You want to rank your website at prominent positions in Google, but don’t know how? This article tells you how to top rank in Google search by doing competitor analysis. Read on…
Why is usually hard to rank in Google?
Let’s understand this first. In short, we can say your site can rank for any keyword if there is no competition. Unfortunately, there are almost always competitors. Try searching with any keyword and see how many competing pages are there. For example, search as ‘seo courses’ and see the results:
It shows that there are about 14,20,00,000 competing pages on the web (at the time of checking). It indicates that it is not so easy to rank if you want to rank for the keyword. Specially if your site is low authority or brand new.
In this case, what will you do?
Enter competitor analysis and do anything what works to your competitors! In this page, you will learn how to run analysis on your Google competitors and rank first in Google results by applying the techniques as most SEO gurus do.
Follow these techniques step-by-step:
- Start with keywords you can rank
- Know the competitors’ ranking keywords
- Use semantically related terms
- Analyze their backlink profiles
- And more.
They are the essential steps to move upward your Google rankings. Here are the details about you should do:
Start with keywords you can rank
Don’t target any keyword blindly. You may not get the result you want. If your site or blog is low authority or brand new, start with low competition terms in your niche. For keyword research, you can use Google Keyword Planner. But for getting the right terms you want quickly, you can use a premium tool like SEMRush, Rank Tracker, Ahrefs etc.
>> Check these best keyword research tools
If you are not a user of such a software tool, you can hire a service for the work any time on a small charge.
>> Check this keyword research service
If your website authority is high, you can find any good, high search volume keywords. However, if your domain authority score is very low, look for keywords with SEO difficulty score below 30. Doing so, get a list of keywords for your upcoming content/articles to publish in your website.
Now, from the list, choose an important keyword to write your content. Before creating the content, you can check how much effort will take for the keyword to rank in Google SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). You can do this also for any existing page of your website.
For this purpose, you can use a premium tool as mentioned above. Now, run the software to generate a Google top 10 competitors analysis report. If your keyword is digital marketing tools (for example), here is a sample report:
As seen above, green dots below the Difficulty Score column indicate that you can beat those corresponding sites and you can take those spots easier. See also the scores under the columns – Sites Linking to Page and Sites Linking to Domain. See the number of backlinks the topmost ranking page has. If you want to get this spot for that keyword, you need to have more backlinks than theirs. The report shows that you can beat the sites at 5th and 8th position even without a backlink if your content is better than theirs.
Know the competitors’ ranking keywords
Why do you need to know their ranking keywords? Because, if you know them, you can:
- identify their on-page SEO strategies
- find out how many keywords the pages are ranking for
- understand how they write the content for those keywords
You can find out their ranking keywords with a tool like Rank Tracker or any other one mentioned above. You can also get in touch a competitor analysis service mentioned in this page below to do the same for you.
For example, if your keyword is ‘digital marketing tactics’, the page at the top of Google results ranks for many keywords. Some of them are:
As seen above, the first site is also ranking for digital tactics at position 1, performance marketing tactics at position 2 and so on ….
Click on that result and read the page. See closely how they wrote the page to rank for those keywords. It will give you valuable hints to rank your page for many such keywords. Like this, you can also check other pages in the top 10 Google results. Then optimize your content for such search phrases. So, you can reverse engineer competitor strategies to rank for many keywords.
Use semantically related terms
Another important words and phrases to include in your content are semantically related terms for your main keyword. They are also known as LSI keywords. They are theme words and phrases that define your topic more clearly for search engines. Sprinkling them into your text naturally and meaningfully helps to improve search engine rankings since they increase relevance to the topic.
For example, if you have to write an article on competitor analysis tools or to update an existing page on that keyword, you need at least to include the following words and phrases in it:
They are found from your high ranking competitor pages. Using them makes your content more relevant and optimized for Google.
To find such semantically related terms, you can use SEMRush or SEO Powersuite’s Rank Tracker. You can also use a tool called Web Content Studio, Learn more.
Or you can get a service for this work as you will see in this page below.
If you do the above ways remarkably well, you’ll see your keyword rankings rising in Google. But if the SERP competition is so fierce, you need to build links. Enter competitor backlink analysis.
