SEO Competitor Audit – What Data You Should Look For?

SEO competitor audit is the solution to overcome competition in SEO. Practice shows that it is worth keeping your finger on the pulse and finding out what our industry is currently "living." Knowing the direction your competitors are taking can help you develop the most effective strategy for your actions. An SEO competitor audit is also a help to identify the gap between you and your competitors. It shows you the road map that you have to follow in order to outperform them.

When you audit your competitors, the best way is to start with your competitors you already know offline. Make a list of these rivals and check what efforts they are making online. With this, conduct an SEO competitor audit online and see who is performing well in search engines. We suggest you take into account every competitor, be it big or small, so you can create a strategy to outperform them all.

However, before you decide to commission an agency's audit, you should know what data you should look for. Here is what you should keep your eyes on.

1. Who is your competition?

It's good to know which specific brands you're competing against for the best positions in natural search results. However, if you cannot indicate them, analytical tools will do it for you, including SEMrush and SpyFu.

Equally important is the ability to find competitors. You can do it by analyzing the search results or by using tools. The first method consists of manually entering the keywords you are interested in in the search engine and cataloging the companies that are displayed in TOP 10. The second is based on the use of the following tools: SEMrush or SpyFu, which in a few seconds, create a complete list of pages for which the common denominator is the selected word key.

2. Information about the domain

When analyzing a competing domain, its key parameters are simultaneously examined:

• Age
• Authority
• Trust rank

Age shows how long a brand has been on the market. This is, of course, a constant value that cannot be influenced in any way. However, the case is different for other indicators. The authority, along with the trust rank of the domain, have a chance to increase thanks to high-quality inbound links.

3. Visibility in search results

The visibility of a page in Google search results is determined by the sum of keywords that lead to it from natural sources. The tools you have already learned about, such as SEMrush and SpyFu, will be helpful in analyzing this indicator.

Why is it so important? Knowing the degree of visibility of your competitors' website, you will be able to determine their real strength and, at the same time, find out how your brand is doing compared to them.

4. Inbound links to competitors' sites

The driving force for websites in terms of natural Google search results are invariably valuable inbound links. They build the website's authority in the eyes of Google robots and influence its positive evaluation.

Two (paid) tools are used in the analysis of incoming links: MAJESTIC and AHREFS. They are payable but also worth every penny invested. With their help, it becomes possible to accurately check the value of incoming links for any website. This allows you to carefully build a profile of valuable links, which in turn contributes to increasing the position of your domain among the competition.

5. The degree of on-site optimization of your competitors' websites

Can you take advantage of your competitor's SEO optimization degree? Of course! Knowing that it meets the Google Webmaster Guidelines, you can, with a good conscience, give up the need to test different solutions within your own domain and implement ready-made actions. Thanks to this, you have a chance to quickly achieve satisfactory results in terms of increasing organic traffic leading to the website.

6. SEO Competitor Audit - Is all this information really important?

Through a competitor's SEO audit, you can determine which companies are your biggest competitors in the fight for the client and what to do to win against them. You will learn a list of precise keywords that will help you attract more traffic to your website. You will also save valuable time that you had to spend so far both on searching for sources of high-quality incoming links and on optimizing the website in terms of conducted activities.

Considering all the arguments in favor of the SEO competitor audit, it is worth commissioning its development to experts. You will quickly find out that investment in this type of activity contributes to a better understanding of the industry, and thus - more effective development of your own brand.

If you are looking for an expert agency to do an SEO competitor audit for your company, contact us now and ask for your free consultation!