Search engine optimization (SEO) can make a big difference to any company or business looking to succeed online. An effective SEO strategy can help to drive organic traffic to your website, and increase click throughs, which can ultimately lead to an increase in brand recognition and more sales, sign ups or bookings. As part of your SEO strategy you should be implementing competitor research. But what is this and what are the SEO advantages of competitor research?
What is competitor research?
Competitor research involves looking at the website and content produced by your competitors. For local businesses it helps to research immediate competitors as well as those in other areas providing similar services or products to your business. This can hep you to understand the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors and how they are performing in the search engines. By analyzing different aspects of your competitors’ performance you can use the information you glean to improve the SEO strategy and increase the visibility of your company in the search engine results.
What are the SEO advantages of competitor research?
Effective competitor research can bring a number of advantages for your SEO strategy. These advantages include:
- More informed keyword identification
- Identifying effective and desirable content types
- Identifying areas of opportunity to improve your SEO
Competitor research can improve keyword identification
One of the most significant benefits of competitor research is that this can allow you to identify the successful keywords that your competitors are using to drive traffic to their site. This can be identified through the content they produce and how the keywords are used and displayed on the page.
Once these have been identified you can see what your company can do to improve the keyword range and presentation, and to optimising your content for maximum performance. This can help to increase the chances of your company ranking highly for these keywords and driving more traffic to your website.
Effective competitor research can identify successful content types
As well as the keywords that your competitors are using you should also investigate the content types that they are using too. This can help you identify content that will connect with your potential customers and clients, and potentially increase sales and sign ups. As such, this research can help to springboard and inform your own content strategy, and your company will then be able to create content that is more likely to rank well in the search engines and drive more traffic to your website.
Effective competitor research can identify areas of opportunity for your SEO strategy
Finally, effective competitor research can help to identify any gaps or spaces that your competitors have left. You can take advantage of these gaps by creating content or offering services or products that your competitors do not. This can help to set your company apart and to attract more custom. One of the most common gaps is customer feedback or reviews, and by displaying this type of social proof your company can build consumer trust and build reputation.
Here at Pumpkin Web Design we are Preston’s leading web design and web marketing professionals. We provide a wide range of high quality, effective SEO solutions and content marketing services across Preston and the North West, from Southport to Wigan, as well as Manchester. For more information or advice, why not get in touch today?