Competitive analysis plays vital role in SEO which helps you to beat your competitors in SERP.

How to find competitors for your website?

The top ranked three websites for the targeted keywords will be your competitors. You may not able to find a competitor who is offering all services (or keywords) same as yours. In this case you can have different competitor for your keywords.

What all we need to consider while doing competitor analysis?

Keyword research:

We are not aware of our competitors while doing keyword research. How can you do competitor analysis with out knowing your competitor? Find the exact service provider same as yours and analyze their keywords. Compare your keywords with theirs and choose the right ones.

On-page optimization:

You have the power to change anything within your site from the content (keyword density), internal linking structure, and even the design structure itself. Analyze all the above said points in your competitor’s website and make yours better.

Off-page Optimization:

Here competitor analysis plays vital role. Use the syntax “linkdomain:www.seobyelan.com” in yahoo to find the back links of your competitors. Analyze and find the method of link building followed by your competitor. Follow the same method to get links and also request for link to the pages where the competitor’s links present. Work to increase the links count more than your competitor. Find your competitor’s deep links (back links for inner pages) so that you can get clear idea about their SEO strength. Following is the syntax for finding the deep links in yahoo. “linkdomain:www.competitor.com -site:www.competitor.com -link:www.competitor.com -link:competitor.com”

General points need to be noted while doing competitor analysis!

• Domain Age
• WhoIs Information
• Yahoo and DMOZ listing details
• Number of pages
• Number of Indexed pages
• Index status
• Page Rank

Check whether your competitors have involved in any black hat techniques. If so, then report them to Google.

(God help me, webmaster who considers me as his competitor should not read this post. lol). Rule SERP by dominating your competitors. Cheers!