Competitive Analysis of Digital Marketing Competitor analysis can imply very diverse things in various industries. For a boxer, this entails poring over hours of videotapes of a potential opponent, analyzing his trainers, and comprehending his conditioning. Examining a competitor’s website as well as their web presence in general. Their actions, and the techniques they use, are very multifaceted tasks.
For this blog, we will outline the key areas you should expect to be covered. And why they are essential for understanding your competition.
Surface-level analyses are frequently doable on your own. But deeper analyses necessitate knowledge and skills that many individuals lack because they don’t use them in their day-to-day operations. This is where a professional competitor study may be very helpful.
Website Audit
This is the most observable aspect of any Competitor Analysis. On the surface, it’s simply examining their website to see what works and what doesn’t. This can be an excellent source of inspiration for your website. Benchmarking against competitors is a great way to see if you’re outperforming them and can often explain why you’ve seen a sudden increase or decrease in visits or conversions. If a competitor has launched a new website that is slicker and easier to use than yours, this could explain why your conversions have dropped.
Similarly, if you suddenly see a significant rise in conversions, you should investigate why. For example, if a Competitor Analysis website is down, you know that this change in fortune may only be temporary and can factor that into your future actions.
The more in-depth level of analysis considers things like load times, server response times, and overall website responsiveness. Pages with a lot of images may look nice, but they load slowly, which turns off some potential customers. Integrations, such as Map Apps on ‘find us’ pages, seem nice but may significantly increase page load times, which might cause a loss of clients.
An additional feature of a website check is to make sure that every page of a website is not only adaptable to various screen sizes and browsers but also friendly to them. It’s one thing for a page to respond to different screen sizes. But it’s not ideal if that response is simply to make everything smaller and cluttered. If you find out your rivals are failing to do these things, you have an advantage. It may indicate that focusing on the mobile-using audience is the best way to go until your competitors catch up with you!
Organic Presence
This is very simple to do, but understanding the finer points of measuring Organic Presence to a useful degree takes time.
‘Company A’ Results ‘Company A Trustworthy?
It takes time to find the right search words for many companies, goods, and places.
Identifying areas for improvement in your own business as well as weaknesses. Your competitors are an excellent way to boost brand recognition and trust. Numerous factors influence how Google ranks your site and pages. Many of these are related to the ‘back-end’ of your site that you may be unaware of, especially if you outsource your web development.
SEO/Keywords
SEO is similar to PPC in that everyone and their dog has heard of it, has a hazy understanding of what it is, and that’s about it. Identifying keywords shared by you and your competitors, as well as those you don’t, is critical. On the other hand, you can concentrate on enhancing those keywords in which you already demonstrate dominance. Unfortunately, there will be times when you simply will not be able to rank organically for a keyword you desire. Proper trend analysis can help you gain and demonstrate authority during ‘down’ periods for keywords with predictable trends.
Having full awareness of your Competitor Analysis keyword words. As well as maps of their search traffic will assist inform both your own Organic and Paid Search strategy going ahead. Additionally, it demonstrates how seriously they approach their digital marketing efforts and the techniques they use. One method is needed to counteract cycles of focus and decay. Another approach is needed to maintain authority and domination around a small number of keywords.
The breadth of the material examined and the depth of the analysis is crucial for developing strategic insight. Finding the keywords that your rivals are currently ranking for is simple. In the long run, knowing what their plan is (or isn’t) will help you develop a thorough SEO/Organic strategy that allows you to stay ahead of them.
Local Presence
The rise of ‘near-me’ search terms is well documented, but even without them, local searches account for a significant portion of product/service-based search terms. After all, what good is simply searching ‘Self-Storage’ if no location filter is used? Knowing whether your competitors are fully utilizing all of the Local Directory Listings informs you of additional easy wins.
Most businesses are aware that they should have claimed and completed their Google My Business (formerly Google Places) listings by now. Surprisingly few businesses have implemented any strategy to ensure that their reviews are linked to these listings. A thorough review of all Local Directories will reveal where your competitors have left gaps that you can fill in as little as a few minutes.
Paid Search Audit
This is difficult to accomplish without the necessary knowledge and tools. With these tools, you can gain a lot of insight into your competitors’ Paid Search habits, estimate their budgets, and understand the balance they strike between Paid and Organic Search.
When either is ignored, that is your cue to push it!
Social Media
This is another area that is difficult to analyze effectively without certain tools that the vast majority of businesses will not have. On the surface, you can perform actions similar to the Website Audit. Examine your competitors’ feeds to see what they do well and what they do poorly. Use this to help you develop your own Social Media Strategy.
This is another area that is difficult to analyze effectively without certain tools that the vast majority of businesses will not have. On the surface, you can perform actions similar to the Website Audit. Examine your competitors’ feeds to see what they do well and what they do poorly. Use this to help you develop your own Social Media Strategy.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of everything that should be included in a Competitor
Analysis, but it should give you an idea of what to think about.
We hope you enjoyed this article, intended to help improve our client’s profitability.
A competitor analysis prepares you for success.
The completion of a competitive analysis is not the end of your strategic planning process. Use the information you’ve gathered to help you make strategic decisions. To examine your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, conduct a SWOT analysis. This can assist you in sorting through the data and identifying actionable next steps for your company.
