Introduction
Some businesses may incorrectly believe that when you invest in SEO, you must pay an SEO agency. Then, the company will appear on Google’s first page after a short period.
However, this is not the case, and the reason it’s not the case is that a business can only be placed higher than another business if its SEO is better than that business and deemed more relevant.
This means that your company’s SEO has to be better than your competitors. However, here’s the thing: some competitors may have been investing in white hat SEO for a very long time, meaning that the SEO agency should conduct a competitor analysis and determine how strong the competitors are.
This will give the digital marketing agency a rough idea of how much work is needed to beat the competition.
However, as there are well over 200 ranking signals, and these are the signals that the algorithm uses to work out how good a business SEO is, often there are so many variables it can make it challenging to come up with an accurate guess as to how long it will take.
That said, a competitor analysis will be needed, as this can give the SEO company an idea of how to beat the competition. For example, if your competitors do not have many good quality backlinks, as most SEO companies know, backlinks are an essential part of the SEO process.
This means that if the business was to build good quality backlinks, and your competitors haven’t got many good quality backlinks, your business could see its SEO improve.
So, a competitor analysis should allow the SEO company to create a marketing strategy that they can follow and aim to beat their competitors.
However, as mentioned earlier, sometimes your competitors will have been investing for a long time. So often, a business that’s just started to invest in search engine optimisation will have mug up to do.
How should my SEO company carry out a competitor analysis?
As mentioned, there are over 200 ranking signals; Google’s algorithm uses these signals to determine how vital a business’s SEO is.
Therefore, our SEO company, which is based here in Cardiff, would carry out a competitor analysis, and we would consequently endeavour to work out how vital your competitor’s SEO is in the following areas:
Backlinks
One business may have one million backlinks, and another has one thousand, yet the company with one thousand backlinks may still have better SEO. How is that so?
Well, that’s because the only backlinks your business needs are good-quality backlinks relevant to your business.
So, for example, a business with one thousand backlinks may come from high-quality websites.
Yet, a business with one million backlinks, well, if these are low-quality backlinks, may incur a penalty.
So, for example, Google may issue a Google Penguin penalty on any business with low-quality backlinks.
For this reason, your digital marketing agency must decipher, during the competitor analysis, which of your competitors has good-quality backlinks and which ones have low-quality backlinks.
For businesses with good quality backlinks, the SEO agency may further look at the business’s backlink profile.
The SEO company may then spot link-building opportunities.
How good are your competitor’s onsite SEO?
It’s important to remember that you can often pick up many helpful tips on improving your SEO from your competitors.
When we say this, we don’t mean copying the competition’s work, as this will damage your SEO and lead to a penalty.
However, your digital marketing agency may evaluate some of your competitors’ websites and spot areas where they are strong.
Perhaps that’s through adding detailed blog posts, which experts write. So, for example, the business in question may be a construction business.
And this construction business may write a blog post, say once a month, but the blog post is detailed; it’s quite simply a brilliant piece of content marketing.
For example, in one month, they may explain how to insulate your house better or how they build a loft conversion.
Yet, the information may be well written, have internal backlinks, and make good use of anchor text so that the SEO company starts to appreciate why the business ranks so high.
Then, using this information, your SEO agency should aim to create even better content marketing so that they exceed the standards set by your competitors.
And this is the whole point of undertaking a competitor audit: to gain an appreciation of what your competitors are doing right and then aim to beat that level of SEO.
Of course, for that to happen, you must partner with a white-hat SEO company like us.
So, if your business is based here in Cardiff, why not call us?
Content marketing?
One of the main areas your SEO company will have to audit is how good your competitor’s content marketing is.
We already mentioned blog posts, but your SEO agency must also determine how good the ever-green content marketing is.
For example, let’s say your business is a demolition business and offers demolition of both commercial and domestic buildings.
Well, the marketing business should aim to determine how the competition ensures that it gets enquiries from companies wanting a commercial building demolished and how it gets enquiries from people wanting a domestic building demolished.
For example, the company may have a perfect domestic demolition page on their website, using text, a YouTube video and bullet points to describe why people should choose that demolition business.
So your marketing agency should make notes, see how good the competition’s content marketing is, and then suggest how your company’s website could be made better.
Level of competition
Here’s a critical point: before your SEO company offers you a quote, they should understand the level of competition that your business faces.
For example, let’s say you run a solicitor’s practice, and your solicitor practice specialises in employment law. It’s safe to say that in most cities in the U.K there will be a lot of competition to get a business to rank for “employment solicitors + name of city”.
However, with that said, the level of competition may vary substantially from city to city. This means there may well be over 100 employment solicitors investing in white hat SEO in a town.
Yet, then, in another city, well, there will be only four businesses investing in SEO.
So, your marketing agency should understand how many businesses look to be investing in SEO, as this will give the marketing agency an understanding of the level of competition they have to beat.
Also, if it seems that some of the business competitors have been investing for a long time, the marketing agency will know that the SEO standard to beat is most likely set high.
