Comparison SEO: What Is It and Why Should You Use It?

Are you interested in creating targeted SEO content with proven success rates?

If this sounds like a good idea, comparison SEO might be a helpful strategy for your business.

This form of search engine optimization involves tracking your competitor’s SEO to see which techniques work best for your industry. Since the modern digital landscape is filled with so many competitors, comparison SEO can be one of the best ways to make your company stand out.

If you’re interested in comparison SEO, explore our guide. We’ll explain how it works, so you can see why it’s so effective. Though every comparison SEO strategy will differ slightly, every business follows these steps.

Identifying Your Top Competitors

The first and most important step is simply finding the right competitors to compare your SEO to. If you select the wrong competitors, you can follow ineffective strategies or make decisions that won’t work for your unique business.

Ideally, your competitors need to be other businesses that offer the same good or service, have the same target demographic, and work in the same location as you. They also need to be doing well in your industry since you don’t want to waste time competing with a failing business. Here are some techniques you can use to find your top competitors.

• Google search queries: Looking at search engine results can often show competitors who write about topics similar to your business. Try entering keywords relevant to your business and seeing which companies appear first. It’s crucial to have clear, suitable, and match the user’s search terms to increase your ranking.
• Keyword research tools: Using professional keyword research comparison tools lets you see which businesses are attempting to target keywords in your industry. Thousands of keyword suggestions are available as well to assist you in improving your website rankings.
• Industry and market analysis: Market research takes time but is highly effective. Use industry statistics, social media, local business organizations, and other resources to learn about the market you want to enter.
• Customer feedback: Your potential customers are a great resource because they’ve also spent much time looking at businesses in your industry. Use social media and internet forums to see what companies your customers often choose.

Analyzing Your Competitors’ Keywords

One of the most significant advantages of comparison SEO is that it helps you find keywords to target. You can identify which keywords help your competitors get so much traffic using keyword analytics. Side-by-side comparisons often show which keywords perform best for all your competitors. This lets you develop an SEO strategy that incorporates these valuable keywords. Aside from using their keywords, keyword analysis can also give you ideas for new products and new marketing strategies.

Comparison SEO is far more than just copying your competitor’s successful strategies. When done correctly, it also helps you find ways to outcompete similar businesses. The right keyword analytics lets you find opportunities your competitors need to catch up on. For example, they might frequently target “local restaurants,” but it turns out that the keyword “restaurants near me” actually gets more hits each day. You can use this information to emphasize good keywords your competitors have overlooked.

Evaluating and Improving Your Competitors’ Content

Of course, more than keywords are needed to make your business succeed. Once a customer finds your business through a keyword, you must also offer engaging content that makes them stick around. Comparison SEO includes several techniques for standing out from your competitors. You must look closely at their site and try one or more of the following strategies.

Look for Content Gaps

An overview of competitors’ sites often reveals major topics they must remember. For example, you both might sell custom tee shirts, but they have yet to tell customers how their tee shirt sizing works. Use this insight to create a website that offers more value than your competitors’ does. Any relevant topic they need to cover is an opportunity for you.

Create Longer Content

A simple yet highly-effective comparison SEO technique is to create a longer version of your competitor’s content. Due to how most search engine algorithms work, long content is prioritized in search rankings. If you can flesh out a small 300-word article into an in-depth 1,000-word article, it’s often easy to outrank your competitors. Not only do you keep customers on your site for longer, but you also have more chances to work on keywords.

Integrate Multimedia

Do your competitors use simple articles filled with text? Research shows clients are more engaged when you include videos, pictures, and other media. Creating your version of the content that incorporates things like charts or infographics is an easy way to make a website that clients will prefer.

Offer Expert Insights

SEO comparison is all about finding ways to offer your customers more than your competitors can. In some industries, expert insights are a great way to do this. Things like interviews with industry celebrities or tips from respected specialists allow you to improve on your competitors’ content strategies.

Conducting Analysis of Your Competitors’ Backlinks

Backlinks are an often overlooked yet essential part of SEO. A backlink is a link on another site that directs people to your site. Backlinks help with search rankings because they are essentially a vote of trust. When another reputable site has a backlink, Google sees it as proof that your site offers helpful, high-quality information.

