Analysis of competitors' websites: an extensive guide

By analyzing competitors, you can find out their promotion strategy. Why do I need this? Let's have a look at a few examples.

Suppose your competitor is a small online accessories store that receives more traffic. After a detailed analysis, you conclude that he receives an inflow of customers through social networks and contextual advertising, but the usability of his website is quite low, so customers don't come back to his website.

Another situation: a competitor receives a lot of traffic, his site is user-friendly, but he doesn't occupy top positions due to low-quality SEO optimization.

Third case: a competitor's site is similar to yours, but its position is much higher. We carry out the analysis and conclude that it is well optimized and carries out SEO promotion in social networks and contextual advertising.

After the analysis, you can collect all the strengths and weaknesses of competitors, compare them with your strategy, understand what you are doing wrong, and how to achieve better results.

However, there are some nuances to be taken into account. Of course, you get acquainted with the strategy of competitors by carrying out an analysis, and you better understand how things are going in your niche, but there are no exact guarantees that a similar strategy will work for you and, moreover, will work quickly. All these adjustments are implemented by trial and error, so be prepared for anything.

Before starting the analysis, it's important to identify direct competitors. You can know the competitors of your project by terms of a business, but they are not always competitors in search engines.

For example, a huge multi-store textile store will not be a direct competitor to a small online tulle store. Examine the situation in your niche and identify the leaders.

Often website owners see the niche with the eyes of an entrepreneur, not a user, and make a big mistake. When interviewing your customers and competitors, you will understand what they like, what doesn't suit, and why.

What questions to ask?

You need to have a set of keywords used for website promotion, i.e., a semantic core to be able to search for direct competitors manually. When you have the semantic core, you can check which other sites are ranked by these keywords in the search, and which of them is in the top.

Search for each query in a search engine you are interested in and see who is in the search results by the same keywords. It is important to remember that search engines often personalize the search and generate a SERP based on your past queries. Therefore, use the "Incognito" mode: in Google Chrome or Opera, use the key combination Ctrl + Shift + N, and in Mozilla use Ctrl + Shift + P for greater accuracy.

Enter the queries in each search engine one by one, as the search results are different.

Create a table and enter the websites that are ranked by the desired keywords. You will get an overall picture of your niche and recognize your closest competitors. After that, you can start the analysis.

After reviewing the results for all keywords, you will collect a database of the main competitors and be able to think out a plan for further actions.

However, manual search for competitors has a number of disadvantages:

To speed up the search for direct competitors and get more accurate and relevant data, you can automate the process and use special services. I'll show you how to build a database of competitors' websites quickly using Serpstat.

Enter your domain in the search bar on the Serpstat main page → select the database you need → click "Search". The service will display a summary report by the domain name.

The Serpstat chart will show the closest competitors of your domain based on the intersection of semantics. Your domain will always be in the upper right corner of the graph. Direct competitors are those websites that are located close to it at the intersection of the axes.

For a complete list of relevant competitors, go to Website Analysis → Domain Analysis → SEO Analysis → Competitors.

Serpstat also allows you to see competitors for a particular category or website page.

To get this data, enter the URL of the category or page with the https: // (or http) protocol in the search bar of the service and select the permanent register URL Prefix or URL.

Before giving a general description of a competitor's site, it's necessary to answer an important question: "Why can a potential customer choose it?". To do this, you need to analyze the key business features.In this case, you need to pay attention to:

• range of products offered by a competitor;
• prices for these products;
• interaction with the audience: promotions, discounts, bonuses, promotional codes, payment and delivery of goods;
• reviews that users leave on the website;
• customer support: an online consultant or chatbot that helps users make choices or place an order;
• participation in events aimed at increasing brand awareness, etc.

As a result of this analysis, you can identify which business aspects of your competitor are better from the point of view of the client, and introduce new ideas into the organization of your own business.

Website age is an unobvious, but an important factor in promotion. Young projects rarely get into the top results, or they are completely absent in the search engine index.

Why do you need to check the age of the website and domain

Search engines automatically search, crawl, and index new websites. You should have visitors on your website, its structure must be clear and logical; the site must be open and receive backlinks for a search robot to index it. But even the fulfillment of all Google's conditions doesn't guarantee that it will be immediately noticed and registered into the database.

The first year is the most difficult for the website. At this time, the level of trust of search engines to the website starts to take shape.

This metric may be different depending on the search engines and location. The trust of a resource is affected by the age of the website, the quality of the link mass, volume, subjects, and relevance of the queries.

