In the world of global SEO, understanding your competition is just as important as optimizing your own website. Competitor analysis allows businesses to identify market gaps, spot opportunities for improvement, and sharpen their strategies to achieve better rankings on a global scale. This is particularly important when your business is targeting multiple countries and regions, each with their own set of competitors and search behaviors.
In this blog post, we’ll dive into how to conduct a competitor analysis for international SEO, what to look for, and how to use the insights to refine your global SEO strategy.
Steps to Perform Competitor Analysis for Global SEO
1. Identifying Top Competitors in International Markets
The first step in any competitor analysis is identifying who your top competitors are. In international SEO, this becomes more complex as you have to look at both local and global players within each market you are targeting.
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Search in Local Markets: Begin by searching for your target keywords in different regions. Use local search engines or Google’s country-specific versions (e.g., Google.fr for France, Google.co.uk for the UK). The websites ranking at the top in these regions are your primary competitors in those countries.
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Competitor Identification Tools: Tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, and SpyFu can help identify competitors in your niche across different regions. These tools also provide valuable insights into competitors’ rankings, traffic, and backlink profiles.
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Niche Competitors: Apart from larger competitors, look for niche players in each market. Smaller websites might be more agile and could have local SEO advantages you may overlook.
2. Key Factors to Analyze
Once you’ve identified your competitors, it’s time to dive deep into their SEO strategy. Here are the key factors you should focus on:
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Backlink Profile: Backlinks play a crucial role in SEO, especially for international rankings. Use tools like Ahrefs or Majestic to analyze your competitors’ backlink profiles. Look at the quality, relevance, and geographic distribution of these backlinks. This can help you identify potential link-building opportunities.
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Content Strategy: Review the type of content your competitors are publishing. Are they targeting informational content, product-focused content, or long-tail keywords? Take note of the topics they cover, the depth of their content, and how well it aligns with local user intent. This insight can help you build a content strategy that meets both global and local market needs.
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Keyword Strategy: Identifying the keywords your competitors are targeting is one of the most important aspects of competitor analysis. Tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, and Ahrefs can help you determine which keywords bring in the most organic traffic to your competitors. This gives you a clear understanding of which terms are most valuable in each region and how competitive they are.
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On-Page SEO Factors: Analyze the on-page SEO factors of your competitors’ websites. Focus on aspects like URL structure, meta tags, heading tags, keyword usage, and internal linking. How well do they optimize their content for both search engines and users?
3. Tools to Use for Competitor Analysis in International SEO
When performing international SEO competitor analysis, you need the right set of tools to gather actionable data. Some of the top tools include:
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SEMrush: SEMrush offers a comprehensive suite for competitor analysis, including keyword tracking, backlink research, traffic estimates, and detailed competitor reports for international markets.
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Ahrefs: Ahrefs provides a deep dive into your competitors’ backlinks, organic search traffic, and content strategy. It also helps identify ranking keywords in specific regions.
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Google Search Console: Google’s free tool helps you see how your website is performing in different countries and provides insights into keyword rankings and impressions.
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SpyFu: SpyFu helps uncover the paid and organic strategies of your competitors, making it useful for understanding both the SEO and paid search landscape across various regions.
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Moz: Moz provides tools like MozBar for quick on-page analysis and Keyword Explorer to analyze international keywords and competition.
Evaluating Your Competitor’s International SEO Performance
1. Analyzing Global Traffic Sources and Engagement
Understanding where your competitors’ traffic is coming from can help you gauge how well they are reaching global markets. Tools like Google Analytics and SEMrush can give you insights into their traffic sources, including:
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Organic Search Traffic: This shows which pages are driving the most organic traffic. Focus on competitors’ pages that rank well in your target countries and analyze how they are structured.
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Referral Traffic: Look at the sites that are sending traffic to your competitors. Are there specific countries or regions that dominate their referral traffic?
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Social Media & Direct Traffic: Social media platforms and direct traffic can play a significant role in boosting visibility. Understanding which platforms your competitors are using to drive traffic is crucial, especially in regions where certain platforms dominate.
2. Checking Their Keyword Rankings and On-Page SEO Strategies
Use keyword tracking tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, or Moz to check your competitors’ rankings in different countries. Focus on:
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Targeted Countries: Track keyword rankings for specific countries where your competitors are most successful. This will allow you to tailor your SEO strategy for each international market.
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Ranking for Global vs. Local Keywords: Are your competitors ranking for global keywords (e.g., “e-commerce platforms”) or more localized ones (e.g., “buy shoes in Paris”)?
3. Reviewing Their Backlink Profile
Backlinks are one of the most important factors for SEO, especially in competitive international markets. Analyzing your competitors’ backlink profiles can help you identify:
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High-Quality Links: Which authoritative websites are linking to your competitors? These could be prime targets for your own backlink outreach.
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Geographical Distribution: Look at the countries where your competitors are getting backlinks. Are they focusing on specific regional markets, or is their backlink profile more global?
How to Leverage Competitor Analysis for Your International SEO Strategy
Once you’ve gathered the data from your competitor analysis, it’s time to act. Here’s how to leverage the insights:
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Find Keyword Gaps: Identify keywords that your competitors are ranking for but that you are not targeting. This could be an opportunity to create new content or optimize existing pages for these keywords.
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Improve Content: If your competitors are ranking for certain keywords but their content isn’t comprehensive, you can create content that covers these topics in more depth. This can improve your chances of outranking them.
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Strengthen Backlink Strategy: Use the backlink data to develop a more effective link-building strategy. Reach out to the websites that are linking to your competitors and try to earn those links for your site.
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Expand to New Markets: If you notice that your competitors are successful in certain regions that you have not targeted yet, it might be time to expand your SEO efforts into those markets.
Conclusion
Competitor analysis is a vital part of any successful international SEO strategy. By understanding what your competitors are doing in various markets, you can refine your approach, uncover new opportunities, and strengthen your global SEO performance.