When we review our website for information on how it is performing, we often think about the concept from merely our own site’s perspective. In other words, we think about how our site is doing, how it’s ranking in some categories and how it is not ranking at all in others, but we do not necessarily consider all of these components in relation to the competition. Ultimately, the only thing that matters is how we perform relative to other competitors. You can be doing quite well with respect to keyword inclusion and traffic, but if your competitors are doing much better in these areas, are you really doing all that well? We’ll talk about the benefits of a competitive analysis – which can help assess all of these things – in the following article.

Know Where You Stand

It can sometimes seem like we’re a mere piece of driftwood, scattered somewhere in the vast ocean of the internet. Not knowing where you are or where to go from here can be a serious psychological challenge to some (and can be a disastrous scenario for those who are already struggling). A competitive analysis of your website will ultimately put all of these things into perspective, helping you determine which areas of SEO or content creation need to be pursued more heavily, and which areas you are already conquering adequately. Pinging servers with content and strategies that are effective against the competition is the ultimate benefit you can gain once you have had a competitive analysis performed.

Justifying Expenditures

The first benefit of a competitive analysis is figuring out where you stand with respect to paid strategies. If you are responsible for managing a content presence for a company, for instance, convincing leaders to allocate more funds for various projects can be difficult. A competitive analysis will show where more is needed, and can make the justification for spending in a sound way. Likewise, if you run your own operation, then this analysis may be just the convincing you need to do the same.

Find Low-Hanging Fruit

Another benefit to competitive analyses is that they will shed light on various areas in which only a nominal amount of effort is needed to take the lead. Perhaps there is a cluster of keywords that have been used by your brand but are currently under-performing (but only need a little more focus to really take off). The same can be said about several other metrics, but only a competitive analysis will unearth which ones specifically apply to your brand.

Discover Competitors’ Weaknesses

A competitive analysis – when done properly – will also discover various weaknesses among your competitors. This can be a virtual gold mine for you, as you can then begin pinging servers with solutions that will help overtake them in these areas. You’ll be able to also learn what they’re doing well and then adapt your own strategies to take advantage of this. Unearthing a variety of data about your competitors may be the most valuable aspect to competitive analysis.