You can check the level of trust with Serpstat. Enter the domain in the search bar on the main page and click "Search". Go to the "Backlink Analysis" section and see the Summary Report.

Information about lost and received links will help to adjust the SEO strategy and increase its effectiveness. The metrics SPR (Serpstat Page Rank) and STR (Serpstat Trust Rank) show the website trust level based on the quantity and quality of the link mass.

WhoIs will show all the information about the website: date and place of registration, registrar's name, and contact details.

Indexing is the process of viewing a website with a Google or any other search engine crawler, during which the robot checks all page elements and enters (or doesn't enter, if they don't meet the requirements) into its index (database).

Why do you need to check the degree of website indexing

The vast majority of users get to your website through search engines. If the pages of the website are not indexed, the user simply will not be able to find them. The more pages the website entered in the search engine index, the higher its potential traffic. That is why checking website indexation is a must when analyzing competitors' websites.

How to check indexing

The number of indexed pages can be checked using the site: operator in Google. Type the command and domain address in the search bar and press Search.

If the number of pages indexed on your website is much less than competitors' one, find out what the problem is. For example, your website may have an illogical structure or deep nesting of pages, which prevents the search engine from reaching them. Pay attention to the structural configuration of other sites, and include useful "chips" in your strategy.

You can use the Serpstat service to find out the amount of traffic on a competitor's website. To do this, enter the address of a competitor's website in the search bar of the service and click "Search".Learning from the mistakes of others and adopting winning techniques of leaders has long been a sign of a competent leader. And traffic analysis plays an important role in this case.

Visiting is the main parameter for assessing the popularity of a resource. It's because many entrepreneurs are trying by any means to get information about traffic on the competitor's website and its sources.

Why do you need to check the amount of traffic on competitors' websites

To develop a competent promotion strategy, traffic estimation tools for other websites are needed to know who to focus on and what results can be achieved with promotion.

In addition to analyzing the potential of the industry, checking the traffic of someone else's website will help to:

• determine whether to buy a particular domain;
  
• select websites for guest posts;
  
• find out the conversion of competing sites;
  
• find their strengths and weaknesses;
  
• choose an example to strive for in terms of content and usability.
  

How to determine competitors' traffic

You can use the Serpstat service to find out the amount of traffic on a competitor's website. To do this, enter the address of a competitor's website in the search bar of the service and click "Search".

You will see the Total traffic indicator in the Serpstat report. This is the potential amount of traffic on the website per month. This is an estimated metric that correlates with real domain traffic. Serpstat calculates the total traffic based on the CTR, the number of domain keywords, and the domain position for these keywords.

More detailed information about traffic on the website can be obtained using SimilarWeb. Enter the website address in the search bar on the main page and press Enter.

The service will give you complete information about traffic on the website in numbers and graphs. The report includes the following indicators:

SimilarWeb also allows you to compare site traffic. Click on the plus sign marked with the number 5 in the screenshot and enter the address of the competitor.

Below you can see from which countries the website receives the most traffic from.

This data will be useful if you want to enter foreign markets, and your competitor has already done so. Analyze the traffic distribution from other countries and the methods by which it is promoted abroad.

Next, find out the main channels of competitor traffic to understand where visitors come from. If your strategy doesn't include any of the promising sources of traffic, then go for it!

The next diagram shows what percentage of traffic a competitor receives from organic search and which from paid delivery.

Here you will find the top 5 keywords for which a competitor is ranked in the organic search and used in advertising campaigns.

Next, you will see how much of the total traffic comes to the website from social networks, as well as the percentage of visits on a particular resource.

If you need to check the activity of social activity at a specific URL, you can use the service buzzsumo.com.

If your competitor receives a good increase in users from social networks, and you don't use them, then it's time to start using social networks as well. Take an example from other websites:

• what content they post;
  
• how often;
  
• what their subscribers like more.
  

Perhaps the path of these websites to such a result was a long one, and you just need to use their experience and do better!

Website visibility is an indicator that determines the number of impressions for keywords that are at the top of search results.

To put it simply, visibility is how well the website is "visible" in the search. The higher this indicator, the more visited the website will be.

Why do you need to analyze the visibility of competitors' websites

When working with visibility, it's important to compare your metrics with other websites on the same topic. Such an analysis will help to evaluate the effectiveness of SEO optimization carried out on the website and compare the level of optimization.