Analyze their backlink profiles
Links from external sites improve a website’s authority, search ranking and traffic. They are a ranking factor. One of the easy ways of link building is to analyze competitors backlink profiles and reverse engineer their backlink strategies. As their backlinks are working for them, they will work for your site, too.
Now, how can you extract those competitors backlink information? Best tools you can use for this purpose are SEMRush, SEO SpyGlass, Ahrefs etc you will find from this link:
>> Best SEO software’s are here
Now, search the keyword you want to rank for in Google. Pick any result or any other one from the organic results. Then, open one of the tools mentioned above and add the domain in it to create a new project. The tool will pull out all the backlinks of that site. You can also do the same on the specific page URL ranking in the Google results.
Then, view the list of their backlinks and study yourself how the website got the links as follows:
Are the backlinks
- got naturally without any effort?
- created by them using any link building technique?
- created for free?
- paid to create them?
- potentially harmful as indicated by the tool?
- used what anchor texts?
You can study those things by visiting the backlink pages. From your study, you will learn:
- If a backlink looks like naturally got without any effort, it indicates that your competitor page is a highly popular and authority content. If so, make your content superior than it in quality and popularity to attract more backlinks like them.
- If it looks like created by them, look closely if it is guest posting, directory submission, resource page, reciprocal linking, blog commenting, or forum posting. Do as they did whenever you can.
- If a backlink is found manually created for free, find out how they did it and create for yourself.
- If it is found as paid, do it as they did if you can.
- If a link is found high penalty risk, don’t try to build links from the domain. Avoid those sites with very high penalty risk score as the tool indicates.
- Also observe the variations of anchor texts. Are they purely URL, keyword rich, page title or so. Almost follow as they do.
Building links as above will always be safe and helps your site to become trusted and authoritative. Google organic rankings and traffic will boost with them.
To find more link opportunities, do the same as above on other competitors found in Google top 10 results.
Doing so can improve your Google ranking. But remember to have more quality backlinks and quality content so that you deserve to stand at the highest position of Google.
Are you using a tool, or using a service instead?
As you have seen, you need a tool for competitor analysis. And I have mentioned above the best SEO tools you can use. But if you don’t want to spend a monthly or yearly subscription fee on such premium tools, here is a service for competitor analysis on a small charge. Click the link below:
>> Competitors Analysis Service starting from $5
From that service, you can get all competitor analysis reports:
- If you don’t have your keyword list, check this keyword research service.
- It will find out competitors ranking keywords on your requirement (if available).
- It will generate semantically related terms for your focussed keyword.
- It will discover backlink profiles of any competitor.
Find out what Google SERP features your competitors are using
Competitor research and analysis usually start from Google SERPs. And note that a prominent and distinctive result in Google SERPs attracts more clicks than a traditional one. Click-through rate (CTR) can also influence your keyword ranking. So, apply your site for any such SERP feature as competitors do. Check what SERP features your competitors are using with a search. You will see any of these features used in Google results:
Google ads (at the top or bottom)
If you see any Google ads for your keyword, you can also run Google PPC campaigns to bring more traffic if you have an advertising budget. An example is here:
Featured snippet
When Google want to answer partly for the query, a feature snippet is shown most likely due to implementing Structured Data Markup. You can also apply the same to your page. An example is below:
Image pack
Some time, you may see images. Your images can also include in there by optimizing them in the file name, ALT texts, title, URL etc. An image pack example is below:
In-depth article
If your search query returns just ‘in-depth’ articles, almost all organic results are indistinguishable. If you want to rank there, you need to focus on on-page SEO to enhance it. Below is an example:
Knowledge card
It is a part of Knowledge Graph usually found at the upper position of Google. Prioritize keywords to target and understand how Google stores entity data.
Knowledge Panel
It is extracted from a legitimate source. If your topic keyword is fit for it, optimize as you did for Knowledge Card mentioned above.
Local Pack
If your target query returns a local pack, you should focus on local SEO to include in such results.
News Box
If you run a news based site, the news box is very important for you to drive traffic and clicks. You need to become a Google Publisher and produce quality news content. Learn more.
