Esther C Kane

One of the most underused methods, I think, of website optimization is the act of analyzing competitor websites.  There’s alot of talk about keyword research, optimizing meta tags and website pages, H1 tags, etc.  But not much about analyzing the competition.  So, here are some things that I do for my clients to identify what they’re up against in the Internet world.

1) Have a list of keyword phrases your website is marketing.  Knowing what your website is marketing is important.  Believe me, not many website owners know!

2) Create a list of keyword phrases your website is getting traffic for.  You might say, well, isn’t this the same as #1?  The short answer is, NO.  You might be marketing your website for the phrase “divorce attorney in Denver”, but you may be getting traffic, or more traffic, for the phrase “divorce lawyer in Denver”.  The point is, know what you’re trying to get traffic for and what you’re actually getting traffic for.

3) Armed with these two lists, you can now identify who your competition is.  A few months ago I got a phone call from a client and he asked me, how do you get these competitors you’re giving me on my report?  I don’t know them.  Well, my client may not know these companies, but they are ranking in the top 3 for some of the keyword phrases he wants to rank for!

4) So, type in each keyword phrase into Google and make a list (yes, lots of lists in this process) of the top 5 competitors.  After repeating this process with all your keyword phrases, you’ll be able to look at your list and see which website kept coming up time and time again for many of the same phrases that you’re marketing.  Pick the top 3 and you’ve got your list of your top competitors.

Now that you’ve identified your competition, you can begin the process of analyzing these sites.  Here’s how I do it.

1) Go to Google and do a site search.  Basically, you want to find out how many pages has Google indexed from each website?  To do this, you simply go to Google and in the search box type in “site:www.domain.com” – you do this without the quotes and of course, “domain” is replaced with the website you’re researching.  So, now you should have the number of pages that Google has indexed from your website as well as the top 3 competitors.

2) Next, you want to find out how much “talk” is out there about this domain?  This can be done through many program but I like www.howsociable.com.  Type in the domain name and you’ll not only get a number of mentions but you’ll also see where they are mentioned in the world of social media.  Again, do this for every domain, including yours.

3) Next, you’ll want to have an idea of the amount of traffic each website gets.  You know, it’s not always true that the number of pages reflect the amount of traffic.  So, just because another website may be larger, doesn’t mean it gets more traffic.  Anyway, I like to use www.compete.com for this research.  The free version is fine, and it can quickly give you an idea of the amount of traffic to a website.  (Of course, it’s not accurate, but it’s a good estimate).

4) Then, you want to know how many incoming links are coming in to each website.  To Google, incoming links is still a high priority in the game of ranking.  I like to use the tool at http://www.seomoz.org/linkscape – it’s quick, easy and gives me the information I need.

5) Lastly, I want to know what keyword phrases are bringing in traffic to each website.  That information can be taken from www.semrush.com.  Now, I have a subscription to that program (it’s great and absolutely worth every penny) so I’m not sure if the free version gives you this data but you can give it a try.  Knowing what keyword phrases are bringing in the most traffic can help you identify where to place your focus on your own website.

So, that’s how I analyze websites for my clients.  It’s not difficult, just time consuming and it takes a little bit of “analyzing” but it’s worth it.  Knowing what others are doing and more important, what’s working for others, is a great way to keep up with your competitors and with your target audience!