Competitive analysis - we use someone else's experience effectively

The algorithm for analyzing competitor sites is akin to an investigation or, if you like, espionage. "Chips" and methods of colleagues in the business shop are spying on everyone, while no one considers himself a voyeur, but real Stirlitz have their own methods of collecting the necessary information. What is the arsenal of a "spy" with experience and is it necessary to analyze competitors' websites in order to promote their own resource?

Basics of collecting data on competitor sites

To unravel the SEO strategy of your rival in the business field, to understand how his site got to the top position, and how much money it took, you need to painstakingly and meticulously research it.

1. Meta tags. We drive in the query of interest in the search bar, go "on a visit" to the first 5-10 sites and see how the description, title and keywords are filled. We wind on a mustache and draw conclusions, at the same time we determine for what requests the competitors' website is being promoted. Naturally, attention should be paid not only to the main page, but also to other sections of the site.
2. Keywords. Having familiarized yourself with the main queries for which a competitor promotes its resource, it will not be superfluous to determine the traffic of these keywords. To help - numerous services of search engines. Having determined the keyword frequency indicators, you can understand the significance of each specific request for the site and form your own semantic core based on this data.
3. Sickle - search results page. The number of clicks to the site depends on the attractiveness of the title, snippet (page description) and even the favicon icon. Does the competitor's site look nice in Yandex and Google search results? Does the description match the search intent, how and how many times is the keyword used? Again, we take note of the information received.
4. Content. We pass directly to the content of the site, there are a lot of interesting things here. For example, the density of keywords in the text, their location and highlighting with the strong tag. We carefully look at how often the request occurs in the header, and at the h1-h6 headers themselves. Let's take a quick look at all kinds of pictures-photo-images, they also attract additional traffic to the site after the search engines index the alt attribute.
5. Links. Here begins the most exciting stage of "espionage". Link promotion has not been canceled, it still remains an important component of successful website promotion. Analysis of external links to competitors' resources will allow you to calculate the future budget of SEO promotion. First of all, you should pay attention to the so-called "trust" or "eternal" incoming links.
6. Age and speed. To some extent, the position of the site in the search results is affected by the age of the site and domain. By the way, these are two completely different indicators. Search engines often have more “old people are honored everywhere” than “young people are dear everywhere”, they do not favor young and inexperienced resources, preferring venerable old-timer sites. However, you should not assume that there is no place under the sun for newbies in the top of the issue, especially if they have no problems with the speed of loading the pages of the site.

Competitor website analysis strategy

Website promotion is not an easy task, precisely because no one knows for sure how search engine ranking algorithms work. It is also possible to blindly make changes to the site and wait for the weather from the sea, but this method is more difficult to control and predict, not to mention significant financial costs. It is better to conduct your own experiments after visible results have been achieved, and business and the site in search results will go uphill.

The strategy for analyzing competitor sites is to find out their secrets and understand what they have that you do not have.

Not SEO Alone

You can also get a significant part of the ideas regarding the design, usability and functionality of the site from competitors. It is worth paying attention to:

• prices;
• management;
• Additional services;
• feedback forms;
• availability of video content;
• types of communication channels;
• certificates, awards and other regalia;
• reviews and recommendations;
• section "News" or "Useful tips".

The presence or absence of this or that item on most sites will prompt the necessary measures to optimize the resource.

The article has almost come to an end and here we will answer the question asked at the very beginning. Our answer is yes. Yes, competitor site analysis is a time-consuming, complex process that requires special knowledge, skills and time. Nevertheless, in the end, it will not only give a general idea of the state of the market, but will also help save money on website optimization and promotion.