Keywords are the heart of your online business. Generating the right keywords help your business gain more exposure over the internet and ultimately increase its sales. You might have many competitors offering similar products like you, but you can gain an edge over them with effective digital marketing strategies. But before you start creating your SEO strategies to increase your app ranking, it is essential to know who holds a space above and below you so that you can research their strategies and work your way up.
This article will try to list down seven effective competitive analysis ideas for improved SEO keyword research. We will also help you identify your potential competitors to know who you are working with before you get into the technical part of the job.
1. Applicability And Competition
There is a group of diverse competitors in the online ecosystem. It is quite similar to what you have in the offline world. For example, some businesses might not be from your niche, but they are your competitors if they offer similar products. You should not only consider people a competition when they are directly from your business niche only. Thus, it’s essential to keep relevancy in mind when you are heading to research for SEO. You can consider the following businesses as your competitors:
- Direct competitors who sell the same products and services as you do.
- Indirect competitors who sell similar products to a different audience and market. Their product relevance is close to yours and hence possesses a potential threat of taking over your market.
- Semantic competitors do not sell any product, but they offer essential information to gain visibility from the same audience you are targeting.
At Growth Hackers, we helped B2B and B2C brands outperform direct, indirect, and even semantic competitors by identifying every relevant player in the online ecosystem before building an SEO strategy.
2. Indirect Competitors
While most businesses focus only on their direct competitors, it is equally essential to watch the indirect and semantic competition. To do that, you would need to understand the importance of indirect competition a bit more. For example, if you are offering a photo editing app that works on the desktop, your indirect competitors will be those who offer mobile versions of similar apps.
Thus, you can see that your indirect competitors might be in a different market at present, but they are working to gain visibility in the eyes of your target audience. Thus, you must work on identifying them and utilizing their strategies.
You might also look at the strategies formulated by people selling cameras as they are your indirect competitors. They capture the attention of the photographers who will be using your application in the later stage. Try to find out the type of keywords they are using.
3. The Semantic Competitors
If you want to understand the trends in your industrial niche, then consider your semantic competitors. It’s important to know where your audience’s focus is going, as it will help you stay updated on the latest trend. Looking at your semantic competition will help you understand the rise and fall of keyword trends and how the queries of an online user might change over time.
Analyzing the semantic competition will also let you know about the strategies of your less valuable competitors, but that can prove to be effective too. So keep an eye on the publication discussing the products and services you are offering. You will come to know about keyword trends like never before.
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4. Manual Searches And Finding The One At The Top
To start with the keyword research, you will first need to understand who is at the top by doing manual searches. This includes typing keywords related to your industry in the Google search bar. Critically analyze the snippet and SERP about the searches that are showing up. Once you know it, dig deeper into how the given organization delivers content and the purpose or intent behind it.
Apart from looking at the organic rankings, make sure that you are also looking at what Ads are featured at the top of the search. The paid results would depict that a given business is paying the search engine to get more traffic from the specific keywords.
While looking at the results, a user would commonly click on the results coming on top. They might ignore the fact of whether it is a paid or organic result. So if you are competing for the top space, the organizations paying for the traffic are also your competitor.
The ranking can help you understand all types of competitors, including direct, indirect, and semantic, and how they use content to serve the searchers. At Growth Hackers, we treat manual searches like reconnaissance before a battle: study who owns the top spots, understand their strategy, and then plan how to win.
If you make a list of keywords related to your business, type them over the search engine, and each time the same sets of companies come popping out at the top, that would mean that they are targeting all the necessary keywords to achieve the desired space. They are using the right content that serves the needs of the users every time.
There are many techniques to find low-hanging keywords for your business. What do I mean by that? Keywords that have high search volume and low competitiveness. You should always keep a keyword research checklist near you to make sure you find a long list of such keywords.
5. Utilizing Similar Strategies As Your Ranking Competitor
It is essential to analyze the type of content that creates engagement of the users and utilizes those keywords to form your content. But remember that you cannot precisely copy what your ranking competitor has done to be on top. You can use their strategies and note down their keywords, but you must give your brand’s touch to make it unique when it comes to the content.
Take a look at the snippet and SERP; now understand how the top-ranking companies compose the content. You should also utilize the primary information and themes represented in the articles ranked at the top. At Growth Hackers, we once studied a B2B SaaS clients’ top-ranking competitors, identified the core themes and keyword gaps, and we produced a more comprehensive guide that quickly surpassed them in search results.