Related Questions
Some time, you may see related questions in search results. If you want to appear in it, try tracking the question as a keyword in itself and optimize for it in your page. Here is the example:
Reviews
You frequently see review stars and ratings. Showing stars in the result snippet can increase CTR. Apply schema markup for reviews if it is applicable to your page:
Shopping Results
If you are running an e-commerce site and also running Google ad campaigns, the feature is important. Know the competing keywords so that your ads can appear. An example is below:
Site Links
When people search with an exact domain or branded terms, site links are displayed. This helps them find the page they are looking for faster and helps to increase CTR. You can implement SearchAction anchor markup for this purpose:
Video
When people search using video related queries, video results are displayed most probably from YouTube. It is a kind of organic enhancements. Google may show such results for certain keywords, however use video schema markup on the page to increase the chance of appearance, if you do video marketing.
You don’t need to implement for all the SERP features discussed above. Implement only those relevant to you or as your competitors are doing.
How to keep improving and rising your rankings?
If you do the above steps for all your important pages you want to rank, you’ll see your keyword rankings climbing up. But don’t leave the pages abandoned. You know Google loves fresh content. If your pages are left unnoticed and abandoned too long, their rankings in the SERPs will start moving down and replaced by other better content.
So, regularly update your important pages and keep them up-to-date for SEO reasons and also for your target audience. In this case, some of the tasks you need to perform periodically are:
- Run on-page audit on your website and pages periodically to fix any issues and to comply with latest SEO trends. You can do it with these Best On-page Optimization Tools. Or check this On-page SEO Service.
- Anyone can link to your site. You can’t control it. But if they are spammy, toxic links, they can adversely affect your Google rankings. So, you need to perform backlink audit on your site periodically to remove or disavow them. For this purpose, use any best SEO tool mentioned above or check this Backlink Audit Service.
- Find new link building ideas using a tool and constantly improve your online authority. You can also check this Link Prospecting Service.
How to grow your online presence faster?
Getting listed in Google’s organic SEO results is free and lasts for long term. But getting first page positions takes time and efforts. If you want to grow your business and web presence faster than competitors, you can go with the following paid and free ways:
Pay-per-Click Marketing: It gives you instant results and sales. If you want to sell or promote a product or service, PPC marketing is the quickest way to get results. You do it with Google Ads program. But you need to pay for every single click from customers. So, you need to be so skilful to get maximum advertising ROI (Return on Investment). You should understand how to beat the competing ads and run your campaigns cost effectively. To learn expert advice and top secrets, check these books:
Social media marketing: This marketing technique is free and easy to start. To get your social media accounts successful, you need a large number of followers and regular post updates. Interested people directly comes to your website and buy your products or services. It is a type of promotional work. But every social media marketer can’t get the level of success they want. Because, most of them don’t know which social media platforms to choose based on their business type, how to increase their follower base, which interesting content to post, etc. Learn tips and tricks from these books:
> Top social media marketing books
YouTube marketing: Like social media marketing, it is also a technique to bring traffic and sales on your site. It doesn’t cost you anything to start a YouTube video channel. But you should have the ability to create interesting and quality videos. You should also have the marketing techniques to increase your subscriber base. People love videos increasingly. You frequently see video results in Google. So, video marketing becomes essential these days. Learn YouTube marketing secrets from experts:
> Best books on YouTube marketing
Content marketing: It helps to enhance audience retention, improve social media traction, establish trust, generate leads, improve conversion, enhance search engine optimization, etc. For these, you need to figure out best content channels and content types to work with. The following books will help you greatly:
> Best books for content marketing
Influencer marketing: It improves brand awareness, builds trust quickly, reaches target audience effectively and provides value to your customers. For best results, you need to find the right influencer and develop your campaign. These books will be very helpful to you:
> Influencer marketing books recommended for you
If you implement most of the above techniques for your website, you can rank first in Google SERPs and expand your online presence quickly. Don’t stop learning. Learn professional advice from these video courses:
> Digital marketing training courses
You know getting online success requires many tasks to do. Outsourcing some of the works to experts will get a piece of mind and the results as you want. Here, Fiverr gigs can help any work done for you. Click the following link:
> Fiverr gigs to grow your digital marketing
– NIGCWORLD Jobs
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Ibochouba Singh is a content writer and reviewer with a passion for writing about digital marketing and tech gadgets, including software tools and new tech gadgets. He has over 15 years of experience writing for several consumers and clients, including tech startups, marketing agencies, and software companies. He is writing many articles and product reviews for many websites, including nigcworld.com, buywin.in, medium.com, and quora.com.
