Competitive Research

What is competitive research?

Search engine optimization is always in the context of your competition. If you had no competition, you would need no search engine optimization work—but then again, if that were true for real-life local businesses as well, there wouldn’t be a market for SEO at all! Your online competitors may differ from those offline; anyone who steals clicks from another site can count as an “online competitor” and needs to be accounted for during keyword research Many types of websites can steal clicks that would have otherwise gone to you—not just your known local competitors or those offering the same products and services.

Think about the money you’re losing—potential bottom-line profit-generating traffic that would have come to your site if someone else hadn’t stolen the click. You are literally losing conversions (money from new business) by letting others steal clicks.

Who should be tracked?

It doesn’t matter if the websites that outrank you are actual competitors in your industry or not. When it comes to online marketing anything that steals a click from your website we consider a competitor. It is important to understand this because these are the competitors we want to track. It is paramount we identify the correct competition to analyze and track. If the correct competition is not identified this will skew the results.

For example, let’s assume we are tracking three other websites, said to be competition. But, in reality, these competitors don’t actually steal clicks from you online. Their only competition is on a local, “down the street” level. If we are tracking competition that doesn’t steal clicks, we are going to see skewed results giving us false positives. Tracking competition not stealing clicks gives the wrong impression your site is ranking well. The problem with this conclusion is although reports will look great, your bottom line will not. The success of our clients is paramount to our success. We’ve done this for a while now, and understand good looking at reports don’t always equal profit for you. Don’t be fooled by other agencies who focus on giving you attractive data. If this is what you desire, we won’t be the firm for you. We care only about your bottom line, and how our efforts make it bigger – period.

You must stay relevant!

Another important aspect of search engine optimization is making sure the competitors we track remain relevant. The Internet, much like the surface of an ocean, is always moving and always evolving. This will also hold true with your competition. As time goes on businesses get sold, and companies enter new markets or change strategic directions. Not to mention, new competition is always emerging. We want to do a competitive audit at least once a year if not more. Because our reports offer great detail we will see this issue in the numbers before it becomes a problem. As the client, keeping your ear to the ground is an excellent way to capture front-line information on who might be creeping up on your business.

The point behind all this is to understand that your competitive landscape will change. At the very least, we want to see it change by watching you float higher in the rankings above your competition. Either way, your competition, your website, and the ranking relation between them change. Tracking your competition, like every other aspect of online marketing, is an ever-changing evolving process. This is why it is important to find a company that offers search engine optimization services that understand this fact. You must remain relevant. Nothing is one-and-done. Otherwise, you run the risk of failing to track the proper competitors which in turn will give you bad data, and bad data can be expensive.

Want to know who your competition is?

If you would like us to conduct a free audit of your website and online presence, just fill out the free website audit form on this page. It is free with no obligations, and your information is only used to deliver your reports.