Since backlinks are so important, a good comparison SEO strategy involves closely analyzing your competitors’ backlink profiles. Using backlink analysis tools, you can see who mentions your competitors and why. This information helps you identify companies and sites willing to backlink your business. It also tells you what content is most likely to lead to backlinks.

This information from your competitors gives you great ideas for building a strong backlink profile for your company. You can start by creating helpful content, such as local guides or statistical discussions, that others will want to reference. Reaching out to sites that have worked with your competitors can also be beneficial. You already know the sites are interested in your industry and willing to provide backlinks, so you can network with them to suggest guest blogs or other backlinking opportunities.

Comparing Technical SEO Performance

Remember to look at your competitor’s technical performance when doing comparison SEO. Technical SEO refers to the process of optimizing a website for search engines. No matter how good your content is, it might struggle to climb the keyword rankings if it’s not accessible to Google’s search algorithms. When analyzing technical SEO, take a close look at these critical factors.

• Site speed: Use Google Analytics to check out the speed of your website. Sites that load faster get a better ranking, so it pays to compress images, minify code, and use content distribution networks.
• Mobile friendliness: A mobile-friendly site ranks higher on mobile and desktop browsers. Luckily, Google’s SEO tools make it easy to check for mobile-friendliness, and they also recommend changes like narrowing content or increasing the text size.
• Site structure: Remember that search engines are machines that don’t read text like humans. You need to structure your data if you want a higher rank carefully. Simple things like labeling headlines can be beneficial.
• Security: Search engines like Google and Bing prioritize user safety and prefer to direct users to sites with a secure HTTPS version. To upgrade your security, all you need to do is get a free SSL certificate.
• Duplication: If Google believes that your site has duplicated content, it will need to know which version of the site to direct users to. This can lead to lower metrics overall. Check your site for the best results to ensure there’s no duplicate content. Little issues like having a “www” version of your site can count as duplication.

If you notice that your competitors have significantly better website design and performance, it might be a sign that you need to upgrade. It can be hard to do well if you aren’t investing energy into your website performance. You don’t necessarily need to spend thousands of dollars on high-end web development, but you must ensure your site runs smoothly and is updated to meet modern standards.

Monitoring Your Competitors’ Online Presence

The final factor you must consider when doing comparison SEO is social media and online presence. Though you can learn a lot just by looking at a business’ website, you get a bigger picture of their marketing strategy when you see their online activity. Taking the time to analyze their social media and other online activities can be helpful.

When looking at social media, consider the frequency of posts and overall posting habits. This can help you see whether your customers respond better to professional, humorous, informative, or friendly social media discussions. You can then tailor your online presence to create a voice that suits your customer base. As you analyze their social media content, consider how frequently they link to their business web page and how often they run promotional deals.

Remember that many businesses use more than just traditional Facebook and Twitter profiles. Use search tools to see every facet of a company’s online presence. Some may run another store through Amazon or post content in the business owner’s name. These factors can affect SEO, so you must thoroughly search to ensure you get all the suitable social media strategies.

Planning Continuous Analysis of Your Competitors

Things are constantly changing in the fast-paced digital marketing environment, so comparison SEO needs to be an ongoing process. Though you can use comparison SEO to find successful strategies and discover room for improvement, your competitors might also use similar tools. Therefore, forgetting about them for weeks can lead to you getting outranked again.

For best results, creating a standard tracking routine is a good idea. Make sure to check in with your competitor weekly or monthly. During these regular checkups, consider how their SEO strategy has shifted and see which new keywords they’ve started focusing on. This allows you to notice industry trends as soon as they happen and stay caught up.

Ultimately, comparison SEO can be an excellent tool for business owners, but remember that it’s just a tiny part of your overall SEO strategy. At SEO North, we focus on providing clients with individualized SEO plans. Our team combines techniques such as technical SEO audit, on-page and off-page optimization to create comprehensive SEO that increases traffic and conversion rates. If you are interested in expanding your reach and finding dedicated engaged clients, contact SEO North to get started.

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Published on: 2023-04-20
Updated on: 2023-05-05

Isaac Adams-Hands

Isaac Adams-Hands is the SEO Director at SEO North, a company that provides Search Engine Optimization services. As an SEO Professional, Isaac has considerable expertise in On-page SEO, Off-page SEO, and Technical SEO, which gives him a leg up against the competition.