[Build Backlinks Online] The Illustrated SEO Competitive Analysis Workflow

Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'The Illustrated SEO Competitive
Analysis Workflow'

Posted by Aleyda
One of the most important activities for any SEO process is the initial
competitive analysis. This process shouldcorrectly identify your SEO targets and
provide fundamental input to establish your overallstrategy.
Depending on the type, industry, and scope of the SEO process, this analysis
canbecome quitecomplex, as there are many factors to take into considerationmore
now than ever before.
In order to facilitate thisprocess (and make it easy to replicate, control, and
document), I've created a
step-by-step workflow with the different activities and factors to take into
consideration, includingidentifying SEO competitors, gathering the potential
keywords to target, assessing their level of difficulty, andselecting them based
on defined criteria:

If you prefer, you can also grab a
higher resolution version of the workflow from here.
The fouranalysis phases
As you can see, the SEO analysis workflow is divided into four phases:1.
Identify your potential SEO competitors
This initial phase isespecially helpfulif you're starting with an SEO process
for a new client or industry that you don't know anything about, and youneed to
start from scratch to identify all of the potentially relevant competitors.
It's important to note that these arenot necessarily limited tocompanies or
websites thatoffer the same type ofcontent, services, or products thatyou do,
but can beany website that competes with you in the search results for your
target keywords.2. Validate your SEO competitors

Once you have the potential competitors that you have gathered from different
relevant sources it's time to validate them, by analyzing and filtering which of
those are really already ranking, and to which degree, for the same keywords
that you're targeting.
Additionally, at this stage you'll also expand your list ofpotential
targetkeywords by performing keyword research. This should usesources beyond the
ones that you had already identified coming from your competitors and your
current organic search datasourcesfor which your competitors or yourself are
still not ranking, that might represent new opportunities.
3. Compare with your SEO competitors
Now that you have your SEO competitors and potential targetkeywords, you can
gather, list, and compare your site to yourcompetitors, using all of the
relevant data to select and prioritize thosekeywords. This will likely
includekeyword relevance, current rankings, search volume, ranked pages, as well
asdomains' link popularity,content optimization, andpage results
characteristics, among others.
4. Select your target keywords
It's finally time to analyze the previously gathered data for your own site and
your competitors, using the specified criteria to select the best keyword to
target for your own situation in the short-, mid-, and long-term during your SEO
process: Those with the highest relevance, search volume, andprofitability.
Thebest starting point isin rankings where you are competitive from a popularity
and content standpoint.
Tools & data sources
The data sources and toolsbesides the traditional ones from search engines,
like their keyword or webmaster toolsthat can help you to implement the process
(some of them mentioned in the workflow) are:To identify competitors: Alexa Top
Sites, SimilarWeb Websites Ranking & Sites Profile.
To identify keywords: SEMRush for keyword data, SuggestMtrx (you can also use
Ubersuggest or SEOchat Suggestion Keyword Finder) to gather Google suggestions
for your keywords.
To identify rankings: Authority labs, Positionly, Advanced Web Ranking, among
others.
To identify popularity: The Moz SEO Toolbar SERP overlay view, OpenSiteExplorer,
CognitiveSEO Backlink Explorer and MajesticSEO for link related data and easy to
develop popularity analysis.
To identify page optimization: Moz On-Page Grader, SEOchat's Page Comparison
tool and Web page SEO analysis tool for a quick on page content optimization
analysis.
To semi-automatize the process: There are tools that have already automatized
some of the phases in the process that can help you to advance faster: Moz
Keyword Difficulty and SERPs analysis tool, SERPIQ, SEMRush Keyword Difficulty
Tool.
Hopefully with these resources you'll be able to develop more and better SEO
competitive analysis!

What other aspects do you take into consideration and which other tools do you?
I look forward to hear about them in the comments. Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a
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Best regards,
Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com