The goal of an SEO agency like 212 Creative, LLC is to get your website ranking higher than your competitors on search engines is essential for increasing visibility and driving organic traffic. There are lots of great articles about how to DIY your own SEO. This guide outlines a step-by-step approach to identifying the keywords and content that work for your competitors and creating superior content to enhance your SEO performance. By implementing these strategies, your website can gain a competitive edge in search rankings.
Step 1: Identify Your Top 5 Competitors
Goal: Determine your primary competitors to understand who is capturing your target audience’s attention.
Process:
- Leverage industry knowledge and SEO tools like Google Search and SEMrush to identify your main competitors.
- Consider factors such as market share, service similarity, and geographical relevance.
- Finalize a list of the top 5 competitors to analyze their SEO performance.
Step 2: Conduct Competitor Analysis with an SEO Tool
Goal: As an SEO agency, we use certain tools that are excellent, and have lots of free functions. you can use. For example, use SEMrush (or a similar SEO tool) to evaluate your competitors’ web presence and identify high-performing pages. SEMrush is a great tool, and if you set up a free account, you can check your websites keywords, overall health, traffic analysis and much more. Ahrefs is another powerful tool to use. You can get a free webmaster account by going to https://ahrefs.com/webmaster-tools. It will give you access to some great tools to try the following:
Process:
- Enter each competitor’s domain into SEMrush to analyze their traffic and keyword rankings.
- Identify pages (service, product, category, or blog pages) that rank for over 50 keywords and drive significant traffic.
- Document these high-performing pages for further analysis.
Step 3: Categorize High-Performing Pages
Goal: Classify the identified competitor pages into two main categories: Evergreen Pages and Blog Pages.
Process:
Go right to your competitors webpage and gather the following information:
- Evergreen Pages: These include service, product, or category pages that provide long-term value (e.g., mortgage calculators for financial websites).
- Blog Pages: Content-rich pages designed to inform, educate, and engage the audience.
Once you have that information, look them over and grab any good ideas they have reproduce that on your website. Also, take a look at your own website and see if you would get the same useful information from your website, or if you have to change it up? If you think your website might need a tune up, the next step would be to develop a content strategy for your website with the following process:
Step 4: Develop a Content Strategy to Outperform Competitors
Goal: Create high-quality pages on your website that mirror the competitor pages but with superior content.
Process:
- Content Planning: Every SEO Agency, including 212 Creative, LLC, will advise you to develop content that is more in-depth, engaging, and informative than competitors’. If you normally aren’t a writer, don’t sweat it. You are something better–a content expert with lots of experience. Write what you know, write what you wish you had known when you were starting, write about what you’ve learned. You’re not giving away trade secrets, you are building trust in a client base that will see you as an expert.
- Word Count: Aim for 1,500-2,500 words per page to ensure thorough coverage of topics.
- Quality Over Quantity: Prioritize well-researched, optimized, and reader-friendly content. Don’t go to AI and churn out a bunch of content just to have content. Stop and ask your self if this would be useful to your website visitors? If not, don’t use it.
- Multimedia Integration: Incorporate images, videos, and infographics to enhance user engagement. This is especially important when giving information. Blog articles are great, but sometimes an infographic or image can get the information to the visitor faster and more efficiently. Put yourself in their shoes and objectively judge your own content for usefulness and ease of understanding.
Outranking competitors requires a strategic SEO approach that involves analyzing their successes and improving upon them. By identifying high-performing pages, categorizing them, and creating superior content, your website can achieve higher search rankings and attract more organic traffic. The key to SEO success is not just replicating competitor content but significantly enhancing it by adding your personal touch, your expertise and your wisdom.
While there are things you can do to enhance your business’ SEO, you also have to run a company. If you don’t want to wear one more hat, give us a call! We are SEO experts and have had astounding success with our clients. Check out our SEO packages at https://shop.212creative.com/seo-package-plans/. We would love to hear from you. Give us a call. Let’s begin.
Watch This Video from Ahrefs for a Case Study on SEO Optimization
Video Summary: This case study showcases how a digital marketer improved a blog post’s ranking on Google within 24 hours using basic SEO techniques.
Key Takeaways:
- Content is Key: Google favors well-structured, informative content.
- SEO Basics Work: Simple SEO enhancements can yield significant improvements.
- SERP Features Matter: Targeting featured snippets can boost visibility.
By strategically refining content and implementing smart SEO tactics, you can achieve noticeable ranking improvements in a short period. However, maintaining top positions requires ongoing optimization efforts.
Remember, as a business owner, you wear many hats and have so many responsibilities. Maybe consider letting us, as a fast growing SEO agency in Troy, Michigan, run your SEO campaigns, so you can focus on your business. We have a saying “Only do what only YOU can do!” Only you can set the culture, the direction and the mission for your business. That’s where we think your focus should be. Let us get our hands dirty and work the SEO machine to your advantage! Check out our SEO plans at https://shop.212creative.com/seo-package-plans/. When you’re ready, call us. Let’s begin!