SEO tools are essential to any digital marketing strategy to catch up to your competition. Different tools can help you peek into your competitors’ digital marketing strategies so you can learn from them yourself. Here are a few of them that you can try and use.
1. Semrush
Semrush is a digital marketing tool for any savvy digital marketer looking for an all-in-one software package. Of course, you can get their competitor analysis capabilities as part of their overall toolkit. It comes in six different forms:
- Backlinks Competitors Report: This report will show which competitor website shares the same referring domains. This report is most useful when you’re working on your link-building strategy.
- Market Explorer: If you already have a list of competitors in mind and want to get a pulse on how they’re doing, then this tool from Semrush is excellent.
- Organic Research Competitors Report: This report showcases which websites you most frequently compete with regarding organic traffic.
- Paid Search Competitors Report: This tool is similar to the Organic Research Competitors Report, except they focus on paid keywords instead.
- PLA Competitors Report: This report will show you which websites you compete with the most for Google Shopping search results.
- Position Tracking Competitors Discovery: If you have a list of target keywords you haven’t ranked for yet and want to know who you’re competing with, this is the report you need.
You can get an SEO Software trial for Semrush, specifically their Pro and Guru pricing, available for you to use in one week. If you are interested in using Semrush, then prices start as low as $99.95 per month.
2. Ahrefs
Another popular all-in-one SEO toolset amongst digital marketers would be Ahrefs. The Site Explorer tool is their tool or feature that focuses on competitor insights. This tool combines three things in one: organic and paid traffic research, as well as a backlink checker.
You can use Ahrefs’ Site Explorer to help you see which keywords your competitors organically rank for to see opportunities for you. You can also view the traffic that each of these keywords brings.
If you’re working on your link-building strategy, you can use Site Explorer to crawl through a website and see where all their backlinks are coming from. You can then use that information to let you know some domains from which you can also consider getting backlinks.
You can also use this tool to let you know if your competitor is investing in paid ads and which keywords they may be bidding on. This information can inform your own paid keywords approach.
3. SimilarWeb
SimilarWeb is a software and data analytics company specializing in web analytics and performance. They have various tools that can help a company in multiple ways, but you can use their Digital Marketing Intelligence package to do so in terms of competitor analysis.
You can use the Digital Marketing Intelligence tool to determine your competitors’ top traffic source. This information can let you know where it’s best to position yourself.
It can also help you identify both your paid and organic traffic competitors. At the same time, you can view data and competitor insights in a birds-eye-view and see how you compare, so you don’t have to dig through tons of data and reports to get these insights.
You can even dive deeper into your competitors’ data to see how excellent the quality of the traffic they’re getting is.
4. Moz
Moz is an SEO software that offers a free SEO competitor tool that you can use up to three times daily. It’s a great way to see how you can benefit from using Moz but do expect that their free SEO competitive analysis tool will have limits.
If you’re satisfied with Moz’s free SEO competitive analysis tool but want to upgrade, you can upgrade to the Moz Pro package. You will get various digital marketing tools in that tool, such as a Link Explorer tool that will help you find opportunities to build links if you haven’t yet.
Their Keyword Explorer can let you know which keywords are worth pursuing and how well you rank for specific keywords compared to your competitors.
5. SpyFu
SpyFu specializes in all things competitive analysis as they offer a variety of competitor keyword research tools that you can use to bolster your SEO efforts.
With their competitor analysis capabilities, you can find out a lot about your competition in different ways, such as:
- Keywords you rank high for that they’re slowly encroaching on
- Competitors’ number of traffic, traffic sources, and traffic quality
- Ad variations that your competition tried
- Overall ranking history
- Keywords that your competitors rank high for, but you don’t
What’s excellent about SpyFu and its transparent pricing structure is that it’s more affordable than many other software tool sites out there.
6. BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo’s competitive analysis and intelligence tool will help you get the correct information and data on your competitors to ensure success in multiple digital marketing efforts.
You can boost your content marketing efforts by determining which content your competitors made that worked best for them. See if you can fit that into your content marketing so that you can benefit from these keywords and content ideas.
BuzzSumo’s Facebook Page Analyzer can even help you check out your competitors on Facebook, not just on search engines, to see how you can grow your Facebook page.
They also let you know where your competitors fumbled so that you can avoid these pitfalls yourself.
7. Google Alerts
A simple tool that’s free for anyone would be Google Alerts.
You can set up Google Alerts to let you know whenever a competitor posts content or their brand name is mentioned somewhere on the Internet. That can show you domains linked to their brand, which can also be an opportunity for you to post with them.
8. Social media analytics tools
Don’t forget to look at competitor analysis for your social media and not just for search. There are tools within the social media platforms that you can leverage to give you data and information that will help inform your approach to SEO for these specific social media platforms.
You can also use third-party social media analytics tools to help you if you need more features and tools to help you manage your socials.
Conclusion
These tools can help you optimize your website and social media account to ensure your competitors don’t leave you behind. Leveraging your competitive analysis should help you fix your digital marketing approach to match or better your competitors’ approach.