Sometimes competition analysis becomes just important as internet marketing initiatives, especially in the case when one is involved in an extremely competitive industry. Modern day search engine optimization (SEO) tactics and competition still work in tandem like the good old times, and the only contrast between the two is the addition of few inevitable variables. Through this article we will cover a fourfold scheme to conduct and execute a successful competition analysis that could drive meaningful results for your business.
#1 Identify your rivals
The old saying “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” holds true in case of internet marketing and SEO as well. Competition analysis is all about knowing (or spying) on what your rival companies are doing, which is why you must know their identities beforehand as this is the basic groundwork required.
-
Search Engine Ranking Fluctuation – Keep a track on what new names are turning up on search engine results for your main business keywords. Keep a track of the ones that could draw your target customers away.
-
Start Using Google Alerts – This fantastic tool lets you monitor certain keywords (money keywords) that you deem most important for your business goals. Setting alerts will prompt you as soon as some content or news related to that specific search string turns up on Google.
Another thing you can do is to monitor your competitors. For example, if New York based XYZ Inc. is your rival business, then setting a Google alert with “XYZ New York” will help you in keeping a track of XYZ’s initiatives.
-
Classify your competitors – It is important that you segregate your competitors in different categories, such as Grade A, Grade B, Grade C and so on. This will help you in comparing the success rates of each one, before designing your own link building, content, influencer outreach or social media strategies.
#2 Dive deep into your competitors
Understanding the psyche behind your competitors’ digital campaigns is no mean task. There’s an extremely fine line between relationship building (blogger outreach for guest posts) and out-and-out link building exercise. The target goals behind both campaigns are different, which is why you must extract the exact purpose and mustn’t blindly duplicate something that delivers feasible results.
-
Learn from your rival mistakes – This is why we do competition analysis, don’t we? Do some research and understand where your competitors went wrong or what decisions cost them both loss in traffic and revenue. Check their social media profiles for the kind of feedback a particular campaign attracted (positive or negative), and use the data to formulate an unbeatable social campaign. We can’t control that practically, but at least in theory we should apply it.
-
Conduct backlink and inbound traffic analysis – SEO may have evolved into a lot of things, but the key element of Google’s search algorithm is still centered on links, which is why a comprehensive in and out backlink analysis is so fawned upon among most webmasters. Some competition analysis tools come really handy in this regard!
#3 Reverse engineer, but don’t go too personal
Analyzing your competitors’ link building, social media campaigns with respect to their methodologies sheds some light on what provided them with leverage and what things went backward. Idea is to search for different types of information and correlative measures. For instance, what is the general perception of your rivals in the market, and what were the tipping purposes of your rivals in time and how people responded to them.
#4 Observe and report social media tendencies
Social media listening and monitoring have become modern facets of digital marketing strategy. On the off chance that they’ve connected effective methodologies that are without a doubt worth evaluating on, besides understanding what stages they are delivered results and were exceptionally prominent. Discovering the right social channels and strategies on which your intended interest group is the most active is crucial so you’ll know where to control your engagements and interactions. You have to realize that knowing the right social media network and strategy is carried out through experimentation more often than not.
