SEO is ever-changing and it is very difficult to understand its movements; however, you can adjust your marketing strategies according to its movements and updates. Due to its volatile and uncertain nature, business owners try everything to gain higher rankings. However, there is no point in trying everything. Therefore, it is always recommended to perform a detailed competitive SEO analysis to stay ahead of your competition and gain overall long term success.

Empirical evidences also show that proper SEO analysis is vital for achieving good rankings. Benefits of systematic competitive SEO analysis are many, therefore, it is important to perform an indepth SEO analysis.

Here are a few ways to perform a competitive SEO analysis:

• Understand your buyers – To gain a competitive edge, it is vital to understand your buyers’ personas. You need to understand their problems and think about their solutions. This will also help you in choosing the right set of keywords for optimisation.

• Identify your competitors – Identifying your competitors and understanding their move to attract buyers can work wonders. You must prepare a list of their activities and initiatives to understand the market trends. You should sign up for Google Alerts to monitor the industry trends. This will give you a comprehensive insight into the business and industry.

• Embraceinnovative tools and techniques – You need to useGoogle Trends, Google Alerts, Open Site Explorer, Google Analytics, and Majestic - Marketing Search Engine and SEO Backlink Checker and many other tools to gain greater insights. This sort of business intelligence helps you to develop directional SEO strategies for your website.

• Content strategy – To gain an edge over your competitors you need to create engaging blog posts, inspiring case studies, detailed whitepapers, compelling web pages and emails. All these will help you in educating and informing buyers as well as influencing their buying decisions. Be factual in your content to engage users. Your users will certainly appreciate it.

• Social engagement tactics – It’s important to analyse what your competitors are doing through social channels. This helps you to understand their mindset and strategies. You should develop your own social engagement strategies, which should include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram. This helps to propel your brand, establish long term relationships with customers, increase your website traffic and reach out your targeted audiences efficiently.

A key source of competitive advantage

It’s clear that competitive SEO analysis shouldbe an integral part of every company’s online marketing strategy. No doubt, it is a real jewel because it helps websites to achieve good rankings in their niches. Though this might not guarantee your success overnight, yet a systematic use ofit will increase your chances to get noticed on the web.