Competitor research reimagined
1st July, 2024
In SEO, competitor research typically focuses on evaluating websites, rankings, keywords, content, and links. That makes sense; those are the fields in which we play, and the things that we’re most easily able to understand and influence.
But there’s a problem with this kind of research – it only evaluates lagging factors. It tells us about what has been done and the outcomes but provides little insight into our competitors’ mindsets, what their trajectory looks like, or what might change in the future.
That’s a worrying gap because when we’re devising a competitive strategy, we need to be aiming to beat our competitors in the future, not just now. We also need to assume that they’re looking at us – and we need to outmanoeuvre them through time.
The good news is that, with some clever research, we can find clues about some of the inputs into their strategies – as well as their constraints, priorities, and budgets. This can sometimes tell us a lot more than looking solely at SEO metrics.
For example, you can learn a lot by investigating organisational structures. Exploring LinkedIn might provide clues as to where SEO sits in the company, how well-resourced it is, and how senior or experienced the team is. That’ll also hint at budgets and capabilities; as well as SEO’s relationship with other departments. Knowing the job titles and backgrounds of the people you’re up against helps you know where to focus your efforts.
Depending on the country and the type of company, you might also be able to find quarterly earnings reports, info on sites like Crunchbase, annual filings or tax returns, and so on. You can use those to explore their resources and extrapolate their ambitions. A competitor with VC funding and high expectations on a return will behave differently from a steady family-owned business.
You might also explore the kinds of companies and agencies that your competitors partner with. Agencies and service firms are quick to shout about client wins, so their social media and press release histories paint a valuable picture of who’s working with who, but also, how long those relationships last, and the kinds of work being done. If you’re competing with a business that has a high turnover of agencies who’re working on purely tactical initiatives, that might nudge your own strategies towards longer-term plans that they can’t sustain or compete against.
Once you start thinking like this, the questions start flowing. Do their team attend, or speak at conferences? Do they have an overbearing parent company? Do people like them on social media? What’s their return policy? Are they planning an international expansion? Do their teams work remotely, or from a central office? What’s the average retention rate of new starters? What’s the CEO’s background and experience?
If we want to build effective SEO strategies, these are the kinds of questions we should be asking. Of course, we should also continue to evaluate their websites, rankings, keywords, content, and links. But we should contextualise what we find there with a wealth of information about why they’re doing what they’re doing, and what that tells us about what we should be doing differently.
