Competitor analysis projects

Whether you want to see where you're outperforming competitors, and where they take the lead, or want to understand if your business competitors are who you go up against in Search, a competitor analysis project could provide the answers.

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Competitor analysis process

Benchmark

See where you sit among your competitor set, either provided or based on rankings.

Key gaps

Identify the key gaps between your site and your competitors – where do they win and why.

Scale Opportunity

Determine where core areas are for continued growth – what can you build on.

Write-up

Full write-up of findings and opportunities, complete with recommended actions.

What does a competitor analysis include?

Knowing how you perform is one thing, but for a competitor analysis to be actionable you need to be able to see how other businesses are succeeding currently and where you can gain a competitive advantage.

A competitor analysis shouldn’t just provide you with a benchmark of where you are versus your competition. 

Instead, it should build on that as the foundation – identifying where the strengths and weaknesses are for your site and their’s – to provide you with a clear roadmap of how to close gaps, overtake the competition, and then maintain improved performance. 

A true competitor analysis should follow the data, not a template.

I rely on data to inform what to drill into for each competitor analysi, project, which could include:

  1. Keyword rankings – e.g. distribution across SERPs, demand, types 
  2. Top URLs – e.g. which see the best performance, why 
  3. Site foundations – e.g. on-page optimisation, technical health
  4. Site experience – e.g. speed, UX and journey to core sections
  5. Supporting content – e.g. hubs, strategic internal linking, depth of coverage


Interested in a competitor analysis project?

There is almost no end to what a competitor analysis could cover, so instead of following a template I like to work with you to understand what it is you’re looking for insight on and how that ties into broader business objectives.  

As a result, there a few different angles that could be explored:

  1. Light touch audit – perfect for if you want a top line view of how you compare to competitors and where they see the best performance.
  2. Site deep dive – ideal for looking into a small set of competitors in detail to determine top performance areas as well as the underlying drivers to implement into your own strategy.
  3. Gap analysis – perfect for identifying areas where one or more competitor is performing but you are not to highlight growth opportunity, as well as identifying areas relevant to your business where no competitor is performing well currently to highlight gaps to explore. 

Competitor analysis projects are scoped based on your objectives, number of competitors to be included, and type of audit required as a result.