An SEO audit is highly recommended for your online business. It helps you figure out tactics your competition is using to get ahead. 

An SEO audit includes a competitive analysis of links, keywords, content, and technical SEO. 

You can then use the insights of the analysis to reverse engineer those elements into your own SEO strategy. 

Instead of brainstorming for content ideas, keywords, and link building, with a competitive analysis, you can discover elements that are already working for your competitions and use them to your advantage. 

Even though you might be at the top of your game and rank no 1 in all your results there’ll always be competitors ready to surpass you. 

1. Identify your competition
2. Keyword GAP analysis
3. Content analysis
4. Link GAP analysis
5. Google SERP analysis
6. Social media leveraging

Identify your competition

Identifying your main competition can be tricky. Your main competition and your SEO competition can be different. Your SEO competitors can also be people outside of your niche and rank higher than you for your keywords. 

So basically what we are saying is, your SEO rivals and your business rival can be different. 

For example, if a nail salon in LA wants to rank highest in the SERPs, but they also have a blog for teaching how to do nails, where they teach or impart tips, it can be tricky to compete to that with the industry giants like Kiara sky, or OPI nails who rank much higher for those keywords. You might rank higher on the local SERPs, but for your blog to rank higher, an analysis of which keywords they use is important. 

Keywords GAP analysis

GAP analysis, also known as keyword analysis shows you the keywords that your competitors rank for and your business doesn’t. It’s helpful in finding out keywords that your business might be missing out on.  

Keyword analysis can be a good opportunity to update your existing content on the website with better and relevant keywords that your competition is ranking higher for. 

Things to look for during your keyword analysis

• Why is your competition ranking higher than you?
• Does your competition have better long-tailed keywords or supplementary keywords for their content that you are missing out on?
• Does your competition have a high number of backlinks for their higher-ranking pages?

Content Analysis 

The content on your website is the most important part of your SEO analysis. If you want people to know about your business, your content should be higher than the standards of your competition. 

The search engines provide data to SERPs to understand your website better and rank your website higher. 

To analyze your content that affects your SEO keep in mind 

• Titles
• Meta descriptions 
• Headings
• Images

Apart from keywords, these make a major difference to your ranking and how your content is viewed on various SERPs. 

For titles make sure your titles are the correct length and in the correct format. In addition, it is also important that subtitles be relevant and eye-catching. 

The title is the most important tag that lets the SERPs know what your website is about. Plus it is the first thing people see when they search for a keyword. 

Meta descriptions are a little form of text which is separate for each page and it accurately describes that webpage. The advised length of a meta description needs to be 60 words so that at least 90% of your meta description can be viewed in search engines. Focus on describing the main idea of the page in your meta description. 

whereas, for images, make sure they are different throughout the website and not the same. The images need to be described properly and should not be big. Bigger images take longer to load and we sure know the patience consumers have these days. 

Link GAP analysis

Similar to Keyword GAP analysis Link GAP analysis is fetching data about backlinks that your competitors might have. You can definitely secure the same backlinks for your content too. 

It is very difficult to rank high without links on your site, having said that, finding links with a good reputation is also equally important.

Now, where can we find such links? Well, we analyze our competitor’s website to find out backlinks, which your site might be missing. We have already established that the links available on their website are interested in similar content. You have to show the back linkers that your content is much better than your competition’s.

Another benefit of a GAP analysis is that you find highly relevant pages for your links in the future. 

Google SERP analysis

It’s not enough to just have the correct keywords to excel in SEO but it is important that your user search intent is clear. If you search for souffle on Google, you will notice that it displays recipes and especially videos of them on the top of the page.

There is no history, pronunciation, or written content that is high ranking on page one. So if you want to rank on the page, you have to probably put video content for the keyword souffle. 

In addition to SERPs, to understand user intent you can look at the list below. 

1. The link metrics of all ranking pages
2. Keyword difficulty
3. SERP features, like featured snippets and “People Also Ask” features

Social media leveraging

It’s highly debatable whether or not social media plays an important role in SEO but Twitter sure does. 

Make your Twitter presence felt and loud, so your Twitter page can rank higher on SERPs. 

Apart from Twitter, you can check which site your competition is on that you are not. 

It also helps in keeping your audience engaged. Linkless mentions on social media can be checked. It also is important because your brand is showcased on a channel where there can be a potential search for your product. 

To be sure you are leveraging your social media 

• Find out which platforms your competitors are on
• How often do they publish content
• What kind of content is being published
• How they interact with their audience
• Lastly which of your content get the most engagement 

Social media is an important tool to gain leads to your website, a lot of new businesses, begin their journey on social media and then jump into the big pool of websites. Maintaining the website and generating new leads only depending on keywords isn’t the smartest way to go about it. You have to use all the channels and mediums available with the addition of SEO tools, to give you the best results for your business. Leveraging these platforms should be a priority 

Guest article written by: Semil Shah, Chief Marketer at Shrushti Digital Marketing. According to his team, Semil Shah can take any digital marketing profile to the next level. With over 15 years of experience in the SEO world, he is a certified SEO specialist, who mainly focuses on growing businesses. He is the Chief Marketer at Shrushti Digital Marketing. You will catch him either listening to podcasts or trekking in the jungle clicking some cool pictures in his free time. Web: https://www.shrushti.com/ – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/semshah143/