The Importance of Competitive Analysis for SEO

When it comes to SEO, competitive intelligence is critically important.  In any given industry and geographic location, there are hundreds (sometimes thousands) of companies competing for the ~10 organic spots on the first page of Google (excluding the map / local listings).  Before you make a single optimization to your website, perform a comprehensive SEO analysis on the websites that rank well in your industry and for the best keywords for your business.  You’ll achieve far greater long-term SEO results if you follow this process  (vs. shooting from the hip).

NOTE: You’ll probably want to do some tracking of your own website and execute a keyword research campaign even prior to performing a competitive SEO analysis.  Just because your competitors are targeting a particular keyword, doesn’t mean it’s a good one!  You’d be amazed at how frequently otherwise successful businesses optimize their website for the wrong keywords!  To learn more about running a well-executed keyword research campaign, contact us.

At a minimum, you’ll want to answer the following questions as part of your competitive SEO analysis are:

General Website Questions:

• Is their website coded in CSS/HTML or tables?
• What are the primary ‘calls to action’ on their website?
• Are they tracking conversions of these ‘calls to action’?
• How many pages is their website?
• Do they have a site map and privacy policy?
• What is their service area?
• Are they using flash, videos or other interactive design elements?

Specific SEO Questions:

• What keywords are they targeting on their home page and primary sub-pages?
• What is their keyword density on each website page – which keywords are being targeted most heavily?
• Who are they linking to and what types of websites are linking to them?
• What is the anchor text of the in-bound links pointing to their website?
• Have they optimized their website for local search?
• How does their website rank organically on Google, Yahoo and Bing for their target keyword phrases?
• Do they have a social media marketing strategy?
• Are they utilizing article directory websites and online press-releases?
• Do they have an active pay-per-click campaign?

These are just the basics – there’s far more information that you can and should obtain.  The insights derived from performing a competitive SEO analysis are critical to developing an intelligent long-term SEO strategy.  Companies in highly competitive markets (law firms, plumbers, roofing companies, home remodeling companies, etc.) will need to perform this type of analysis at least once every 6 months and once per quarter might be even more appropriate.

For small (and not so small) companies that don’t have the time or expertise in-house to perform this type of SEO analysis, Blue Corona has developed several cost-effective and turn-key competitive SEO analysis packages.  Drop us a line to learn more.

Why Small Businesses Should Specialize

Seth Godin wrote a recent blog post about hunters and farmers.

One of  ideas he raises is that it doesn’t make a lot of sense to medicate kids that are excellent hunters so that they can sit in a classroom that teaches farming.  The same skills that make them great hunters (ex. being easily distracted) can make it very difficult to do the same thing over and over (homework problems).  But doing the same thing over and over with a very careful attention to detail is exactly what it takes to be a great farmer.  Of course Seth relates this back to marketing and how it’s important that your message/product matches your target and your approach should be different depending on whether you’re targeting hunters or farmers.

The whole concept that some people are wired to be hunters while others were born to be farmers raises another interesting question:  How much time should you spend “fixing” your deficiencies versus nurturing your strengths?

Although I don’t profess to know the answer to this question, I’ll go out on a limb and say that all business owners should work to develop a basic competence in key areas like:  accounting, customer service, finance, marketing, sales, etc.   Without a grasp of the basics, you’re going to have a very difficult time sticking around long enough to have a business to own!

At the same time, you should realize that you don’t need to become an expert in everything (inside joke/shout out to Bob Perini, CEO of DrinkMore Water).  For most people, this strategy results in one thing:  Becoming a jack of all trades and master of none!  Don’t do it!

In trying to learn the basics of the aforementioned business skills, most people generally find that they gravitate toward one or two – things they enjoy and where they are supremely competent.  By doing the minimum in the other skill areas and focusing most of your time on the one thing at which you’re best suited, you’re more likely to grow your business to a point where you can hire others to fill your gaps.

