How to Conduct Page vs. Page Competitive Analysis

Check Rankings and Page Authority
Use the Opensite Explorer tool from Moz to check competitors page rankings, links, and authority over your own. As well as the comparison, you can look at where your competitors have built links and the anchor text they have used to build them.

This will give you an idea of where you are outperforming competitors, as well as the things you need to do better in order to catch up. Take note of potential link building opportunities that you might not already be taking advantage of. You should also look at the distribution of follow and nofollow links as well as the mix of internal and external links being used.

Find Their Keywords
There are a number of ways to find out what keywords your competitors are targeting, if you don’t already know through your frustration at ranking below them in search. Because you should already know, this exercise is really about identifying the keywords your competitors are using that you could start targeting, especially if they are ranking highly for non-competitive ones.

Why do keyword research yourself when you can discover what your competitors have done?

The easiest way to do this is to right click on their page and select “View Page Source,” and then search for keywords (CTRL + F) within the code.

You can discover some other techniques for checking out your competitors keywords here.

Meta Data Analysis
Use a tool like Screaming Frog to look at meta data for you and your competitor. Is their meta description and title better optimized than yours? Are you missing a trick because your meta data is too similar?

Meta data analysis is a quick win if you are struggling to rank; changing titles and descriptions can make a big difference, especially if they are optimized to be more relevant to the content on-page.

Consider PPC
Using PPC (Pay Per Click) alongside a targeted Local SEO strategy is a great way to boost performance from search. What keywords are your competitors paying for in Google AdWords? You will find some of these by searching yourself, while tools like Spyfu will enable you to discover PPC keyword targets that you weren’t aware of beforehand.

If you need help with competitive analysis, we have a range of tools on our website that will help you get an idea of where you are from a competitor standpoint. For a more detailed analysis and help putting your SEO and search presence on a par with your competitors, get in touch to discuss our approach to ensuring you start competing rather than merely surviving.