How to determine website visibility

Check the visibility of your website and competitors using Serpstat. To do this, enter the domain name in the search bar of the service and click "Search". Serpstat will redirect you to the Summary Report.

After scrolling the report down, you will see a graph of the dynamics of site visibility over the past year and its minimum and maximum numbers.

By analyzing the semantics of competitors, you can find additional ways to bring traffic to your website. For example, you may find missing keywords that will be useful for your project. Also, the analysis of semantics can help in the preparation of a content plan for creating new pages, updating old ones or adjusting website linking.

To begin with, it is worth comparing the semantics of successful competitors and your website. This will help you understand how competitive your site is. You also need to find keywords that you might miss.

Why?

All sites are promoted under a specific list of keywords that reflect its theme. According to them, search engines rank the website, and potential customers find a resource on the network. Searching for missed keywords will help enrich the pages of the website with effective semantics that work for competitors and bring them traffic.

How to do this?

Both of these operations can be performed simultaneously with Serpstat in minutes. Enter the domain address in the search bar of the service → select a search system → go to the "Website Analysis" section → select the "Domain Analysis / SEO-Analysis / Domain vs. Domain" tab.

Enter the addresses of competitors' sites in the corresponding fields or select them from the list offered by Serpstat. Click Compare.
By analyzing the semantics of competitors, you can find additional ways to bring traffic to your site. For example, you may find missing keywords that will be useful for your project. Also, the analysis of semantics can help in the preparation of a content plan for creating new pages, updating old ones, or adjusting website linking.

Once you have analyzed the semantics of competitors and found missing keywords, you need to understand how the keys are distributed on the website pages.

Why?

If a competitor is ranked in a search engine higher than your website, you may have incorrectly allocated keywords to the site pages.

How to this?

You can check the distribution of keywords among the website pages using the unique "Site map" Serpstat report.

Enter the website address in the search bar of the service → go to the section "Website Analysis / Domain Analysis / SEO-analysis" → select "Site map".

In the report, you will see the website pages and those keywords by which they are ranked in the search results.

The logical and user-friendly structure of the website and the implementation of an extensive list of pages with the correct linking is half the success of the website!

Why do you need to analyze the structure of competitors' websites

To understand how to optimize the website correctly, increase its usability, and generally make it competitive. Compare the sites of competitors from the top search results with yours and think about what they have and what you don't have.

For example, you are the owner of an online store, and you don't know how much text to add to the product cards. The analysis of pages of successful competitors will help in this case. Have a look at their texts.

Compare everything that can attract users on the competitors' pages:

• check whether the website is user-friendly and by what it is implemented;
  
• what filters are used and what is their structure;
  
• what anchors are on the product listing pages;
  
• what descriptions are there on the pages;
  
• is there a blog and how is it designed;
  
• is the website loading speed high enough;
  
• which pages have become top-ranked and by what queries they are ranked.
  

This will help you understand which direction to move. But it's important to do everything wisely so as not to turn your website into an unsuccessful copy of a competitor's website.

How to check website loading speed

You can use the PageSpeed Insights service to check the website loading speed. Enter the page address in the search bar of the service and click "Check me". PageSpeed Insights will show you download speeds and troubleshooting tips.

You can also use Sitespeed.me:

Checking the website loading speed is also available in the Serpstat Site Audit module, but only for the domains for which the project was created and the audit carried out:

Serpstat will also help you to find the most traffic-generating pages of competitors. Enter the competitor's address in the search bar of the service and click "Search" → go to the section "Website Analysis / Domain Analysis" → click on the tab "SEO Analysis" → open the "Leader Pages" report.

The service will show all pages of the website in a hierarchical order. Here you can find all the keywords by which each page is ranked by clicking on their number in the "Keyword search" column.

Creating interesting content is the key to the success of your website. High-quality content of your website filled with useful information increases the level of trust in the brand, forms a loyal community, and attracts potential customers.

Why do you need to compare competitors' content

Content intelligence is one of the most effective techniques in content marketing. It's important to understand the competitors' content strategy and the tricks they use to attract an audience. An analysis of their top posts and a comparison of the content of competitors' websites with your own will help here.

How to do this?

We divide the website into page types:

• home page;
• website categories;
• product pages;
• a blog;
• other sample pages that can be found using Serpstat (see the previous paragraph).

Then we gradually analyze the content.

