How to Do Competitor Analysis for E-commerce SEO

The e-commerce market is booming! It's expected to be worth a whopping US$3.6 trillion in 2024, and that number is projected to grow by nearly 10% every year until it reaches US$5.3 trillion by 2028. That's a lot of potential, but it also means there's a lot of competition.

To stay ahead of the curve, you need to know your competitors inside and out. That's where competitor analysis comes in.?

By analyzing your competitors, you can uncover valuable insights that can help you improve your strategy and outmaneuver them.

Here are some of the things you can learn from competitor analysis:

• What are their strengths and weaknesses?
• What are their target markets?
• What are their marketing and pricing strategies?
• What are their latest products and services?

Once you have this information, you can use it to develop a unique strategy that will help you win in the marketplace.

Define Your Goals

Before diving in, set clear goals for your competitor analysis. What do you hope to achieve??

Is it to increase organic traffic, improve keyword rankings, or discover new content opportunities??

Having well-defined goals helps you focus your analysis and gather relevant information.

Benefits of conducting competitor analysis for your E-commerce

Ever wondered what your competitors are doing online??

Well, stop wondering and start peeking! It helps you understand what others are doing and how you can do it better.?

Let's uncover the benefits:

• Stay Ahead in the Game: Knowing what your competitors are up to helps you stay one step ahead. You can spot trends early and be the first to offer something new.
• Spot Strengths and Weaknesses: By checking out your rivals, you can see what they are good at and where they are lacking. This helps you focus on your strengths and fix any weaknesses.
• Keyword Clues for SEO: Find out what keywords your competitors are ranking for. This helps you pick the right words for your website to attract more visitors.
• Pricing Strategies: See how others price their products. You can adjust your prices to stay competitive and attract more customers.
• Social Media Success: Check out how well your competitors are doing on social media. Learn from their successes and avoid their mistakes.
• User Experience Insights: Analyze how easy or difficult it is to use your competitor's website. This can give you ideas on how to make your website more user-friendly.
• Marketing Inspiration: Discover new marketing strategies that work for your competitors. This helps you create effective campaigns for your own E-commerce site.
• Customer Reviews: See what customers are saying about your competitors. Learn from their feedback to improve your own products and services.
• Adapt to Changes: Markets change, and so do your competitors. Regular analysis helps you adapt to these changes and stay relevant in the E-commerce landscape.
• Boosts Innovation: Understanding your competitors sparks creativity. You'll find new ways to improve your products and services, setting you apart from the competition.

How to find & define who your competitors are

Direct Competitors

These are the brands selling similar products within your niche. Imagine you offer organic clothing: direct competitors would be other organic clothing brands.?

Think of them as direct rivals vying for the same keywords and target audience.

How to find Direct Competitors

• Keyword Research: Analyze the top-ranking keywords for your products and see which brands consistently appear. Tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, and SEMrush can help you uncover competitors based on keyword ranking.
• Industry Reports: Market research reports often list key players in your niche, providing a starting point for competitor identification.
• Online Marketplaces: Explore popular platforms like Amazon or Etsy to see who dominates your product category.
• Competitor Analysis Tools: Dedicated tools like SimilarWeb and SpyFu can provide insights into your competitor’s traffic sources, keywords, and backlinks.

Indirect Competitors

These are brands offering substitutes or broader product categories that might attract your target audience.?

For example, a vegan shoe store might consider brands selling other ethical footwear or even sustainable clothing as indirect competitors.

How to find Indirect Competitors

• Social Media Listening: Use tools like Brand24 and Sprout Social to monitor conversations about your niche and identify brands mentioned alongside yours.
• Market Research: Conduct qualitative research like surveys or focus groups to understand customer's consideration sets and alternative brands they might consider.
• Competitor Reviews: Analyze reviews of your competitors to see which other brands customers mention as alternatives.
• Industry Trends: Stay updated on broader market trends and emerging brands that might disrupt your niche.

Why Include Both Large and Small Competitors?

Focusing solely on direct competitors paints an incomplete picture.?

Large players have established brand recognition and SEO authority, but they might be slower to adapt to trends.?

Smaller, agile competitors can pose a threat by innovating quickly and filling niche gaps.?

Having a comprehensive view allows you to:

• Understand the Competitive Landscape: Gain insights into different SEO strategies, strengths, and weaknesses across all competitor types.
• Identify Untapped Opportunities: Spot keyword gaps and underserved audiences targeted by smaller players.
• Stay Ahead of the Curve: Monitor rising stars and potential disruptors before they become major threats.
• Benchmark Your Performance: Compare your SEO metrics against both large and small competitors to set realistic goals.

