Site and Competition Analysis

In order to maximize your benefits from using an SEO service, an accurate baseline of your website needs to be compiled. After determining the current ranking of the website and analyzing the competition, we can form a strategy which is clear, realistic and cohesive. There are several key elements that are analyzed and improved upon in order to raise your website’s ranking.

One of the first things we do is put together a list of keywords for your business which can realistically be targeted by the site. The aim is to find an achievable niche within your particular industry.

The sites that get pulled up when those key words are entered into the search engine are your main competitors. The more, high search volume keywords your site has the more authoritative your domain is considered. It is very important in this step of the site analysis to focus on those businesses that are truly your competitors. If you are a ma & pa retail store, then large chains such as Bloomingdale’s, Target or Diesel would not be deemed direct competitors in this site analysis. We identify the targeted long tail terms and proceed to find sites that rank for those relevant terms, those are your competitors.

Our analysis looks for link velocity, domain authority, domain age, inbound links, social shares and a number of other related factors. A view of their sites backlinks provides information on how many high quality links will need to be targeted. We further analyze their topical trust flow to get a better idea of their semantic link profile and their key metrics are compared against the industry average.

It is important to ask questions such as  how many followers does that site have? How often do they post on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.? What is the rate at which they share updates on social media and what is their engagement ratio?. These are all questions we address during an audit of the site’s content and exposure to social media.

In our site and competition analysis we use the data collected to determine the barriers to entry and put together a strategy to increase your business. We use the averages of the data collected to determine the number, quality and the domain rank of the various links your site will need in order to begin showing up in the desired search results, taking care not to lean too heavily on key words used by those sites with a heavy domain presence. This way you get closer to the front page ahead of your competitors. Figuring out how many and the quality of links your site will need, based on topical categories, is another step in our analysis as well as whether they should be in a direct or a more generic niche, or even a related niche.

Monitoring the averages of how often the competition posts on social media will let us know how often your site needs to post and the number of followers you will need. This extends to the articles published on your site’s blog and any other media interactions.

It is critical to have accurate data to know exactly how much work is needed to get ahead of the competition. Otherwise, time and resources are expended without a comparable return on your investment.