Ensure that you are never copying the content but only understanding the keyword opportunities and theme. You can also deliver similar information with the same intent, but keep in mind that a given content would have more long-tail query opportunities.
Your content should be comprehensive and relevant and explore a given topic from a unique standpoint. They should be designed to provide a similar but original assert that would thoroughly address the searcher’s query. In short, you should do what your competitors are doing but in a better way.
6. Getting Social
You should get social and go right to the source. See what your audience mostly uses platforms, and you should join them too. You can also use various social media to identify your competition. You can also take a look at who they follow and understand why they do that. Also, look at the type of content they are producing and the keywords they are using. This, of course, holds if they are providing content of similar value to yours.
Apart from this, it is also essential to become more social with your followers and audience. You can create polls asking them what they prefer and ask them about other sources of information they look out for. You should also know about the indirect competitor products they are using.
You can also use platforms like Reddit, Quora, and other niche websites to see what your audiences are talking about. When you know what they are looking to while making a decision that will help you promote your sales in a better way.
Before Growth Hackers tapped into social platforms for competitive and audience insights, marketing relied on assumptions. After listening directly to conversations online, our campaigns became more relevant and far more effective.
Now is the time to implement effective ideas for your SEO keyword research.
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7. Tacking The Local Pack
If you wish to rank in local searches, you must create a local keyword portfolio. The local pack is the result box displayed at the top of the SERP for queries related to “near me.” There are various factors that Google uses to evaluate a given content and list them in the pack. Besides updating, monitoring, and optimizing your GMB profile, it would help if you also considered the relevance, prominence, and distance to rank high in the local pack.
Keep a close eye on your competitors and see how they move through the local pack. It would be best if you also did a deep analysis of the keywords they are using to understand their position better. Look for the similarities and differences in the given and targeted keyword queries, and ensure to include them in your content.
At Growth Hackers, we helped local businesses (e.g. HVAC companies, contractors, law firms, restaurants…) dominate the local pack by building targeted keyword portfolios and optimizing Google Business Profiles for maximum visibility.
8. Links And Mentions
Another great way to find your competitors is by looking for their links and mentions. It can include going through the review site or even the affiliate-focus blogs to see the people making them. It can turn out to be a valuable online conversion for you.
It will be a much better situation if you can find reputable and authoritative sites with a large follower base and provide links and mentions in their content. Growth Hackers once mapped out a Fintech client’s competitor backlinks and mentions, and by leveraging similar high-authority placements, we helped them have their own site gain visibility and drive qualified traffic.
This strategy is one of the best ways of discovering high-authority and strong competitors. It will also help you know the unique and upcoming competitors trying to gain a stronghold over the market.
Once you find such sites and the links, click on the link and see the content to perform deep keyword analysis. Also, go through their on-page optimization and keep a close eye on how their content was positioned. It would help you serve the intent of the searcher and help you understand the factors that made the content link-worthy.
To Sum Up: 8 Effective Competitive Analysis Ideas For Improved SEO Keyword Research
So, what have we learned? First and foremost, that doing a good competitive analysis is essential for any SEO campaign. Reverse SEO has proven to work when done well. You should audit what your direct and indirect competitors are doing, find low-hanging fruit keywords and produce better and more insightful content than them. You should be careful when monitoring competitors though.
By understanding your competitors (both direct and indirect), you can develop a strategy that will help you rank higher than them. Secondly, there are a variety of different ways to conduct a competitive analysis, so find the one that works best for you and stick with it. Finally, always be on the lookout for new competitors who may not be ranking yet but could soon become major players in your industry. Utilize these tips to stay ahead of the competition and improve your SEO keyword research today!
Growth Hackers is an award-winning keyword research agency helping businesses from all over the world grow. There is no fluff with Growth Hackers. We help entrepreneurs and business owners by implementing effective competitive analysis ideas for their SEO keyword research, driving targeted traffic, generating qualified leads, optimizing their conversion rate gathering and analyzing data analytics, acquiring and retaining users and increasing sales.
We go further than brand awareness and exposure. We make sure that the strategies we implement move the needle so your business grow, strive and succeed. If you too want your business to reach new heights, contact Growth Hackers today so we can discuss about your brand and create a custom growth plan for you. You’re just one click away to skyrocket your business.