Social media
Most digital marketing agencies, including ours, believe that Google’s algorithm will understand whether a business uses social media, like Twitter, and whether the company has many followers.
Therefore, your digital marketing agency may see which social media accounts your business competitors are using. Then, the SEO company may spot that your competitors are getting more followers on some social media accounts. Your business may wish to concentrate on using the same social media company and also this account to help promote your business.
Offsite SEO
Offsite SEO could be backlinks; it could also be business citations, for example. Your marketing business might check how good your competitor’s offsite SEO is.
For example, your marketing agency may spot that your competitors have a Google My Business account, and much time has been spent adding as much information as possible to that account.
Then, the NAP information on the competitor’s website matches precisely with the business’s Google My Business account, the industry has many business citations, and the NAP information matches the company’s website.
This would mean that the business has invested time into improving its local SEO; therefore, the marketing agency should spot that this work would also need to be implemented for their clients if the marketing company is also to improve their client’s SEO.
White hat?
Okay, so here’s another critical point, so listen up!
That is, some businesses use black hat SEO, which your business most definitely should not use; the reason is that your business could incur a penalty, such as the Google Penguin penalty.
This means that the algorithm will detect which businesses use black hat SEO methods, and the company could be removed from Google.
However, some businesses use black hat SEO, and they know that eventually, the company will be removed from Google. However, it’s sometimes possible that for a short period, say a week or two, the company may rank on the first page of Google.
Most businesses that want to invest in SEO wish to get their business on the first page of Google for as long as possible. So, black hat SEO is a waste of time.
So, just to be clear, we would never recommend investing in black hat SEO, yet some businesses do.
It’s also worth mentioning that the businesses that do, when they do, incur a penalty; they will need another SEO company to fix the SEO problems, and sometimes, this can cause thousands to improve.
So, your SEO business should be able to spot which competitors are using white hat SEO and which are not. This is important, as some business owners may want to know how a business has gotten onto the first page of Google and which SEO methods they use.
Some will be on the first page because they have used black hat methods. However, we would never recommend doing the same. As we have mentioned, ann algorithmic or a manual penalty will often quickly be applied to the website, which means it will usually be removed.
Marketing budget
Your SEO company must undertake a competitor audit because it’s essential to gauge if the business’s marketing budget will be enough to take on the competition.
For example, a business may spend one thousand to promote a local business, such as a car insurance broker. And the insurance company wants to get more business for its commercial motor insurance side.
However, an SEO company must weigh whether the thousand pounds a month will be enough to get the business to rank for motor insurance terms, such as “van insurance companies”.
And it most probably wouldn’t be enough, and that’s simply because so many insurance businesses are most likely spending millions per year on their SEO.
So, its also the SEO company’s duty to ensure they set realistic goals.
How many strong competitors are there?
So, as you can see from this article, your digital marketing agency should be calculating how vital your competitor’s SEO is.
This, therefore will help to guide your business seo strategy in the following ways:
Building backlinks
Therefore, your SEO company should be working out how many good quality backlinks your competitors have.
Then, using SEO tools, such as Majestic, we can see which backlinks your competitors have.
We will also be able to work out which links aren’t quality, so I try to build the same links for your business.
However, we recommend that link building only be undertaken by an expert SEO company. All backlinks must be built in a white hat way, as if they are not your business, could incur a link penalty.
So, all backlinks must be good quality, but they must also be relevant to your business; for example, if you run a construction business, you should only build backlinks from websites related to the construction industry.
Content marketing
Your digital marketing agency should also determine how good your competitor’s content marketing is.
For example, let’s say you own a business that sells classic cars; well, are your direct competitors writing good-quality blog posts?
If so, how often?
Also, with the blog posts, how long have they been writing the blog posts?
So, it’s worth looking at this, as most businesses need to add good quality content marketing to their website. However, some companies will expect to see SEO results quickly.
However, if your direct competitors have been blogging about classic cars for many years, their SEO will be more robust simply because they have been improving their SEO for longer.
So, if your business is a start-up, you must bear in mind that organic SEO and local SEO are usually slow.
Onsite SEO
Onsite SEO is essential; sometimes, a business will pay a lot of money for a new website for their company.
However, website designers sometimes covet essential SEO details, such as adding meta titles and descriptions.
So, as part of the SEO process, your SEO agency should see if they could improve your businesses:
· Meta titles
· Meta descriptions
· Alt tags
· Internal backlinks
· Anchor text
· Add Schema mark-up
· Make sure that your business NAP details are on your website
· Make sure that you have detailed product descriptions
· Fix any 404-page errors
· Add good quality blog posts
· Monitor the website bounce rate
· Reduce the website bounce rate
· And much more
Local SEO
Do you own a business in Cardiff?
If you want to get your business ranked on the n first page of Google in Cardiff, then your business needs to invest in local SEO.
So whether you own a construction business or a solicitors practice, we will be able to quickly work out why your competitors are ranked on the first page and then create a marketing strategy for your business.
We work with many businesses in Cardiff, so if you want to invest in top-quality white hats, why not call us?