Analyzing Competitor Websites

On-page SEO

Understanding your competition's on-page SEO tactics is like peeking at their playbook. You can exploit their weaknesses and seize opportunities to outrank them. Here's how to delve into the key areas:

Keyword Targeting Analysis:

• Tools like SEMrush and Ahrefs: Utilize these powerful tools to uncover the keywords your competitors rank for organically. Analyze their top-performing pages and identify keyword gaps – terms they rank for that you don't, offering potential ranking opportunities.
• Long-tail keywords: Go beyond basic head terms and analyze their use of long-tail keywords, which often indicate higher conversion rates and lower competition. See how they integrate these keywords naturally into their product descriptions, blog posts, and other content.

Content Quality and Structure Evaluation:

• Informative and engaging: Assess the quality of their content. Is it informative, addressing user queries comprehensively? Is it engaging, using visuals, storytelling, and clear formatting to keep users hooked? Analyze their content length and ensure yours offers similar value or surpasses it.
• Optimized content: Check how they target keywords without keyword stuffing. Do they use relevant variations, LSI keywords, and meta descriptions effectively? Analyze their title tags and header structures for clarity and keyword integration.

How to Analyze Your Competitor's Technical SEO and Improve Your Own

• Page speed: Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to analyze their page loading times. Slow speeds negatively impact SEO and user experience. Strive for faster loading times than your competitors.
• Structured data: Check if they implement structured data markup, enriching search results with snippets and improving click-through rates. Ensure your own site utilizes relevant structured data markup.

• Analyze their internal linking structure: See how they link relevant pages within their website, ensuring information flows seamlessly and strengthens internal authority.
• Evaluate their user experience: Test their website's ease of use, navigation, and checkout process. Identify areas for improvement in your own user experience.
• Monitor ongoing changes: Regularly revisit competitor websites to track their SEO developments and adapt your strategy accordingly.

How to Analyze Competitor’s Off-Page Tactics

Optimizing your website for search engines is about on-page SEO, while off-page SEO considers external factors affecting your ranking. Analyzing your competitor's off-page strategies in these three key areas can give you valuable insights to boost your e-commerce SEO.

Backlink Profile Analysis:

• Quantity: Check how many backlinks each competitor has. While quantity alone isn't the sole metric, a higher number often indicates a broader reach and potential trust signal.
• Quality: Assess the overall quality of their backlinks. Look for websites with high domain authority, relevant niche, and organic traffic. Use tools like Semrush or Ahrefs to analyze their backlink profile and identify opportunities for acquiring similar links.
• Relevance: Analyze the thematic relevance of their backlinks. Do they come from sites related to their niche or products? Focus on acquiring backlinks from relevant sources to increase topical authority and improve ranking within your niche.

Brand Mentions and Social Media Engagement:

• Brand mentions: Track competitor mentions across blogs, forums, social media, and news sites. This reveals their brand awareness and potential opportunities for collaboration or guest posting. Tools like Brand24 or Buzzsumo can help monitor mentions.
• Social media engagement: Analyze their social media presence across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Look at follower count, engagement rate, and type of content shared. Identify their popular content formats and social media strategies to inspire your own engagement efforts.

Competitor Content Promotion Strategies:

• Paid advertising: Monitor competitor ads on search engines and social media platforms. Analyze their keywords, ad copy, and landing pages to understand their paid advertising strategies.
• Influencer marketing: Identify influencers they collaborate with and the types of content they promote. Consider influencer partnerships relevant to your brand and target audience.
• Email marketing: If they promote content through email newsletters, analyze their signup forms, email frequency, and content offerings. Learn from their strategies while maintaining your unique brand voice.

How to Analyze Competitor’s Content

Analyzing their content, structure, and how users interact can reveal hidden treasures to boost your site.?

Let's dive into the specifics:

Analyze competitor content quality, structure, and length

• Quality: Go beyond surface-level metrics like word count. Analyze the depth and accuracy of information, readability, and the use of relevant keywords. Are they using storytelling or expert insights? What tone do they adopt? Do they address customer pain points effectively?
• Structure: Examine how their content is organized. Do they utilize clear headings, subheadings, and bullet points? Do they offer easy navigation and internal linking for a seamless user experience? How effectively do they leverage different content formats like product descriptions, blog posts, and video reviews?

Compare the use of visuals, multimedia, and internal linking strategies

• Visuals: Assess the quality and relevance of images, infographics, and product videos. Do they showcase products in an appealing and informative way? Are they optimized for search engines?
• Multimedia: Do they incorporate interactive elements like quizzes, user-generated content, or 360-degree product views? These can significantly boost engagement and dwell time.
• Internal Linking: Analyze their internal linking strategy. Are relevant products and informative pages linked appropriately? This guides users to explore deeper and enhances SEO value.

