Competitive Analysis: The Basics

What you can gain
Analyzing your competition is crucial to optimizing your site. By checking out sites like yours, you can learn which optimization techniques to focus on and which ones to skip. Plus, comparing and contrasting the sites that score high on various search engines can give you a quick snapshot of each engine's characteristics.

What you'll need
Competitive analysis requires a basic knowledge of HTML. Although you'll be looking at each site's general features, you'll also want to examine the HTML code for every page. (To see a site's HTML code, use your browser's View/Source or Page Source command.)
There are some software and web-based programs available to help you analyze competing sites. They'll usually put the HTML code in simpler form and give you statistics for other factors that influence rankings.
Note: To read more about ranking factors visit our keywords section, which includes help on HTML titles, meta tags, ALT tags and other areas. Also check out our articles on link popularity and site popularity.

What to look for in a competitor's site

1. Look for doorway pages and bait-and-switch techniques.
Does your competitor's site include pages with few images that don't look like they belong to the rest of the site? They may be doorway pages , specially optimized to meet a particular search engine's indexing requirements.
Some sites use a technique called "cloaking" or "bait and switch" to trick search engines into indexing a page that's different than the one users see. Here's are some suggestions on how to spot this:

Look at the title - Is it the same as it appears in the results?
Why was the page ranked high? - If you can't figure out why a page ranks high, consider the possibility that the search engine's spider saw a different page than you did.
Use Google - Take advantage of Google's cache feature, which allows users to view the page Google's spider indexed. See if the page Google cached matches the one you reach by clicking the link.

2. Check the HTML code for keyword usage.
Analyze your competitor's HTML title, meta tags, ALT tags and keyword frequency and weight. See how many characters are used in each element, how keywords are placed in relationship to one another and what keywords are used.
3. Analyze link popularity
Find out how many links your competition has by running a link popularity check at linkpopularity.com. Identify your weak areas and refocus your search engine placement efforts.
Look at URL name and alphabetical placement
See if your competitor has keywords in his URLs. If so, find out whether his rankings get a boost based on alphabetical hierarchy. Set realistic goals for yourself by examining these factors.

Using what you learn
Once you've analyzed your competition's pages for all of the above factors, you'll have some ideas about how to beat them. Don't copy your competitors' HTML code, but do use their techniques if they can help your site. For example, if you figure out one of your competitors is scoring high on Hotbot because of how he uses meta tags, you can focus on refining your meta tags for Hotbot. (To optimize for each search engine individually, create doorway pages.) 
Remember, competitive analysis is all about focusing your efforts. Don't worry about tinkering with your code for any search engines where you hold a Top 10 position. Work on improving your standing with search engines that don't rank you as highly.

An Overview

Competitive Analysis:

Helps focus your efforts
Involves examining factors that influence search engine rankings
Lets you apply your competitors' techniques      

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