What is the process for conducting a comprehensive competitive analysis for SEO?

1 Identify your competitors

The first step is to identify who your main competitors are in your niche, industry, or location. You can use various tools and methods to find out who is ranking for your target keywords, who is targeting similar audiences, and who is offering similar products or services. Some of the tools you can use are Google search, Google Ads, Moz, SEMrush, Ahrefs, and SpyFu. You should also consider your indirect competitors, such as online directories, review sites, media outlets, or blogs that may compete for the same search intent or traffic.

3 Analyze their off-page SEO

The third step is to analyze how your competitors build their authority and reputation in the online space, focusing on factors such as backlinks, social media, online reviews, and mentions. You can use tools like Ahrefs, Majestic, or Moz Link Explorer to examine your competitors' link profiles and compare them with your own. You should look for patterns and trends in their link building strategies, such as the types, sources, and quality of their backlinks, the anchor texts they use, and the pages they link to. You should also look for opportunities to acquire more relevant and high-quality backlinks, such as guest posting, outreach, or content marketing.

4 Analyze their technical SEO

The fourth step is to analyze how your competitors ensure their site's functionality, usability, and security, focusing on aspects such as site speed, mobile-friendliness, crawlability, indexability, and HTTPS. You can use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights, Google Mobile-Friendly Test, Google Search Console, or Sitechecker to test and evaluate your competitors' technical SEO and compare them with your own. You should look for issues and errors that may affect your site's performance, user experience, and ranking, such as slow loading times, broken links, duplicate content, or non-secure pages.

5 Analyze their user behavior

The fifth step is to analyze how your competitors attract, engage, and retain their visitors, focusing on metrics such as traffic, bounce rate, dwell time, pages per session, conversion rate, and retention rate. You can use tools like Google Analytics, SimilarWeb, or Hotjar to track and measure your competitors' user behavior and compare them with your own. You should look for insights and clues into how your competitors optimize their site for user satisfaction, loyalty, and action, such as the design, layout, functionality, and content of their site, the calls to action they use, and the incentives they offer.

6 Analyze their content strategy

The sixth and final step is to analyze how your competitors plan, create, and distribute their content, focusing on aspects such as content types, formats, topics, keywords, tone, and style. You can use tools like BuzzSumo, AnswerThePublic, or Google Trends to research and analyze your competitors' content strategy and compare them with your own. You should look for gaps and opportunities to improve your content strategy, such as creating more diverse and valuable content, targeting more relevant and popular keywords, addressing your audience's pain points and questions, and leveraging different channels and platforms to reach and engage your audience.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?