1. We check the home page and category pages:

• number of characters and words;
• meta tags title and description;
• the contents of the H1, H2, H3 headers;
• number of images, their size, Alt and Title attributes;
• use of lists;
• readability of the content and its usefulness;
• number of keywords and their occurrences;
• the presence of spamming methods.

By the way, this and much more can be checked using the Serpstat plugin for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.

2. For product pages you should check the following:

• availability of the product description and its information content;
• number of words and characters;
• use of spamming methods;
• list of all the characteristics of the products;
• availability of video reviews;
• availability of reviews, comments, ratings, and other useful data.

3. For blog:

• meta tags title and description;
• frequency of publications;
• what is the total amount of materials at the moment;
• what is the average volume of articles;
• the contents of the H1, H2, H3 headers;
• number of images, their size, Alt and Title attributes;
• use of lists;
• what subjects of articles;
• what is the general nature of the content: company news or user-friendly content.

Such a detailed analysis will help in drawing up your own content strategy, which will eliminate the drawbacks and mistakes made by competitors and include their advantages.

The analysis of the contents of the main meta tags of the Title, Description, Keywords, H1 headers should also be done by separating the website's pages by types, as in the previous example:

• home page;
• website categories;
• product pages;
• a blog;
• other sample pages that can be found using Serpstat (see the previous paragraph).

What do you need to check

• are the pages spammed with keywords?
• are synonyms included?
• how are meta tags created: using generation templates or manually?
• what is the structure of filling metadata?
• is there information about unique trading offers or motivation for action in the meta tags?

You can check the site's meta-information using the Serpstat tool "Website Audit" → "Personal Report". The service will analyze the pages and show the metadata of the website's pages.

You can compare the level of technical optimization of your website with a competitor and understand your strengths and weaknesses.

Read the user manual on how to audit the website.

If you need to precisely compare the page of your website with the competitor's page, our new page audit tool will help you.

Also, the information on the contents of the main meta tags and robots.txt of a particular page can be done using the Serpstat plugin, which is available for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.

If you want to configure contextual advertising, you need to conduct a PPC analysis of competitors.

Why do you need to analyze competitors

Unfortunately, there is no exact answer to the question. PPC experts have different opinions on this. Some experts believe that competitor analysis is just a waste of time. Others think that to analyze and understand the advertising strategy of related websites is a prerequisite for building your own. But there is no point in denying that it's worth researching the chips of successful niche websites. This will help to effectively customize advertising campaigns, taking advantage of niche leaders, and eliminating their disadvantages.

How to do this

You can't carry out an accurate analysis of competitors in the context without using special tools. I will show how to do this in a few steps using Serpstat.

Serpstat analyzes the semantics of a domain's ad campaign and shows relevant competitors. Enter the domain address in the search bar and select the search system → go to the "Website Analysis / Domain Analysis" section → go to the "PPC Analysis" tab → click on the "Competitors" report.

Carry out PPC analysis by keywords

It will be useful if contextual advertising is not yet configured. The service will show the closest competitors for each keyword.

We enter a keyword in the service search bar and select a region → Serpstat will redirect you to the "Keyword Analysis" section → go to the "PPC Analysis" tab → click on the "Competitors" report.

Both reports show relevant competitors in contextual advertising.

We collect ad options by keywords to understand which creatives are made for advertisements.

Enter a keyword in the service search bar and select a region → go to the section "Keyword Analysis / PPC Analysis" → click on the "Keywords" report.

Export the report and add keywords to the table. Collect variations of the keywords and check which special elements appear in the search results for it.

Such an analysis will help you to understand the general situation in your niche and see how competitors' websites serve themselves and how they influence the audience. The main role is played by headings and texts of ads. Let's look at them in more detail:

• what kind of ads do competitors make?
• what is their unique selling offer?
• what are the prices of competitors?
• how often are there promotions and bonuses?
  

To see competitors' ads in Serpstat, go to the "PPC Analysis / Announcements" report and analyze the appearance of advertisements by keyword.

Also, when analyzing competitors in PPC, it's important to find effective keywords for which you don't start advertising.

How to do this?

In the "Website Analysis / Domain Analysis" section, go to the "PPC Analysis" tab → select the "Domain vs. Domain" tool. Using it, you can conduct a parallel comparison of two or three domains.

We select competitors from those proposed by the service or enter manually in the appropriate fields, click "Compare".

On the pie chart, you will see how the amount of semantics in the PPC for each domain, their unique and general semantics are related.

The number of unique and common domain keywords is displayed on the right of the chart. All numbers are clickable: after clicking, Serpstat will redirect you to the corresponding report.

