Researching Your Competition

[Daria_Goetsch]

What do you look for when you analyze your competition? What can you learn from your competition?

Some Basics:

Optimization in place
Competitiveness of keywords
PPC used
Paid Inclusion used
Number of backlinks
Quality of backlinks
Quality of content
Copywriting
Size of website

[Anthony Parsons]

Off the top of my head:

The use of spam techniques
Title information
Content
Navigation
Usability
Anchor Text (inbound, outbound and internal)
Ranking fluctuations between engines
and lots lots more

+ what you listed Daria

[AussieWebmaster]

I look occasionally at Alexa (for as little as it's worth)...
I scour the engines and PPC/PFI engines to see what they are all doing and where they are placed...
I look at directories...

I would go and get a job there but that would be a bit much...lol

[jampers]

Hi
Where or how can I find out my competitors hits? I looked at Hiwise but that is way out of my league. I just want this one off peice of information on about a dozen sites.
Jampers

[doppelganger]

All of the above...

A great resource we've been using is Hitwise... kind of like Alexa info on steroids. You can see lots of detailed search information... in general, it's like looking at your competitor log files. All that information is accessible.

[jampers]

Thanks Doppel,
I looked at Hitwise and it seems to be for huge big sites and I think you can gather inteligence on the top 1000 sites. The mimimum subscription as far as I could see was about £1200. These web sites are ranked 200,000 +.

Would it be safe to assume that if two sites have similar ranking then they would have a similar amount of traffic?
jampers

[steve sardell]

What do you look for when you analyze your competition?

There have been some excellent points mentioned. One of the many things I look at is where their marketing money is spent. Looking at their ppc campaigns and chosen phrases is a favorite. But, of equal imprtance to me is: are they relying solely on internet spending or are they branching out into the old traditional methods. I also like to track how often they are updating and how often they do a complete make-over. Another thing I look for is how they are attempting to brand themselves.

I'll try and tackle the second part of the question in a bit.

[seobook]

check link text and see if and how much they are renting links and see where they are connected in the web.

[Wail]

If the competition are being optimised then it's worth finding out who is doing it.

If you know the company doing the optimisation then you know what techniques to look for. I know one company, for example, tends to get spammy the week they start loosing listenings - but not before. I know another competiting SEO firm doesn't handle multilingual campaigns very well, so if I know they're looking after a client's competitor I can offer that extra insight too.

[doppelganger]

Thanks Doppel,
I looked at Hitwise and it seems to be for huge big sites and I think you can gather inteligence on the top 1000 sites. The mimimum subscription as far as I could see was about £1200. These web sites are ranked 200,000 +.

Would it be safe to assume that if two sites have similar ranking then they would have a similar amount of traffic?
jampers

Jampers,

I don't think that you are limited to the top 1000 sites. When we've used it, we've seen data on much smaller sites. Their sample size they have is about 10 million users. So if you are looking at a smaller site, then there's a much larger chance of it not being included in their sample. You're right about how expensive they are, but it's great data, and can be worth the cost.

Alexa also has a paid service that gives more data on competitors based on the activity they see in their toolbar. I'm wondering when they'll expand that. There also exists the possibility that Yahoo! and Google could have a similar product offering based on the activity they see through their toolbars.

I don't think it's safe to assume that if two sites have similar ranking that they have a similar amount of traffic. There are of course instances where smaller companies can have an edge in rankings on large ones.

[bwelford]

This is an excellent thread since it deals with something that is incredibly important and very often overlooked. I concur with the importance of all the parameters that have been raised.

However before all that, I think it's valuable to look at some of the strategic aspects of each competitor. Do they have a Unique Selling Proposition (USP)? Do they have a competitive advantage relative to your own company? ... or a competitive weakness? Are they focused? Are they targetting the same niche as I am? It all boils down to the issues that are covered in a SWOT analysis - Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats - of your own company versus each of the competitors. You can usually learn a lot by what they choose to reveal, and what they choose to hide, in their websites.

