1. Online

  • Identifying Online Competitors
    • Determine your client's priority products/service areas
    • Investigate how these products/services are being discussed online
    • Take note of commonly listed brands/orgs
  • Monitor Online Competitors
    • Analyze SERP for primary keyword searches
    • Run analysis of top ranking pages
    • Leverage online tools for ongoing monitoring
    • Sign-up/Follow the competition

2. Paid Analysis

  • Gather Competitor Data (PPC)
    • Login to Spyfu or similar competitor analysis tool
    • Run overview reports on key competitors
  • Analyzing Competitor Data
    • Review core keywords and competitors' priority terms
    • Perform ad analysis
    • Review competitor landing pages (starting with priority terms)
    • Analyze competitors' & create hierarchy
    • Prioritze and strategize

3. Backlink Analysis

  • Find backlinks
    • Use Moz to compare link metrics
    • Use Moz to export inbound links and linking domains
    • Organize data into Excel or Google Sheets
  • Analyze backlinks
    • Sort links by quality (page & domain authority)
    • Determine what type of sites and content are linking back to your competitors
    • Create a list of websites to target

4. Content Analysis

  • Review competitor websites
    • Find where their content lives
    • Make a list of content types available
    • Find the quantity of each content type published
    • Determine how frequently each content type is published
    • Evaluate content quality
  • Conduct a competitor backlink analysis
    • Determine the number of guest posts or news articles written by the competitor
  • Use a tool like Social Crawlytics & Buzzumo to analyze content sharing
    • Determine which content & pages are the most shared/most popular