Understanding SEO Competition can be tough. This image is a matrix to help visualize competitors and how they may compete with you and your business.

For Search Engine Optimization (SEO), it's essential to know something about your competition. Who you are competing with, how they compete, and which target audiences are similar and different from your competition.

Competitive Analysis is critical because we want to target the right people and use the correct language to represent your products or service accurately while knowing who is operating in that same space.

Understanding SEO Competitors

SEO Competitors come in many forms. Generally, competitors are businesses that sell products or services that are exact, similar, or substitute products to the same target market as you.

Substitute Competitors: They sell a product that is different from your business but solves a similar problem. Think of restaurants in general. Each sells food based on their geography, ethnic, or cultural background. They have different products, but they all solve the same problem. They feed hungry people, the same target audience.

Exact Competitors: These folks sell the same or very similar products to the same target audience. Using the restaurant example, let's look at Taco Shops that do quick dining (no sit-down service). They all sell tacos to people that want a quick bite to eat. They may make tacos from different regions but sell a similar product (tacos) to the same target audience (quick diners).

Same and Differing Target Markets: Some competitors may be targeting the same or differing target markets. They may even be doing both at the same time. Back to the tacos, some taco shops may offer a dine-in service with a walk-up window. They are selling a similar product, to the same audience (quick dining) but also to a differing target market (sit-down dining).

Same and Differing Offerings: Some competitors may have the same, differing, or substitute offerings.

Competitor Research and SEO

Through an SEO Analysis and SEO Audits of your competitors,  we can identify key SEO factors and marketing efforts that make them competitive. These include:

• Keyword List, see their keyword list, rankings, and variations of keywords.
• Backlinks, see a list including directory sites, PR sites, and more
• Identify their SEO strategy,  leverage this data for your website, and close the gap in keywords and backlinks.
• Identify differing offerings/services/products; see their rankings for other products and services that you may not offer or may consider offering at a later time. The data can also provide insight into their marketing strategy and target audiences.
• Key SEO Factors - See our Post here for that.

Integration with Broader Marketing Efforts

We can use the competitor information to feed other parts of the marketing efforts. This information should be a source of market data that can inform a broader marketing effort.

One great use is analyzing competitors that have diversified their products/services offerings. There could be some data to show the next vertical you could enter and compete.

This data could also show other target markets you should consider adding to the mix. Maybe you have a great product but are targeting the wrong groups. Checking on your competitors could help you pivot to a better target market or show you an opportunity to expand into new markets.

I hope this provides a little more insight into understanding SEO completion and how to navigate competitors.