It is good to be interested in what your competitors are doing online. Understanding what your competition is doing can help you make better business decisions regarding content, design, and SEO.
Who are your online competitors? How do you find out who they are?
You’ve come to the right place if you are struggling to identify the businesses that you should be paying attention to when it comes to your SEO efforts.
How an SEO competitor is different from a direct rival.
Who you should keep an eye on and who you can ignore.
How to identify your online competitors and what data you can find out.
What is an SEO competitor?
It is an SEO rival that ranks for the same long-tail keyword as you. They are aiming for the same audience as you.
You might have thought of them in the past as direct competitors. They’re in the same industry as you and offer similar products or services. When it comes to SEO, this may not be the case.
When we examine the content created to target a particular keyword, it cannot be very clear. The way one website uses content to target a keyword may differ from the way you use it. You might create a guide on how to find the best running shoes, but they want to rank in the search term “running shoes.” You might want to rank your product page at the same time.
This is clearly illustrated by the top results of a search for “running shoes.”
The first result will be a product, the second a guide, and the third another product. If you want to be ranked for “running shoes” as a sales page, you would disregard the manual and try to outrank the retailer’s pages.
You can ignore the SEO competitors.
The local business. This may be a direct rival on the high street. When you search for them online, they are nowhere to be seen. They’re, therefore, not an SEO rival.
The company with the super-sexy site. The way their website looks, functions, and reads may be impressive. If it’s not optimized for search and doesn’t show up, then they aren’t a threat.
Your customers have used the business before. Even if a customer tells you that they have purchased, downloaded, subscribed, or used an organization similar to yours, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are a SEO competitor.
Mega businesses. These are the Amazons, Targets, and Apples of the world, with seemingly endless digital marketing budgets. It’s impossible to compete with them in terms of keywords.
Who are your SEO competitors?
Search results will show you your real digital marketing competition.
This doesn’t only apply to businesses that rank above you in a particular keyword. It’s important also to be concerned about the companies ranking below you. They are overtaking you, so it’s important to review your content.
Motivate yourself by using your SEO competitors.
Digital marketing is a dynamic field. Your SEO competitors’ strategies will also change as algorithms, rankings, and businesses come online (or close) or go out of business. It’s a good thing.
Keep track of what your competitors are doing to overtake or catch up with you. This should inspire and motivate you.
You can find new keywords by looking at the competitors. Also, you should look at what type of content is being published. Then, it would be best if you thought about ways to take it one step further. How can you make it better? How can you improve your site so that it ranks higher in the search engines?
Knowing your SEO competitors
Now you know who your SEO competitors are and what they do. You can ignore them. It’s now time to find out more about their ranking and learn how they do it. You can do this in a few different ways.
A super-simple method
Enter your keyword into the search box and find out who is on the top page of results for that term. Find out how you rank, and then look at businesses above and below.
This method will work if:
You have a small site and don’t want to rank for many different keywords.
Aren’t you using a competitor analysis tool that is in-depth?
I would strongly recommend investing in a tool that helps you find keywords. I use the Chrome Extension Keywords Everywhere, which shows the number of keywords a site ranks for (and how much organic traffic it attracts) when you search for that keyword.
You can see the ranking of the website by clicking on it. This is a good way to check if you are competing with the same keywords. You can also identify keywords that they are targeting, but you are not.
A more complex but faster way
If you have a limited budget and value your time, I recommend signing up for an SEO tool like Ahrefs. These tools allow you to confirm and find out who your SEO rivals are.
These tools analyze your domain name and provide you with information about your competitors, including organic, paid, and local SEO.
Keep track of SEO competition.
After you have identified your SEO competitors, it is a good idea to do a competitor evaluation every six months or so. Please set up a spreadsheet to keep track of who your competitors are and any changes they’ve made in their ranking.
The name of the company is also their URL.