Now we have come up to the endpoint, namely, the landing page. This is exactly the place where all enticing ads and colorful creatives bring potential customers. However, the money spent on advertising will be wasted if the landing page is unattractive.

Why do you need to analyze competitors' landing pages?

You need to understand how the landing pages of more successful competitors attract users: how they present a product or service, what design they use, what offer they make, and what guarantees they provide.

How to do this?

You can view landing pages manually. To do this, click on competitors' ads and see what pages they lead to. Disadvantages:

• waste of time;
  
• incompleteness and inaccuracy of information.
  

Therefore, it is most effective to conduct analysis using special services. For example, in Serpstat, you can see landing pages for ads both by domain and keyword.

What should you pay attention to when analyzing landing pages:

• how the page is designed;
  
• how is the product (service) presented;
  
• how communication with the client is configured.

Landing pages by domain

Go to "Website Analysis" → "Domain Analysis" → "PPC Analysis" → "Landing Pages".

This report is similar to the previous one: there's a link to the landing page and all the ads for which the user lands on it.

Backlinks are leading to a website from external sources. They are one of the most important ranking factors.

The link mass has a positive effect on the position of the website in the search results, as the search engine sees that other resources link to it. However, "more" is not always "better". If a website uses "black" SEO methods like buying, selling, link exchange search engines recognize irrelevant links. The website may fall under sanctions or seriously lose its position. Therefore, it is important to monitor the quality of links and control their appearance. And not only on its website but also among competitors.

Why?

• to analyze links and anchors of top competitors;
  
• to search and evaluate effective link building websites;
  
• to check the quality of links to your website;
  
• to control the growth of reference mass.
  

Analysis of the reference mass of competitors is a good way to obtain data for building your own link strategy.

The main indicators that you need to pay attention to:

All this data can be obtained using Serpstat in a few clicks. Let's see how to do it.

Enter the domain address in the Serpstat search bar and go to the "Backlink Analysis" section. In the Summary Report, we see a general description of the link mass: the number of inbound and outbound links from domains and pages, the number of Follow and Nofollow links, links from .gov and .edu domain zones, link types and domain trust metrics.

You can obtain a report on backlinks both for the last four months and for a period of 5 years. Just switch between the "120 days" and "History" buttons.

For more information on referring domains or links, go to the Referring Domains or Referring Pages reports.

You will find a domain map at the end of the Summary Report. According to the schedule, you can understand which regions the majority of backlinks are coming from and which domain names are the most common.

Incorrect use of anchor and non-anchor links in the anchor list can trigger a website falling under search engine sanctions.

Text of anchor links corresponds to the subject of the page. To put it simply, the text of the link includes a query that moves the page.

Text of non-anchor links is either the URL of the page or the text without keywords ("read here", "in this article", etc.).

Why do you need to analyze the anchor list of competitors

An anchor list must be natural for effective promotion. If the anchor list is spammed by keywords, the site may fall under search engine sanctions and significantly lose traffic. To do this, you need to analyze successful competitors to understand which anchor list your website needs.

How to do this

Anchor analysis can be done using the Serpstat Backlink Analysis tool. We click on the "Link Anchors" tab, and we get the following report: Improper use of anchor and non-anchor links in the anchor list can provoke a website falling under search sanctions.

The main factor you should consider when compiling the anchor list is not to spam link texts with keywords.

For effective external promotion, you need a correct link profile with a natural anchor list. Link mass analysis includes checking the quality of link donors, anchor list, backlink growth dynamics, and link diversity. In order not to fall under the search engine sanctions, you must regularly check the link mass of the resource and adjust it.

In order to carry out a complete analysis of competitors, it is necessary to take five basic steps:

After carrying out an analysis, eliminating errors on the website, and adding new functions, you need to monitor the results and check the effectiveness of optimization. To do this, you need to monitor the position of your website and your competitors'.

Most SEO professionals select dozens of keywords by which they are eager to get to the top search results and then monitor the site's position in the search engines for these queries. However, this approach is not entirely trustworthy. When using this method, certain keywords will be missed, because of which you will not be able to track the objective dynamics of growth and development.

Automate the process of tracking positions, make it faster, and more effective using the Serpstat tool "Rank tracking tool". You can load keywords into the tool, if you want to break them into groups using tags, and track the position of both your website and competitors' using these keywords.

That's it, guys. Analyze and outrun competitors with us;)