Now that you have already identified your competitors (See: identify competitors), you can start a direct comparison with a specific competitor.
You can start a domain comparison from almost any Research Cloud subpage. Once you have entered your domain in the Research Cloud and selected a country, simply click on the "Compare domain" button and then select the desired competitor with which you want to compare your domain.
In this example, it makes sense to select the competitor we found earlier that had the highest visibility and the most shared keywords.
At the top, the SEO visibility in general, the mobile SEO visibility and the number of URLs and keywords of both domains are compared. At the top, the SEO visibility in general, the mobile SEO visibility and the number of URLs and keywords of both domains are compared. The own value is always given above and the competitor's value below. Based on these four KPIs, initial conclusions can be made on how strongly the two domains compete with each other and what danger the analyzed competitor might pose. In addition, the SEO Visibility KPIs include the trend, which represents the development from the last data point.
From the following example, we can see that the competitor under consideration is inferior to our domain both in terms of visibility and the number of URLs and keywords. Nevertheless, we can see that our domain had a negative visibility development, while the competitor gained visibility.
Below you will find the spider chart and a corresponding overview table that compares the visibility, the number of URLs, the organic keywords as well as the traffic index and value of both domains. This allows you to see at a glance whether your competitor may be performing better with fewer pages.
In the example, we have a lower Traffic Value with a higher Traffic Index. This indicates that our competitor ranks better for keywords with a high CPC - so there is potential for deeper analysis here.
The keyword overlap shown in the pie chart provides information about how relevant the competitor is and how big the "threat" it poses.
Further down the page you will find the unique and shared keywords of both domains. These lists help to further extend leads to gain competitive advantages, uncover keyword gaps and discover new potentials.
From here, for example, start a more in-depth search of the competitor's unique keywords to create topics or export the lists for a more in-depth analysis in Excel. Cluster the keywords by topic, brand and non-brand to identify relevant gaps. Or upload the keyword lists directly to your project (See article: How to upload mass keywords to a project?)
Please note: For exports you will be charged Export Credits. The amount depends on the scope of the respective export.
A direct comparison at product or topic level is made possible by the URL comparison.
We are competing with different competitors for mountain bikes than for yoga clothing, after all. In addition, we can also compare ourselves at URL level with individual divisions of particularly large, meaningful competitors. Go to Content Performance > URL Details to analyze a URL. You can also enter the URL you want to look at directly into the Research Cloud search bar. This will take you directly to the URL details.
Then, as with the domain comparison, click on the button "Compare URL" and select from the suggestions or type the desired URL in the field provided. The URL comparison page displays the identical elements as the domain comparison.
Let's look at our example: For the upcoming football season, we want to find out how the top ranking competitor ranks differently than us. So in the screenshot below, we compare our URL to mountain bikes with the competing URL.
In the Unique Keywords table, we can see that the competitor URL is ranking for "football boots men" and "newest football boots" – but we aren't. Both keywords are important for our URL. We should consider this in our strategy to improve our ranking for football boots.
To keep an even better eye on competitors, we recommend adding them as benchmarks to your project. You can learn how this works in the project management article.