Once you have selected keywords and corresponding landing pages, now it’s time to change the pages so that it will available on the top SERP. Competitive analysis not only gives you a solid idea about what you need to do but also save your time to take decisions. The more number of competitors and keywords you consider the greater will be you outcome. I recommend considering top ten competitors per keywords.
Here are the factors, which you need to consider while doing competitive analysis on priority basis :-
Keyword use in document title - The document title is the text within the title tags in the HTML code of your web page.
Global link popularity of web site - The global link popularity measures how many web pages link to your site. The number of web pages linking to your site is not as important as the quality of the web pages that link to your site. All major search engines take the quality and the context of the links into account. Search engines assume that your web page must offer relevant content if many quality sites link to it.
Link texts of inbound links - Inbound links are links from other web sites to your site. If many other sites link to your site, then search engines consider your site to be important. However, the number of links is not as important as is the relevance of the linking page and the link text used in linking to your site. Note that search engines do not reveal all inbound links to your site. The more inbound link texts are analyzed, the more meaningful is the quality of the advice. To get statistically significant results, you should analyze at least 50 inbound link texts.
Keyword use in body text - The body text is the text on your web page that can be seen by people in their web browsers. It does not include HTML commands, comments, etc. The more visible text there is on a web page, the more a search engine can index.
Age of web site - Spam sites often come and go quickly. For this reason, search engines tend to trust a web site that has been around for a long time over one that is brand new. The age of the domain is seen as a sign of trustworthiness because it cannot be faked. You can get the data from Alexa.com, whois.org, domaintools.com, Archive.org
Keyword use in H1 headline texts - H1 headline texts are the texts that are written between the ... tags in the HTML code of a web page. Some search engines give extra relevance to search terms that appear in the headline texts.
Example: your very big headline text
Keyword use in domain name - The domain name is the main part of the web page address. SE’s gives extra relevance to search terms within the domain name.
Example: "your-keyword" is the domain name of http://www.your-keyword.com
Keyword use in page URL - The page URL is the part after the domain name in the web page address. SE’s gives extra relevance to search terms within the page URL. Separate your search terms in the page URL with slashes, dashes or underscores. Example: "keyword/another-keyword.htm" is the page URL of http://www.domain.com/keyword/another-keyword.htm
Links from social networks - On social network sites, people decide which web sites are popular. This means that the popularity on social network sites cannot be easily influenced. For this reason, search engines might trust web sites more if they are popular on social networks. (Del.icio.us, Digg, stumbleupon, squidoo, hubpages, …..)
Server speed - Popular web sites often have faster server response times compared to smaller unimportant sites. In addition, most search engines index more pages from fast web sites. Consider how long it takes on average for web pages on the top ranked sites to load.
Keyword use in H2-H6 headline - H2, H3, H4, H5 and H6 headline texts are the texts that are written between the ..., ..., etc. tags in the HTML code of your web page. Some search engines give extra relevance to search terms that appear in the headline texts.
Example: your big headline text
Keyword use in IMG ALT attributes - The attribute defines an alternative text for an image when the user uses a text browser or when the user has turned off the display of images in the web browser application. Microsoft's Internet Explorer displays the alternative text if the user puts the cursor over the graphic. Find out if the search term included in the attributes to improve your rankings.
Example:
Top level domain of web site - Web sites with certain top level domains (TLD) are statistically more likely to contain higher quality, trustworthy contents. For this reason, search engines prefer web sites with restricted TLD (.edu, .gov., .mil) over younger TLD (e.g., .biz, .info, .jobs). In addition, country code TLD (e.g., .ca, .de, .fr) are often preferred in the country's local search results.
Keyword use in bold body text - The body text is the text on your web page that can be seen by people in their web browsers. The bold body text uses a darker and heavier face than the regular type face. It appears between ... or ... tags in the HTML source of your web page. CSS is not recognized.
Number of visitors to the site - Search engines might look at web site usage data, such as the number of visitors to your site, to determine if your site is reputable and contains popular contents. The Alexa.com traffic rank is based on three months of aggregated traffic data from millions of Alexa Toolbar users and is a combined measure of page views and number of site visitors.
Keywords use in same site link text - Link texts are words and sentences that are used as links. Same site link texts are the link texts of the links that point to a web page on the same domain. SE’s takes search terms in same site link texts into account.
Example: The HTML tag Contact information contains the same site link text "Contact information".
Keywords use in outbound link texts - Link texts are words and sentences that are used as links. Outbound link texts are the texts within the ... tags when the tag links to a web page on a different domain. SE’s gives relevance to search terms in outbound link texts.
Example: The HTML tag About the company contains the outbound link text "About the company".
Keyword use in same site link URL - Links connect one web page to another. Same site links are the links in attributes that point to other pages on the same domain. examine if search terms in same site link URLs are relevant to SE.
Example: The HTML tag Contact information contains the same site link URL "contact.htm".
Keyword use in outbound link URLs - Links connect one web page to another. Outbound links are the links on a web page that point to web pages on other web sites, i.e. links to other domains. Examine if Google.com gives relevance to search terms in outbound links
Example: The HTML tag Click here contains the outbound link URL "www.not-your-site.com/info.htm".
Keyword use in meta description - The Meta Description tag allows you to describe your web page. Find out if SE takes the Meta Description tag into account. Some search engines display the text to the user in the search results.
Example: Even if the Meta Description tag might not be important for ranking purposes, you should use the Meta Description tag to make sure that your web site is displayed with an attractive description in the search results.
Number of trailing slashes in URL - The number of trailing slashes (/) in the URL indicates where a web page falls in a site's overall hierarchy. If the URL contains many trailing slashes, meaning it is placed in a sub-sub-directory, then the webmaster does not seem to think that the page is important in relation to the other pages.
HTML validation of web page to W3C standards - Web pages are written in special languages called HTML and CSS. Like any language, HTML and CSS change constantly. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the governing body that establishes what is valid HTML/CSS and what is not. Search engines obey the HTML/CSS standard. If there are errors in the HTML/CSS code of your web page, then search engines might not be able to read everything of your web page.
Readability level of web page - The Flesch Reading Ease test is a United States governmental standard to determine how easy a text is to read. It measures the approximate level of education necessary to understand the web page content. Higher scores indicate the text that is easier to read, and lower numbers mark harder-to-read texts. Scores among different languages are not comparable.
Keyword use in meta keywords - The Meta Keywords tag allows you to define which search terms are important to your web page according to your opinion. It should be placed between the ... tags in the HTML code of your web page. Though it has lost its importance as far as ranking is concern, but there is nothing harmful we one will put it on his pages
Keyword use in the first sentence of the body text - The first sentence of the body text is the first sentence after the tag in the HTML code of your web page. Some search engines give more relevance to search terms when they appear in the first sentence. Some will use your first sentence as the description of your page on the search result page.
Example: Here goes the first sentence. This text is not the first sentence.
Keyword use in HTML comments - HTML comment tags are "hidden comments" in the HTML code of your web page. They are not visible to the user. try to find out if search terms in the HTML comment tags are relevant for a good ranking on SE’s
Search engine compatibility – Check how compatible are your pages with comparison to the pages of your competitors on various SE’s
Consider the above factors of your competitors and compare them with the existing elements on your page and modify accordingly. Importantly extracting above factors manually will definitely consume more time for that you can take help of some online tools. The one most appropriate tool in my knowledge is IBP, which I have been using from last few years.