If you’re wired to be a hunter, get out there and hunt.  Stop worrying about your branding, brochure and logo!  Despite what the ad agency or brand consultancy tells you, these things don’t matter (yet)!  When you’re just starting out, you usually don’t have room for a lot of mistakes.  Don’t make this one.

Not only should you focus on doing what matters most and what you were born to do, you should also focus your company’s services to the point where you do just one or two things unbelievably well.

How narrow should you go?  Seth and other business gurus suggest picking something that is narrow enough for you to become known as the best in the world.  For example – if you own roofing company, ask yourself – “can I be the best roofing company in the country?”  If the answer is “no,” repeat the question, but be more specific.  If you can’t be the best roofing company in the country, focus on a region.  If you can’t be the best roofing company in a region, pick a state.  If you can’t be the best roofing company in the state, pick a county.  Can’t dominate the county, pick a type of roof – metal roofs for $1MM plus homes.

Make sense?

Avoid the ‘jack of all trades; master of none’ syndrome.

If you’re worried that you won’t find enough customers – stop!  In his book, “Good to Great,” Jim Collins tells us that companies that specialize in one thing are more likely to die from indigestion than from lack of business.

Now, more than ever, it’s important for small (and not so small) businesses to specialize.  Why?   Because with the ever-increasing amounts of information being thrust in front of people – from Bing, Facebook, Google, Radio, TV, etc. – it’s becoming exceedingly difficult to gain attention from your prospective customers. It’s like almost everyone has some degree of A.D.D. today

You’re much less likely to get heard if you’re shouting several (sometimes unrelated) messages at a level “5″ volume with a sea of companies around you doing the same thing.

You know who get’s heard?

Two types of companies:

• Those screaming one message at a higher volume level and/or
• Those siting quietly doing one thing better than anyone else with a sea of customers around them preaching their greatness to others

You don’t need the best  or perfect message as long as it’s focused and direct.  If you want 2010 to be better than 2009, focus.  Focus on raising your business skills to a minimum level and then spend most of your time doing what you were born to do.  Narrow your company’s services to the point that you’re doing just a few things, but you’re doing them better than anyone else.

Do this and you’ll win.

Website Optimization Using Google Analytics

If you want to get more leads from your website, you have three options:  Make changes to your website to improve your visit-to-lead conversion rate, get more traffic OR both!  But before you change anything on your site, or spend a penny on advertising to get more website traffic, you need to determine exactly where you are today.  You need your baseline traffic numbers and your website’s current visit-to-lead conversion rate.

One analytics tool that is great for finding this information is Google Analytics.  Pop it on your website (it shouldn’t take more than 3-4 hours to get things set-up correctly).  Be sure you set up goals and funnels and make sure you adjust things so that you and your employees are filtered out of the data.  You might also want to set things up so that downloads and outbound links are tracked as well.

(Note:  If you do business over the phone, you’ll have to take things a step beyond just plain Google Analytics. Contact one of our analysts to learn more.)

Let Google Analytics collect a month or so of data and then start poking around and playing with the various reports you can run.  Make sure that you understand what the reports you’re running represent before you take any action or set-up any tests.

For example – while it might be fine in certain cases, you probably don’t want to run a report that shows your total visits and total conversions and, based on that conversion rate, make decisions as to whether to optimize your website or not.

Why?

Suppose you’re a plumbing company and you only service the state of North Carolina, but you have visits to your website from all over the country.  Looking at total visits and total conversions isn’t a good indication of your website’s ability to convert a prospective customer into a lead because visits from out of your service area wouldn’t be expected to result in a conversion.  In order to really figure out how good (or bad) your website is, you have to segment your visitors into those inside your service area and those outside your service area.

Frequently, we find business owners fixating on improving their website’s conversion rates when really they should be focused on getting more visitors from within their service area to their website.  Google Analytics is a very powerful tool.  But, like any tool, it’s only as good as the technician using it!  Want to learn more?  Check out one of Blue Corona’s weekly marketing analytics webinars (every Thursday from 1-2pm EST)

Happy analyzing!