Before you start developing your organic search strategy, it’s important to first understand what your competition is doing. A local organic competition analysis will help you see what you’re up against in the organic search results.

This analysis of the competition provides information that will help you achieve the results you are aiming for.

By looking at content, it is possible to figure out:

• What topics the competition is writing about.
• How many words they’re writing on average.
• The frequency of their content updates.

This process helps you understand your competitor’s content strategy so you can adapt your own content strategy and beat theirs.

By looking at links, it is possible to figure out things like:

• How many links the competition is getting.
• What kind of links.
• Where they’re getting their links from.
• How often they are getting links.
• When they are usually getting their links.

It is possible to create a strategy that will be more successful than a local competitor’s by taking into account on-site factors such as on-page optimization.

The results of your local competition analysis will help you to form a strategy that will lead to success.

Factors To Include In A Local Competition Analysis

It is important to analyze your competition in order to better understand your market, niche, and locale.

On the surface, a local competition analysis will include the following factors:

• Content.
• Links.
• On-page SEO.

The local competition analysis should include the following to gain a clear picture of the local competitiveness of the market: -A list of the local competition -Information on their size -Details on their products or services -Pricing information -Market share information -Any other relevant information

The following are factors that will help you create a winning local strategy, though not all of them will necessarily increase your local rankings.

Links

• Local SEO directories.
• Niche local sites.
• Editorial local links.
• Chamber of Commerce links.
• Local .GOV links.
• Local .EDU links.

Content

• Who is writing the content?
• What is the content about?
• When is the content being written?
• Where is the content focused (locally)?
• Why is the content being written?
• How many social shares is the content getting?
• How many reviews are listed?

On-Page Technical SEO

• High-quality, validated HTML and CSS coding.
• Schema.org coding for local SEO.
• Locally optimized title tags.
• Locally optimized meta descriptions.
• Locally optimized URLs.
• Locally optimized on-page copy with tight topical and keyword focus.

What You Want To Obtain During The Competition Analysis

The competition analysis should focus on the top 10 results that come up on Google.

If you are looking for a personal injury lawyer in the Orange County area, do a search for [Orange County personal injury lawyers].

To do a thorough link analysis, you should use a combination of different tools, like Google Search Console, Majestic, Semrush, Raven Tools, and Ahrefs. Once you have exported all the data from these tools, you can start putting it together and analyzing the link profile.

It is best to use two or three different link profile analysis tools to get the most comprehensive data possible. Single tools may not have all the data available.

What you are looking for in this link profile are things like:

Local SEO Directories

• What directories do these sites have?
• What niche local links do these sites have?
• What kind of editorial local links do these sites have?
• Do these sites have any chamber of commerce links, and if so, which ones?
• Do these sites have any local .gov or .edu links?

Directory linking can still be effective if done with high quality links that don’t look like spam.

It’s just a directory, which is pretty self-explanatory.

You should look for directories that have few or no ads, and where the ads are not prominent or intrusive. The directories are generally clean, high quality, and can help improve your website’s ranking by providing links from high-authority websites.

Niche Local Sites

Sites that focus on a specific niche and locality are considered local authorities on those topics. The organizations that link to your site can be anything from animal rights organizations to charities to other sites. This will help lend an air of authority to your site.

You should only pursue links that are high quality and not spammy.

These sites can also act as local partners.

I am not advocating exchanging links with other websites in order to improve your website’s ranking because that is not a good idea. I am suggesting that you partner with other local businesses to improve your site’s ranking in the search engines.

We want to know if we can improve our ranking on the site compared to our competitors. We don’t want to actually copy their link profile.

By determining how easy it will be to rank for a certain keyword, it will be easier to determine an overall linking strategy afterward.

We don’t want to copy their link profile because I can’t be there to guide you through every step.

If you mistakenly use a low-quality link, you could eventually be penalized for having too many of them. It is easy to continue with old habits once you start.

Chamber Of Commerce Links

Chamber links are essential to good local SEO.

They provide high authority, and can be a great partner-type link. They can also refer local business.

Some Chamber of Commerce websites end in .com, .net, .org, or something else However, it is important to note that not every Chamber of Commerce website will end in .gov. Some Chamber of Commerce websites end in .com, .net, .org, or something else.

Local .gov And .edu Links

The following are links to local government offices or charities to local schools.

The fact that they are .gov and .edu links is a major bonus.

There has been no change in the weight given to .gov and .edu links.

Even though they are not as common as they used to be, links from directories are still some of the best you can get.

How to Analyze Your Local Organic Search Competition

1. Find out who your real competitors are

Be sure to include the company name, location, and website for each competitor in your notes. These tools will be useful at a later time. Make a list of all your competitors in the “competitor research” tab of the spreadsheet. Include their name, website, a brief description of what they offer, and their strengths and weaknesses.

Method 1: Standard Google searches for competitors

If you want to rank for a set of keywords, you can look for trends and see who is already ranking where you want to be. Make a list of your competitors that is not limited to just one or two keywords.

To improve your ranking on Google, make a list of keywords you want to rank for, and then search for them in your geographic area. Make sure your Geographic preference is set to the correct location so you get accurate data.

