What should you consider when doing SEO Competitor Research?
Your competitor in the real world may be very different from your competitor in the digital space. That’s because online, and in the SEO world, you are competing with sites who are ranking for the same keywords that you’re targeting for your business. So when it comes to doing competitive research, you’ll want to consider the sites ranking for your target keywords as the ones you need to research rather than focussing on those you think are your competitors.
If you’re new to SEO, and haven’t a clue of where to begin, then you should involve a data-driven SEO company to do this competitor research for you.
How to choose the right competitors for analysis?
Your top rivals are websites that are promoted by the same keywords as you and are competing with your site for the top positions in organic results. These rivals should be divided into:
- direct (companies that sell the same product to the same customer group as you);
- indirect (such firms sell other goods or services with similar qualities, but at the same time their target audience is the same as yours).
Competitive SEO research is needed to identify key contenders. The main principle is to take into the study only those sites that are most similar to yours. If you are a small furniture store, feel free to remove aggregators, large stores (Hoff, Ikea), design sites, and portals from the list of opponents. Leave only the same small furniture stores as yours. If they are not in the search results for the selected queries, then you will probably have no chance to get into the TOP for these queries as well.