Today’s Ask An SEO question comes from Peter, who asks:
“What is the risk of focusing on what competitors are doing, as opposed to charting your own path? If all competitors are looking at each other, there are no differentiators.
Great question, Peter! And one that comes up a lot.
If a company focuses on what its competitors and industry leaders are doing, it is not creating a better user experience and better solutions for search engine queries.
It goes beyond having no differentiations, but the idea is the same: if everyone is equal, there can still only be one winner.
That includes a position in SEO, but also who promotes a top funnel affiliate based on being unique, which company gets the SMS and email subscriber because it has a better UX, etc.
But before I go into detail about your question, there are two important things to look at with your competitors.
Always Watch What The Leader Is Doing, And Who Is Mimicking Them
If you know what the leader is doing, and who is following the leader, you can see trends and patterns as they fail and win.
This will give you insight into what works and what doesn’t.
By the time you know if it makes sense for you to try something, you’ll have time to learn by watching others’ mistakes while using the time to create a better overall website.
Make Sure The Pages They’re Testing And Changing Are Important For SEO
I, and some of my colleagues, mark pages on client sites that are not important for SEO.
We test them for other channels, knowing that SEO traffic is not important for that specific page. We also know that competitors are looking at these pages and will make the same changes.
When the changes are made, the competitors shoot themselves in the foot, and we move forward.
A great example is a company with a large amount of branded search traffic.
If brand search is the main traffic driver to the homepage, in some collections or categories, SEO on that page is probably not important.
These are the ones where we test UX and average order value (AOV). Our testers don’t worry about what happens to SEO because brand traffic finds it anyway.
Our competitors usually don’t think about it and hurt themselves. Sometimes we did this on purpose to get ahead of them.
On the other end, if everyone is looking at the leader (and everyone else), and you do something different, you can be clear to get ahead of the curve.
Non-SEO pros at those companies may say, “But they do that, there must be a reason for that,” and then follow.
That gives you a clear way to do your own thing and stay off their radars.
If this is your situation, use it to your advantage.
Create a lightning-fast site with clear messaging that says exactly what the page is about.
Now add support documentation, an easy checkout, trust builder, related content (if you’re a publisher), and features that other sites lack.
Features could be lifestyle shots, testimonials, FAQs, specifications, or even extra copy blocks that share uses for the product and compatibility information.
When everyone is focused on each other, you can use this opportunity to do what they are missing and focus on the winners.
This situation also gives you a chance to open related searches, entities and complementary topics.
Once you have them, create related videos for YouTube and see if you can find influencers and content creators to bring attention to your content while your competitors are all doing the same thing.
You do something different becomes more attractive because it is unique in the room.
By focusing on your own path, you set yourself up for success.
And by keeping an eye on what everyone else is doing, you can learn from their mistakes—especially when they crash and burn.
When they do, jump in and take over.
And don’t just think about SEO – look at it from every marketing point of view.
Do you have questions about SEO? Submit via this form.
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Competitive Analysis in Marketing Every brand can benefit from regular competitor analysis. By performing a competitor analysis, you may be able to: Identify gaps in the market. Develop new products and services.
How can I track my competitors keywords?
How to do competitor keyword analysis
- Use competitive analysis templates. …
- Create a list of your top SERP competitors. …
- Identify keyword gaps and content gaps. …
- Understand your audience and your competitors. …
- Create audience-centric and SEO-optimized content to fill content gaps. …
- Track your competition’s performance.
Can you target competitor keywords? Targeting competitor keywords helps you appear on the same SERPs (search engine results pages) as your competitors. You can also use competitor keyword research to discover weaknesses, such as valuable keywords they are not targeting yet.
Is it possible to scan the website of your competitor to search for keywords idea?
It’s a matter of finding out what keywords your competitors are targeting, what they’re doing to rank for them, and how you can beat them. A thorough SEO competitive analysis will give you all these golden nuggets of information and more.
What are 3 competitive advantage strategies?
There are three different types of competitive advantages that companies can actually use. They are cost, product/service differentiation, and niche strategies.
What are the 3 generic strategies for competitive advantage? The two basic types of competitive advantage combined with the scope of activities for which a company seeks to achieve it lead to three generic strategies for achieving above-average performance in an industry: cost leadership, differentiation and focus.
What are the 3 types of competitive advantage?
There are three main types of sustainable competitive advantage: differentiation, cost leadership, and focus advantage.
What are the 3 competitive strategies?
Key points. Michael Porter defines three types of strategies that can achieve a competitive advantage. These strategies are cost leadership, differentiation and market segmentation (or focus).
What are the 4 competitive advantages?
The four primary methods of gaining a competitive advantage are cost leadership, differentiation, defensive strategies and strategic alliances.
What are the important elements of a competitive analysis?
A competitive analysis should examine your competitors’ features, market share, pricing, marketing, differentiators, strengths, weaknesses, geography, culture and customer reviews.
What are the 4 components of competitive analysis? This framework is based on the following four key aspects of a competitor: competitor objectives. Competitors assumptions. Competitor strategy. competitor skills.
What are the five key competitive advantages?
Competitive advantages are attributed to several factors, including cost structure, branding, the quality of product offerings, the distribution network, intellectual property, and customer service.
What is the key competitive advantage? These factors allow the productive entity to generate more sales or superior margins compared to its market rivals. Competitive advantages are attributed to several factors, including cost structure, branding, the quality of product offerings, the distribution network, intellectual property, and customer service.
What are the 4 competitive advantages?
The four primary methods of gaining a competitive advantage are cost leadership, differentiation, defensive strategies and strategic alliances.
What are the 4 factors of competitive advantage?
Four factors help the company establish and maintain competitive advantage, namely superior efficiency, quality, innovation and accountability to the customer. Each of these factors are the result of a different competence of a company.
What are the 3 types of competitive advantage?
There are three main types of sustainable competitive advantage: differentiation, cost leadership, and focus advantage.
How do I find my competitors hashtags?
Search for Hashtag Here, instead of checking the results of the “Accounts” tab, you want to explore “Tags”. You will see a list of hashtags that contain “sustainable”. Each hashtag will show you a bunch of posts from different accounts. From here you can decide which competitors you want to follow.
How do I see my competitors audience on Instagram? Socialbakers is a social media intelligence gathering tool that can be used for Instagram competitor analysis. You can use it to analyze the market, your audience and your competitors. Its competitive analysis feature allows you to compare and benchmark your Instagram performance with that of your competitors.
How do you analyze competitors on Instagram for free?
Phlanx. If you want detailed analysis on your competitors or even on specific influencers, Phlanx is the perfect tool to use. It measures Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, making it ideal if you’re running an influencer campaign and need to analyze potential influencers and their audience demographics.
How do you get free competitive Insights on social media?
Find out which brands similar to yours your audience likes Another way to find competitors is to check similar brands that your audience follows on social networks. Facebook Audience Insights and Twitter Analytics are good for getting these insights.
Is there a free Instagram Analyzer?
Although plans range from $49 to $199 per month, you can do a free Instagram account checkup. The free Instagram analytics checkup connects with Instagram to analyze the last 30 days of activity on your account, including your posts and engagement from your fans, to give you critical insights on how to improve.