing a social media competitive analysis is an essential part of your social media success. You should analyze your competitors’ activities to set realistic benchmarks for your brand.

Check what social networks your competitors use. Thy may differ a lot depending on the industry you are in. While Pinterest may be great for a florist or an interior design company, it might be less useful if you are in engineering. Now when you have a list of the social media profiles of your competitors you can start your competitive analysis.

1. Check how often your competitors post.

Yes, this is a very manual process. However it’s really important to know how many times they posted unique content during the last month. This will help you to craft your own schedule.

2. Learn what type of content is popular with your targeted audience.

By looking at what type of content your competitors tend to post you can measure how successful the various mediums are in terms of fan involvement and engagement. Does the audience like photos and videos? Is it a good idea to repost other brands’ content? Should you use hashtags? Answer these questions to better understand what types of content will be helpful for your marketing.

3. Investigate your competitors’ social engagement.

Analyze the number of followers your competitors have. This will show how popular they are and how big their online community is.  While you may not be able to see the changes in social media numbers, you can see trends very clearly.

4. Monitor your competitors’ online reputation.

You should know what is said about your competitors across the web. This helps you to react immediately and fine-tune your social media marketing. For example, if you detect a weakness that happens to be a strength for you, you may consider writing and publishing more content that explains how good you are with that aspect of your business.

A great way to monitor your competition is to use the Web CEO Social Buzz tool. Simply type your competitors’ brand names into the tool and get everyday updates showing freshly indexed content mentioning them.

Look through the found posts and react if appropriate. Besides you can favorite posts you commented on so you can return to them later and see what new comments were added.

When you collect all the data and compare it to your own metrics, you will be able to adjust your own social media campaigns to outperform your competitors. By looking at how your target consumers communicate with your competitors, you will get insights on how to effectively interact with them through social networks.

Remember that your competitors are changing and improving all the time.  They will be adjusting their approach and updating their campaigns in order to try to improve results. That is why your competitive analysis should be an ongoing process. It’s not something that you can do once and then forget about.

The post Build Your Social Media Campaign with the help of Your Competitors appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.

As you know, understanding your competitive position in search results is extremely important. Today we explain how your competitors may help you build links.

Researching your competitors’ backlink profiles is a great way to earn those same backlinks for your website. This is a good idea for two reasons: you will get more backlinks and you will help Google to understand your website’s theme, that you are, in fact, a competitor of what might be a well-ranked site.

Before you start your backlink campaign, research how your competitors are doing. Go to the WebCEO Backlink Quality Checker and add up to 4 competitors to check their metrics.

Your home page PageRank will give you an idea of how well your website is doing compared to your competitors. It’s not always completely accurate, but if your competition is two or three PageRank numbers ahead of you, it might be time to do some optimization work.

The number of total backlinks will estimate how much work is needed to outrank your competition. Remember that, from the Google point of view, it is better to have more linking domains. Having a lot of linking domains diversity and lots of links from .GOV and .EDU domains shows that your website is authoritative. Nofollow links may bring you traffic, but they do not pass link juice to your pages.

Now, when you can estimate how many backlinks of high quality you need, you can go and get them. The WebCEO Competitor Backlink Spy will help you to investigate who links to your competitors.

Carefully investigate the pages that link to your competitors’ websites but do not have links to your site. It’s quite possible that you can get links there too. Start from the pages that have high Google PR and link to two or more competitors. They are the most helpful because they’re more likely to want to link to your page as well.

Even if you are not going to approach the same sites that your competitors clearly have, this process will reveal the types of sites you may want to approach.

The post How to Build Backlinks with the Help of Your Competitors appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.

It is no secret that the online business world changes quickly. If you are growing a successful web business, you should understand why customers choose you; why you are better than your competition.

The idea that you are missing something in your marketing mix is a driving force for competitive analysis. Take the time to analyze your competition in order to best show your consumers that they are right in choosing you over that competition. Today prospects choose you according to an array of reasons: your product, pricing, support, your website’s design, the message you deliver. It rarely has to do with pricing alone.

Competitive analyses give you information you can use to differentiate yourself from others in the marketplace. Research your competitors’ marketing and use this information to fine-tune your marketing plan and get more profit.

Where to start from

To start a competitive analysis you will need to know who your competitors are. This may seem too self-evident; however you should carefully choose your REAL competitors. Think about your target audience. What do they need? What keywords will they use? Whom would you choose if you had the same needs? Answer these questions and use them as the starting point for analyzing your competitors and developing your competitive marketing strategy.

Make a list with all the competitor sites you can find. Then choose the 5 you really compete with. First of all, follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ (or other social networks that are important in your industry), subscribe to their corporate blog via RSS. Now you will be informed about all their news and will be ready to take actions.

The second step of your competitive analysis is to understand why your website may be outranked by the competitors. This step will help you to improve your online marketing strategy. We will show how to do this in our next blog post. Now go and find out about your real competitors!

The post Why You Should Start Spying on Your Competition Right Now appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.