Have you ever wondered how the others are higher up in traffic or have more visibility while you are offering the same or even superior products/services?
Well to put this right, these others know where the traffic is coming from and most importantly how to maximize it!
1. Why Tracking Competitor Traffic Matters
Analyzing the traffic that your adversaries manage to obtain DOES NOT mean that you will have to succumb to them in everything.
It means looking for ways to enhance your own approach.
Once you understand which of the keywords or back-links or some piece of content delivers their traffic to the organic section you begin to see the ways that work and position your site accordingly.
2. Classifying the Sources of Traffic (Organic, Social, Referral)
As for me, the most critical thing in advance competitor analysis is the differentiation of the following types of traffic and the geography of the target audience.
- Organic traffic – if there is one kind of traffic that every website wants the most, it is this one. It is free, and it is usually the traffic that comes from search engines like Google.
In other words, with this kind of traffic generation, advertising is not raked over. So, if you have managed to obtain high ranks without paying anyone, you have obviously mastered SEO well.
- Social traffic – Traffic served through social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn usually comes as part of paid advertisement.
This type of traffic is capable of causing spikes of traffic within a very short time, but managing it to stay for long can be quite a challenge.
- Referral Traffic: There is also a scenario when the other site has a link to yours and visitors come to your website through that link.
Acquiring a backlink from such a site is considered a vote for Google; thus the more quality backlinks you acquire, the better your SEO.
Having access to such resources enables you to ascertain the origin of traffic towards your adversaries, and the opportunities present to you.
Perhaps they are dominating social media, but struggle with organic traffic acquisition,right ?
And that is why we need those right keywords!
3. Tools to Track Competitor Website Traffic
This is where the real fun begins!
It becomes more straightforward to keep track of competitors’ traffic sources by utilizing the appropriate technologies. Thankfully, there are moral technologies that can be used for this work:
– SEMrush: Do you want to figure out why your rivals are ranking for some keywords? SEMrush provides an overview of the keywords that they rank for as well as their carried traffic.
– Ahrefs: This is a useful tool used to analyze the backlinks of an opponent. You are able to ascertain the websites that are linking to your competitors in search of ways to enhance your backlink plan.
– SpyFu: If you also want to check out the paid ways they have, you can do that by using SpyFu to spy on their PPC activities and organic traffic statistics.
All of the above allow you to view some data which is available to the public hence you are playing by the rules.
Begin by investigating their high-level keywords and/or top-ranking articles.
✅What would you write to achieve a ranking for such keywords but with a more enhanced content?
4. Ethically ‘Stealing’ Competitor Traffic
Now that you possess the statistics, how will you go about “stealing” portions of that traffic from the opposing competitors (with all ethical considerations taken into account)?
Here is the order of operations:
- Have a Similar Keyword Targeting Plan – If any of the keywords sought by competitors are relevant to your business, seek to rank higher than the current rankings. Provide more in-depth content on that keyword. Provide comprehensive answers, illustrate the section and make sure the page is responsive.
- Enhance Finish for Backlinks – Work out who was linking to her competitors and why. Are these any linking opportunities relevant to the content which you have produced but is superior? Hit them with something they will love.
- Develop Superior Content – When a well performing article from the competition is already available but you sense its potential is much higher, go and build something optional. Look closer to the query, include examples or make additions that have not been presented before.
- Capitalize on Your Advantages – Do they have any deficiency in terms of social traffic or referral traffic? Get into those strongholds where they are weakest. For example, if they do not bother a lot with social media, use that as your advantage and become the content provider for that segment.
5. Best Practices for Ethical Competitor Traffic Analysis
To put it bluntly, there are principles that should be known. This is not about finding loopholes or bending the rules.
You are collecting information that is already available in the public realm; the intention is to enhance one’s own domain and not that of anyone else.
So, here are some things to think about in order to keep things on the solution side.
– Refrain from Using Black-Hat Strategies: No data scraping, data hacking, or data corruption. Only use solutions that offer permitted access to genuinely accessible data.
– Work Towards the Betterment of Your Site: It’s not about bringing anyone down, it is about raising your site up. It’s taking action in the marketplace, not dirty fighting.
– Do Not Deceive Others: When you contact websites to obtain backlinks, you must deliver value to them and build real connections. Don’t bother them or lie to them
In this article, we realized the importance of measuring the competitor’s traffic because it will certainly give you an advantage in playing the SEO game.
Whether it is through SEMrush or Ahrefs, or just looking at their keywords and backlinks, you can play up your strategy without crossing the ethics line.
And now, it’s your turn:
What exactly motivates you the most in terms of analyzing competitor traffic and what do you find most troublesome?
Share your views, and follow for more hacks!
To learn more check out my YouTube video on Ethically Stealing Your Competitors Organic Traffic: https://youtu.be/lvN_27szkBk