[surftrip]

the most frustrating thing about viewing your competition's better performace is seeing them spamming the engines and getting away with it.

yeah, yeah, i know - "don't do it, man" and all that, but it's difficult to explain to your CEO why competitor A is coming up much better for important keywords.

the minute you begin to discuss "SEO" and "ethical practices" ...well, the eyes glaze over. i know y'all have experienced this.

the engines say they will ban these techniques, but after constant emails and using the form to turn in spammers, i still see their pages ahead of mine. i still see doorway pages, jump pages and hyphenated-web-pages.com everywhere.

it's very aggravating.

ok, off my soap box. ...carry on.

christian
encoretickets.com

[Daria_Goetsch]

Really good posts, everyone. And yes, there is a whole other topic dealing with competitors who spam and how to deal with it. There are so many angles to researching your competition.

Another addition to the list is the use of regional optimization terms by your competitors seeking out regional visitors.

[AussieWebmaster]

the most frustrating thing about viewing your competition's better performace is seeing them spamming the engines and getting away with it.

yeah, yeah, i know - "don't do it, man" and all that, but it's difficult to explain to your CEO why competitor A is coming up much better for important keywords.

the minute you begin to discuss "SEO" and "ethical practices" ...well, the eyes glaze over. i know y'all have experienced this.

the engines say they will ban these techniques, but after constant emails and using the form to turn in spammers, i still see their pages ahead of mine. i still see doorway pages, jump pages and hyphenated-web-pages.com everywhere.

it's very aggravating.

ok, off my soap box. ...carry on.

christian
encoretickets.com


Doorway and jump pages okay... but there is nothing wrong with hyphenated web pages... and if they work you can do them also until Google etc. decide they are not okay and start dropping the results... there is another thread here that discusses their use...
creating content pages to get a good placing for a specific term is also fine to do... and in fact should be done... you are forced to provide content about the keyword and the user gets what they want when the search engine rewards you for it... using redirects from old pages is another element I have heard people call spam but in reality is just smart... so long as they are going to a page that covers what was dropped...
give the competition a run and use what is not considered spam etc.
and good luck with the boss... sned him a link to a few threads from here and give him an idea of the difficulties you can encounter.

[seobook]

Doorway and jump pages okay... but there is nothing wrong with hyphenated web pages... and if they work you can do them also until Google etc. decide they are not okay and start dropping the results

recently someone (one of the larger seo firms in the world) recommended to a person I know that they use no filepaths. they wanted them to rewrite the urls to where everything had a - between them and no / in the url string.

this firm stated that google liked everything in the root directory. what is your opinion of this statement?

this person is in an extremely competitive industry and this same firm built that site in question a linking campaign of about 4 links over 6 months. i wonder why so many people focus on such small details and miss the big picture way too often.

[AussieWebmaster]

recently someone (one of the larger seo firms in the world) recommended to a person I know that they use no filepaths. they wanted them to rewrite the urls to where everything had a - between them and no / in the url string.

this firm stated that google liked everything in the root directory. what is your opinion of this statement?

this person is in an extremely competitive industry and this same firm built that site in question a linking campaign of about 4 links over 6 months. i wonder why so many people focus on such small details and miss the big picture way too often.

I have been told that keeping as many pages as possible in the root directory helps... though have also seen the 200 page number as a high side to this... will contact someone and get an opinion from Google.
Guess they have not gotten someone here yet to add some comments.

[AussieWebmaster]

I have seen the case of a site using a free server with a decent PR setting up pages geared towards specific keyword and though they have no backlinks have still captured the number one spot....
now would that be a spam to report or just someone being slick?

[K.S. Katz]

Are they focused?

I also like to look at how well they integrate their traditional and online marketing. Competitors (and my own clients) oftentimes treat their marketing dept and SEM as if they're their own separate countries when they should be working together.

[bwelford]

That's an excellent point, K.S.Katz. At a recent Internet Marketing conference I even heard some IBM folk comment on the size of the company and the difficulty of getting the right people to interact to ensure effective SEO. This was a problem they were trying to work on. :)

[Daria_Goetsch]

I have been told that keeping as many pages as possible in the root directory helps... though have also seen the 200 page number as a high side to this... will contact someone and get an opinion from Google.
Guess they have not gotten someone here yet to add some comments.

From experience, I believe keeping pages close to the root directory is a good thing for Google indexing. It would be helpful to have a Google rep provide their side of the story.