As the amount of web shoppers grows, marketing continues to become one of the most important parts of any company’s marketing strategy. Now more than ever, everyone needs their websites to be number 1 in the rankings so they can mine that untapped internet gold mine, promised by every marketing company out there. The result, of course, has been an explosion of marketing companies, all scrambling to get the best keywords for their clients so they can be considered “the best in their field”. Unfortunately, with this increase in importance placed upon marketing as well as this sudden upswing in professional Search Engine Optimization, the playing field has gotten much more crowded than ever before, making effective marketing trickier as each day ends.
No longer can you simply pick the keywords that people are searching the most for your keyword portfolios or find the highest quality site for link building; you now have to fight with tooth and claw for elbow room, or else get lost in the shuffle. But, if you want to avoid the knockdown, drag out fights over the most popular keywords (which, we assure you, you do), there are smarter, more SEO friendly ways; all it takes is a dose of competitive analysis.
Because the internet landscape for most verticals is already pretty crowded, it’s important to understand precisely what your competitors are doing, what’s working, and what you can do to emulate that success. This, at its core, is what competitive analysis is. Using competitive analysis tools to determine what keywords your competitors are using, as well as what links they have and what strategies they are using can give you a blueprint of what you need to do with your site when moving forward. In other words, if it works for your competitor, it can work for you too!
Because SEO is based on the ongoing battle to determine what, precisely, goes into the Google, Yahoo, and Bing search formulas, the results—from a ranking perspective—are actually quite predictable and repeatable (even if increasing profits is not). This means, whatever information we glean from your competitors that currently rank ahead of you can be used on your website to repeat their success, and perhaps even surpass it. Through competitive analysis, we can find a wealth of statistics and information about how to improve your rankings, such as:
Up to this point, we’ve used the term “competitor” multiple times, and you may think that we are talking about a literal or preconceived competitor (i.e. a rival lawn mower repair company, or something like that). However, when we refer to competitors, we actually mean keyword competitors. You see, a big part of any competitive analysis initiative is searching the keywords that we are targeting and mining information from the sites that already rank well for those keywords; these are your competitors more than anyone else, at least from an marketing perspective.
Fortunately, unlike in many other lines of work, taking these sites’ ideas and using them against said sites is completely legal, and actually very much recommended. Thus, by using competitive analytic tools to analyze their websites, determine what is working and what isn’t, and improving on the strategies used by those sites, we can help improve your site’s rankings quicker than ever before.
We can also use competitive analysis to determine whether or not there is actually too much competition for any given keyword or phrase during the keyword research segment of our comprehensive service package. In fact, this is a major part of any keyword research initiative that we undergo. By determining which keywords offer the best opportunity in terms of traffic and low-competition, we can ensure your site is being optimized for success, rather than heading towards a complete dead end. With this, we can save a ton of time, cut out all the possible dead ends, and put your site in the best place to succeed, no matter what; this is the best usage of competitive analysis, and it is precisely what we do here at SiteLadder.
In the end, competitive analysis is one of the major building blocks upon which a successful Search Engine Optimization campaign is run. With that in mind, it’s easy to see why competitive analysis needs to be done with care, expertise, and precision; without it, your site will surely fail.
Our team, made up of some of the best minds in the marketing industry, offer years of experience with competitive analysis and the tools needed to complete it, giving your campaign the best chance at success it will ever have. Without a doubt, we can use your competitors to help your site leapfrog in the rankings; best of all, we can do it the right way, with no shady shortcuts needed!
So, if you’re looking for a company with the track record and marketing experts needed to conduct a successful competitive analysis and marketing campaign, look no further. Contact us today if you want to sign up for a comprehensive marketing service package.