1. Collect a list of keywords
2. Search Google to see which companies are ranking in the local pack
3. Record a list of the companies’ names and website URLs in the spreadsheet under the competitor research tab.

There may be chances for success that are not obvious, and looking at these opportunities can give you an advantage over your competitors.

Method 2: Use SEMRUSH.com

SEMRush is a pretty neat competitive analysis tool. The program costs money, but there are a few free visits available each day. The tool is limited to showing you the top 10 ranking competitors for a given keyword. It’s also useful for recording paid competition as well.

To use the SEMRush tool, go to www.SEMRush.com and enter your website into the search box. Hit the search button to continue. Once the page loads, scroll down to the “main competitors” section. If you select the “view full report” option, you will be redirected to a page with 10 competitor URLs.

Can you please add these URLs to the spreadsheet so we can track them?

Method 3: Use SPYFU.com

This tool will show you your top 5 competitors in paid and organic search. SEMRush is a paid tool that is easy to use, just like it. There is a box on the home page that you can enter your URL into. After you perform a search, a list of five websites will appear as results.

Enter these competitors into your spreadsheet for tracking.

Method 4: Use Crunchbase.com

This website provides a lot of data that can be helpful if you want to learn about startups. In addition to the basic information, you can also find out things like how much money they’ve raised, staff members, past employee history, and so much more.

In a similar way to the other tools, you just need to enter the URL of your website into Crunchbase and hit the search button. Once the page finishes loading, you can scroll down to the competitors section to find some data.

Although Crunchbase is innovative, it is not particularly useful for smaller companies as there is not a lot of data available for them outside of the startup industry.

Method 5: Check out Compete.com

This tool lacks data for smaller websites, but it’s worth a try. Although it is not my preferred style, you should still investigate this option.

To find out how much traffic a website gets, visit www.compete.com and enter the URL of the site in the search box.

To find related websites, click the “Find more sites like” box. This will give you a list of three websites that are related to the site you are currently on. Enter these in the provided spreadsheet.

Method 6: Use SimilarWeb.com

The SimilarWeb tool provides extensive data that can be used to investigate websites. After entering your information, you can scroll down to find websites that are similar to the one you entered.

SimilarWeb is a reliable source of data for sites of all sizes.

2. After you know who they are, mine their data

We can investigate our competitors to see why they are ranking and what we can do to improve our own ranking. Choose your top competitors from the spreadsheet and write down information about each business on the Competitor Analysis tab.

To get this information, you will need to go to their Google My Business page.

If you know the company’s name, you can easily find them online by searching for the brand name. If your business has multiple locations, you can include the geographic locations.

For example, if I want to find a Wendy’s restaurant in Parker, Colorado, I can search for “Wendy’s Parker, CO” and it will show me the location(s).

Make sure to take and record the following information from their local listings. Get the data from their Google My Business (Google + Page) and record it in the spreadsheet!

1. Business name – Copy and paste the whole business name. Sometimes businesses keyword stuff a name or have a geographic modifier. It’s important to account for this.
2. Address – The full address of the business location. Although we can’t do anything about its physical location, we will search using this information shortly.
3. City, state, zip code – The city, state, and zip listed on the Google My Business listing.
4. Phone number – Take the listing’s primary number
5. Phone number 2 – Take the listing’s secondary number like an 800 number.
6. Landing page URL – The one connected to their Google My Business listing.PRO TIP: The URL will display as the root domain, but click the link to see if it takes you to an internal landing page. This is essential!
7. Number of categories – Does your listing have more or less categories than the listing?
8. Categories in Google My BusinessYou can find the categories by clicking on the main category of the listing. It will pop out a list of all of the categories the business is listed under. If you only see one after doing this, open your browser and go to View Source. If you do Ctrl+F you can search the page for “GCID” without the quotes. This will show you the categories they’re listed under if you look through the HTML.
9. Does the profile appear to be 100% complete?
10. How many reviews do they have?
11. Is their business name visible in Google Street View? Obviously there is not much we can do about this, but it’s interesting especially considering some patents Bill Slawski was recently talking about.

3. Check important citations

I prioritize quality over quantity when it comes to citations. In other words, if you’re not coming up with new, original citations, then you’re not really standing out from the crowd. I tell clients that it’s important to get listed on the top citation sources, but it’s also good to keep an eye on what your competition is doing so you can stay up-to-date and ahead of the game.

To find out how well you are doing in comparison to your competition, you need to check the top citations. Tools like Whitespark’s local citation finder help you get an easy snapshot.

. If you were able to do something once, that doesn’t mean you should never try to do it again.

businesses should not think it is ok to just turn things off when they get to the top because it is a bad idea If online marketing is something you’re serious about, you’re always aware that there’s someone who is trying to take advantage of you. You need to track your brand mentions through the Fresh Web Explorer and your competition at least once a month. Moz’s Fresh Web Explorer tool makes it easy to find and track new content.

So what should you setup in Fresh Web Explorer?

• Your competitor’s brand name – Monitor their mentions and see what type of marketing they’re doing!
• Your competitor’s NAP – Easily find new citations they’re going after
• City+Industry+Keywords – Maybe there are some hidden gems outside of your competition you could go after!

Be sure to track anything and everything related to your brand. This will help the on-going efforts become easier.