Three quick and free ways to analyse your competition’s online performance and improve your own web strategy
Web analytics can be something of a black hole. You can keep looking deeper and deeper until time loses all meaning and you find yourself in a parallel dimension.
OK – it may not be that bad, but there are times when some quick and dirty web analysis is required. These sites will help with that. Thanks to Marialena Zinopoulou for sharing them at her recent talk at the B2B Marketing Expo. Marialena is chief executive of the Digital Marketing Association and lecturer in analytics at Imperial College Business School, so she knows her stuff.
similarweb.com
Brilliant for competitor analysis, this analytics tool scours the data behind any address you choose. You’ll learn how that site ranks across the web or by country, and where it stands in its category.
There’s data giving total visits, pages visited and bounce rate for the previous six months. Learn where that traffic came from, and which keywords are driving discovery – including paid keywords.
Traffic from social media is also analysed, along with display advertising. There’s even detail on which subdomains are most popular.
The information is displayed with wonderfully clear graphics, allowing you to get a feel for a site’s traffic at a glance. Register and you can download the information as a PDF. Deeper analysis requires payment, but there’s a load of good stuff before you reach the paywall.
semrush.com
Another great site for discovering how traffic is reaching a competitor’s site. Learn how the share of views is split between organic and paid search, as well as backlinks and display advertising.
There’s analysis of top organic keywords, including their cost per click and main competitors for those terms. Hover your mouse over the various graphs to get more data and click through for an even more granular look at the data.
Sample search, display and video adverts are shown, allowing a quick look at what the competition is up to.
Once again there is plenty of information for a speedy analysis. Prices start at $99 per month if you want fuller functionality.
spyfu.com
This site doesn’t hide the fact that it’s a great tool for spying on the competition. There’s similar functionality to semrush and similarweb, but the data is displayed in different ways, allowing unique insights.
Funky Venn diagrams show keyword overlaps with competitors and you can click through to learn more. Discover what search terms your competitor is paying for and get an idea of their cost. There are also suggestions of which adwords you should consider buying to gain some of the same eyeballs.
Graphs show how search terms have trended over time, with data going back an impressive five years.
Is all the data on all these sites 100% accurate? No, it’s not. Such fine-tuned analytics is only available to a site’s owner. However, if used in conjunction they reveal trends and insights that will help you understand what is working for the competition, and why. What are you waiting for?