Unearthing Content Opportunities and Elevating Engagement:

• Unique Content: Identify gaps in your competitor's content. You can offer more in-depth reviews, address specific customer concerns, or create unique content formats like trend reports or buyer's guides.
• Engaging Users: Look at their user comments and social media interactions. What resonates with their audience? You can implement similar strategies or create interactive content that encourages user participation.
• Personalization: Analyze their personalization tactics. You can recommend products based on past purchases or browsing behavior; this creates a more tailored and engaging experience.

Turning Insights into Action

Now you've analyzed your competitors and unearthed valuable insights. It's time to transform them into actionable strategies that boost your e-commerce SEO. Let's delve into key areas:

Develop a Compelling USP:

• Analyze: Identify your competitor’s USPs and strengths. What makes them unique?
• Differentiate: Pinpoint your own brand strengths and value proposition. What sets you apart?
• Communicate: Clearly articulate your USP through website messaging, product descriptions, and marketing materials.

Target High-Value Keywords:

• Identify Gaps: Use keyword research tools to discover keywords where competitors rank poorly or not at all.
• Create Content: Develop targeted content optimized for these gaps, addressing user search intent and offering unique value.
• Prioritize: Focus on keywords with high search volume and relevant buyer intent for maximum impact.

Elevate On-page Optimization:

• Strengths & Weaknesses: Analyze competitor on-page elements like title tags, meta descriptions, and heading structures.
• Improve Your Site: Optimize your own pages based on insights, ensuring proper keyword integration, clear hierarchy, and compelling descriptions.
• Technical: Stay ahead by addressing technical SEO aspects like site speed and mobile responsiveness.

Build Quality Backlinks:

• Competitor Backlinks: Analyze where your competitors get backlinks, identifying relevant websites and platforms.
• Outreach Strategy: Develop personalized outreach emails to secure backlinks from high-authority domains.
• Diverse Strategy: Go beyond traditional link building and explore opportunities like guest blogging, industry collaborations, HARO, Skyscraper Technique, and content partnerships.

Content Marketing that Stands Out:

• Unique & Valuable: Analyze competitor content strategy, identifying trends and potential gaps.
• Go Beyond: Create unique and valuable content like in-depth product guides, engaging videos, or user-generated content.
• Promote & Share: Actively promote your content through social media, email marketing, and influencer collaborations.

Monitor & Adapt Continuously:

• Track Performance: Monitor your SEO progress using tools like Google Search Console and track competitor ranking fluctuations.
• Stay Informed: Be aware of algorithm updates and industry trends, adapting your strategy accordingly.
• Regular Analysis: Conduct competitor analysis periodically to identify new opportunities and threats.

Advanced Competitor Analysis Techniques for E-commerce SEO

Understanding your competitor’s SEO strategies goes beyond simply identifying their keywords and rankings.?

By delving deeper, you can uncover valuable insights that propel your own e-commerce SEO efforts to new heights.?

Here are some advanced techniques to consider:

Competitor Sitemap:

• Utilize SEO tools like Screaming Frog or Semrush to crawl your competitor's website and analyze their sitemap structure.
• Identify key landing pages, category pages, and blog content they prioritize.
• Analyze how effectively they interlink content to distribute internal link juice.

Competitor Pricing Analysis and Strategies:

• Track competitor pricing trends for your key products using price tracking tools.
• Analyze their promotional strategies (discounts, bundles, coupons) and pricing psychology tactics.
• Identify opportunities to differentiate your pricing or offer better value through unique features or service.

Analyzing Competitor Advertising Campaigns:

• Monitor competitor PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns using tools like SEMrush or SpyFu.
• Analyze the keywords they bid on, their ad copy, and landing page effectiveness.
• Identify potential PPC gaps (keywords they miss) to target organically.
• Explore their social media advertising strategy by analyzing ad formats, targeting criteria, and messaging.

Exploring Competitor Conversion Optimization Techniques:

• Use web analytics tools to analyze competitor checkout processes, product detail pages, and calls to action.
• Identify any A/B testing experiments they run and the elements they optimize.
• Look for opportunities to implement similar conversion optimization strategies on your own site.

Competitive Intelligence Gathering:

• Subscribe to industry news publications and analyst reports to stay updated on market trends and competitor insights.
• Monitor social media mentions and online conversations about your competitors and their products.
• Attend industry events and conferences to network with competitors and industry experts.

This guide helps you analyze competitors for better e-commerce SEO. Know their strengths, weaknesses, and tactics. Gain insights to stand out: target key keywords, improve on-page optimization, build quality backlinks, and create engaging content.