Competitive intelligence has many advantages. From understanding your competitor's online marketing strategy to identifying new trends in your industry, the uses are countless.

1. @igalst@igalst
Igal Stolpner, VP Growth, Investing.com
Competitive Intelligence
For Competitive SEOs

2. @igalst@igalst
Igal Stolpner
• VP Growth, Investing.com
• Tel Aviv, Israel
About me
• Free Financial Markets data website
• Available in 30 languages and Apps
• 320 employees in 4 offices
• 100M+ monthly visits

3. @igalst@igalst
Competitive Intelligence?

4. @igalst@igalst
• SaaS company's website
• Recipes WordPress blog
• 50M URLs eCommerce website

5. @igalst@igalst
The only question that matters: Is it you, or is it them?
In SEO, Everything is Relative

6. @igalst@igalst
Identifying Your Search Competitors

7. @igalst@igalst
• Business competitors vs. SEO
competitors
• Google your brand name:
‘People also search for’
• Googling your top keywords,
who comes up?
Identifying Competitors

8. @igalst@igalst
• Popular tools, such as:
• SEMrush
• Ahrefs
• SimilarWeb
• Majestic
• Moz
Identifying Competitors

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Keyword Clusters, Topics
Partial, Indirect competitors

10. @igalst@igalst
• Sometimes you will have separate
competitors per topic.
• Separate competitors for Stocks,
Commodities, News, Personal Finance.
Keyword Clusters Per Topic

11. @igalst@igalst
• When identifying competitors; management, marketers, and
users will often see things differently.
• A site can have different competitors per every covered
topic, don't miss any of them.
Some Insights to share

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Understanding Each Competitor
Inside Out

13. @igalst@igalst
Top Pages + Top Keywords

14. @igalst@igalst
• Aggregated view of Subfolders
• Competitors’ focus + topics they
actually dominate
• SEO tools focus on pages, not
site features

15. @igalst@igalst
Try them, read them, register, even buy from them.
Going Through the Sites

16. @igalst@igalst
• UX/Usability tests
• 3 steps:
• Preparing for the test
• Conducting with multiple people
• Analyzing the results
Going Through the Sites
Image credit: Silicon Valley, HBO

17. @igalst@igalst
• 3 steps:
• Search query on Google
• Ask questions
– Can users easily accomplish this?
– Does it require registering?
– How long does it take to find the filter?
– Was this article helpful?
• Which competitor provides the best
experience?
Lean UX/Usability Test for top pages
Image credit: Silicon Valley, HBO

18. @igalst@igalst
 Content audits, popular and custom metrics
 You can crawl competitors
 Top pages & folders, links data, shares data, manual check
 Not only to understand what works for them, but mainly why
Content Audit - Strengths and Weaknesses

19. @igalst@igalst
This isn't about copying someone else
It’s about learning what works in your very own
niche

20. @igalst@igalst
 Content Type
 Freshness (Update Frequency)
 Topic's On-page optimization (Yes,
keywords...)
 Total referring domains
 Total backlinks
 Shares/Traffic/Popularity
Content Audit: Why Do They Outrank You?
 Internal linking - Information
architecture
 Page speed (Desktop/Mobile)
 URL structure
 DA/PA/Other metrics you prefer
 Satisfaction
 Volume of branded searches

21. @igalst@igalst
• If you can, combine competitor keywords and pages data
from multiple tools.
• Try each of your competitors as a user. Run a lean usability
test.
• To understand why THEY outrank you, choose your custom
metrics and compare them, for all competitors.
Some Insights to share

22. @igalst@igalst
• Your own audience
• Survey them
• Email, site, social media
Understanding Their Audience

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• Related search operator
• related:nytimes.com/section/technology
• Try with your competitors
How Well Google Understands You, and Them, Per Topic

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Their Branding

25. @igalst@igalst
• Search Console’s branded searches
as THE metric
• Competitors' branded searches
• Brand name + branded searches
• ‘Booking.com’
• ‘Best Buy Laptops’
• ‘Bohemian Rhapsody IMDB’
• Amazon: 90% of organic traffic is
branded*
Their Branding

26. @igalst@igalst
Technical SEO Opportunities

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Crawling Competitors – DeepCrawl’s Stealth Mode

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 Their set up for Page Titles,
Descriptions, URLs on a large scale.
Length/structure.
 Web crawl depth.
 URLs they NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW
 You vs. them on domain + page
level: Number of external links,
internal links, word count, HTML
size.
Crawling Through Competitors
 Linked Domains. Total number +
which sites.
 Number of unique pages.
 How do they handle: Canonicals,
fetch time, duplicate titles,
descriptions, pagination, 301s, 5xx
errors, Non-HTML Pages, sitemaps,
mobile, Responsive, site speed.

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Featured Snippets

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Spotting New: Trends, Opportunities
and Threats

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• Look for changes, look for new:
• Menu links
• Content
• Features
Your Competitors: First, Simply Observe

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SimilarWeb
Traffic Changes
Alexa SEMrush

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• Identify new pages that perform
extremely well
• Same concept if pages are
decreasing in traffic
• Content gap analysis
New Pages Popping Up On Competitor Sites

34. @igalst@igalst
Competitors’ new keywords can tell a whole story
New Keywords

35. @igalst@igalst
Remember This?

36. @igalst@igalst
Business Goals

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• Hires
• Reviews (Facebook, Glassdoor, Google Play)
• Surveys, newsletters, blog

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Responding to Competitors
You need a fast lane for fast response

39. @igalst@igalst
• If you have access to keyword search volume, you can track
competitors' branded searches.
• MANY insights and ideas are waiting for you by crawling
your competitors.
• Create a process to spot new trends your competitors are
on. Have a fast lane to handle opportunities, not just threats.
Some Insights to share

40. @igalst@igalst
Links. Links. Links.

41. @igalst@igalst
Popular Link Index Databases
• Moz
• Ahrefs
• Majestic
• SEMRush

42. @igalst@igalst
• Spot your competitors’ broken
links
• Prioritize
• Offer similar content that simply
isn’t broken
404 – An Old Tactic, But Still Effective

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• Their own releases
• Advanced searches and alerts
• HARO
• Their social media channels
Competitors’ PR Activities

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Listicles

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Listicles
 ‘23 richest people in…’
 ‘26 Pictures that Perfectly
Capture How Insanely
Cold It is…’
 ‘22 Weird and Crazy US
Laws Still In Effect Today’
 ‘Best Travel Sites’
 ‘Top 15 Best Financial
Websites’
 ‘Best Food Blogs to Read
in 2019’
 ‘Top 5 utility apps for
Android’

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Wikipedia
Wikipedia and Other Large Referrals
FlipBoard DrudgeReport

47. @igalst@igalst
• Famous for many things, one is
internal linking
• References
• External links
Wikipedia

48. @igalst@igalst
Comparison Mode for Referrals
• List top traffic referrals to your top
competitors
• Identify those who send A LOT of
traffic to multiple competitors, but
not to you
• Prioritize and make sure you are
not left behind

49. @igalst@igalst
• #Links: Keep an eye on your competitors PR campaigns, it's
crucial for you to understand what works in your industry.
• Listicles - are you on every "Top 10 %YOUR_INDSUTRY%
list” yet?
• Do NOT miss the sites that refer significant traffic to your
competitors.
Some Insights to share

50. @igalst@igalst
Thanks!