PHASE 1 - LEARNING

COMPETITIVE
ANALYSIS
 The “5 Phases” of an SEO Campaign
Breaking down our evergreen approach

PHASE 1 PHASE 2 PHASE 3 PHASE 4 PHASE 5

LEARNING IMPROVING BUILDING PROMOTING EVALUATING
 The “5 Phases” of an SEO Campaign
Breaking down our evergreen approach

PHASE 1 PHASE 2 PHASE 3 PHASE 4 PHASE 5

LEARNING IMPROVING BUILDING PROMOTING EVALUATING
 Campaign LEARNING Breakdown
The sub processes in this stage

1.0 PHASE 1 - LEARNING

1.1 CAMPAIGN ONBOARDING PROCESS

1.2 DATA ANALYSIS PROCESS

1.3 COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS PROCESS

1.4 CAMPAIGN PLANNING PROCESS

 DATA ANALYSIS SUB Processes
The sub processes in this stage

1.0 PHASE 1 - LEARNING

1.3 COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS PROCESS

1.3.1 RUNNING THE COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

1.3.2 ANALYZING THE DATA

1.3.3 REPORT NEXT STEPS

 ● It’s important to understand the
competitive landscape
Understanding those having success helps us to
refine our strategy on what the algorithm is ranking
at the keyword level

● It’s MORE important not to obsess over

competitors
While this is an important exercise, this isn’t an
1.3. COMPETIVE apples to apples comparison. You don’t know what
that website’s resources and budget look like. This is
ANALYSIS an exercise for strategy, not for comparison.
Understand how to manage clients who obsess over
A quick overview of what’s competitors.

needed
● You don’t need to run this audit for every
campaign
For smaller, less competitive (lower retainer clients),
you can skip this one. This is a “perceived value”
deliverable for most clients.
 ● Use a combo of in house and offshore
There’s a template that should be filled out by a VA
and a strategy deck that should be built in house by
an SEO analyst.

1.3. COMPETIVE
ANALYSIS
A quick overview of what’s
needed
 DATA ANALYSIS SUB Processes
The sub processes in this stage

1.0 PHASE 1 - LEARNING

1.3 COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS PROCESS

1.3.1 RUNNING THE COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

1.3.2 ANALYZING THE DATA

1.3.3 REPORT NEXT STEPS

 DATA ANALYSIS SUB Processes
The sub processes in this stage

1.0 PHASE 1 - LEARNING

1.3 COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS PROCESS

1.3.1 RUNNING THE COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

1.3.2 ANALYZING THE DATA

1.3.3 REPORT NEXT STEPS

 ● Find the RIGHT competitors
This is an important and overlooked step, need to
understand who you should be looking at.

● Populate the audit template

Easy to use Google Sheets file that requires a good
amount of manual research.

1.3.1 ANALYSIS ● 20 minutes to set up, best to use a VA

SETUP
Pulling in data sources
from various places
Somewhat tedious process to populate the report, I
use an in house VA who is a trained Analytics
specialist.
 How to find the right competitors.

● Ask...
If you’re working with clients, ASK them (use our
PM system) - it’s the best method. If you own the
website, you should know...

● But, be reasonable / realistic

Know who is attainable to reach based on your
current standings.

● Use SEMrush (or Ahrefs) competitors

report
This looks at overlap at keywords to tell you which
sites you have an overlap with.

● Search main KWs

Once have an idea of their keywords, Google them
(incognito mode) or use SEMrush / Ahrefs
Let’s look at the audit template...

12
 DATA ANALYSIS SUB Processes
The sub processes in this stage

1.0 PHASE 1 - LEARNING

1.3 COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS PROCESS

1.3.1 RUNNING THE COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

1.3.2 ANALYZING THE DATA

1.3.3 REPORT NEXT STEPS

 ● Reviewing the audit template
Looking at the data compiled in the audit template
and what insights can be taken from it

● Running a deeper audit

Some clients require more analysis than what the
template can bring. I’ll run you through my analysis
framework (I generally use it for sales pitches but
it’s really well suited here as well)

1.3.2 REPORT
ANALYSIS
A look at how to gain
insights from report
 Reviewing the completed template

● Quick topical review

Things will be empty, do a review to see what’s
missing (and why). Fill in anything manually if
needed

● Highlight areas of interest

It’s a lot to digest in this format, I like to go through
and highlight cells that may be of interest for further
analysis

● Flush out some thoughts

We created a tab in the Sheet to begin the analysis
documentation. It can be as simple as noting the
difference in domain age, the important thing is to
draw some conclusions on this initial data
 If needed, dig deeper

● Crawl competitor websites

I like DeepCrawl or SiteBulb for this, it gives nice
data visualizations of how a website is built for
quick analysis

● Competitor KW crosswalks
SEMrush and Ahrefs both have a great report to help
demonstrate “gaps” between keyword visibility on
competing websites

● Deeper backlinks analysis

A topical look isn’t enough, we have to dig deeper
into the types and quality of links using Ahrefs
 DATA ANALYSIS SUB Processes
The sub processes in this stage

1.0 PHASE 1 - LEARNING

1.3 COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS PROCESS

1.3.1 RUNNING THE COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

1.3.2 ANALYZING THE DATA

1.3.3 REPORT NEXT STEPS

 ● Glean insights for project plan
Use important insights to prioritize tasks (or add new
ones) to your project plan

● Send report to appropriate parties

I like to send this to the client as an extra value add,
but it’s not overly necessary. If you don’t want to
have a ton of communication with the client, you
might not send it (less sophisticated clients won’t
1.3.3 BUILDING THE understand the report and ask for additional context).

REPORT TEMPLATE
A look at how to gain
insights from report
Here’s the email template...

19
Here’s the email template...

20
 Campaign LEARNING Breakdown
The sub processes in this stage

1.0 PHASE 1 - LEARNING

1.1 CAMPAIGN ONBOARDING PROCESS

1.2 DATA ANALYSIS PROCESS

1.3 COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS PROCESS

1.4 CAMPAIGN PLANNING PROCESS

 Campaign LEARNING Breakdown
The sub processes in this stage

1.0 PHASE 1 - LEARNING

1.1 CAMPAIGN ONBOARDING PROCESS

1.2 DATA ANALYSIS PROCESS

1.3 COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS PROCESS

1.4 CAMPAIGN PLANNING PROCESS