Loading ...Know thy enemy is an old saying; in online marketing this is just as true. You must know who your business competitors are and what marketing efforts they are putting into there business. This is vitally important so that you can make the best decisions when you implement your own strategy as to how and where your best marketing opportunities lay. Yes, it is possible to develop an adequate optimisation strategy without seeing what your competitors are up to. But if you hope to out perform them, it is hugely helpful to gain knowledge before you implement your SEO strategies.
Then you know exactly where to aim your strategies without at a later stage having to turn strategies around onto another path. Online marketing is extremely tough. With in-depth analysis of every aspect of your competitors you can pinpoint differences in the global target audience you share with them. This will give you an edge as you can tweak your SEO efforts to focus sharper on your own specific audience. There are basically three types of competitors every business face and each must be analysed.
Rivals that rank naturally
Run numerous searches to see who keeps popping up for your keywords. You will gain invaluable information by doing this and keywords you had chosen might not be good. You may learn that keywords you thought appropriate is not hitting your targeted market. This means that a competitor might not be in the running for your exact audience. Then you have the opportunity to change your keyword phrases to make them more target specific.
Once you have pinpointed rivals that come up for your niche target audience, you start analysing them. Very important to see is whether your rivals are big-time players or small fry. The big companies will have far more money to put into marketing. Then you must decide if you are going to compete with the big boys. This will depend on your own finances. The answers this analysis gives you will determine your final marketing strategy.
Pay per click rivals
You can learn a lot about what type of budgets your rivals have by doing an analysis on those who do paid advertising. Look at the position they hold, what the keywords are they use and the cost of those. Also check how often their ads appear. Then you have to watch how your rivals perform over several weeks to get the full picture. Make special note of those rivals that show up for both natural ranking and paid advertising as this indicates their budget.
Offline rivals
It is wise to keep an eye on your rivals who are not yet competing online. This is information you need to file away for future use. They will come online in the future and the degree of investment you make now can have an impact on this later if they invest heavily when they arrive. It is all a game of strategic chess movements to allow you to be competitive in online marketing and what path your will follow in your optimization.
Related posts:
- Do you know your target audience?
- Why it is important to know who your competitors are linking to
- Do you have the knowledge and experience of an SEO consultant?
- How to dismantle your competitors
- Take your business to the next stage with an SEO campaign
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