How to Do a Competitor SERP Analysis
Beating your SERP competition can be tough, but it’s still doable. To reach the top of the SERP, you have to go through dozens of steps. One of the initial and most important ones involves performing an extensive SERP analysis. In this guide, we’ll explain what a SERP analysis is, what users expect to see in search results, how to analyze what your rivals are doing to reach the top, and how to use this information to supercharge your SEO strategy.
What is a SERP analysis?
SERP analysis is a process of examining the top-ranking pages that appear when looking for specific queries in search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo. The main purpose of performing a SERP analysis is to gain insights into the content that has high rankings on search engines. It can help you learn why certain content is displayed in response to particular search queries. By understanding the SERP landscape, you can make informed decisions about keyword targeting, content creation, and on-page optimization. This can improve your website’s visibility and help you get more traffic from search engines.
How to do a SERP analysis
To conduct an effective competitive analysis on the SERP for specific queries, follow these key steps:
- Define your target keywords: Your first task is to identify the keywords that are central to your SEO strategy. Search for keywords that your competitors are using and uncover any related terms that would work for you. Choose the most valuable keywords for reaching your goal by analyzing their relevance and metrics.
- Understand their search intent: Dive into the search results to uncover the intent behind chosen queries. Are users seeking information, looking to make a purchase, trying to find a specific website, or searching for local businesses or services?
- Assess top-ranking pages: Examine the top-ranking pages on the SERP for your chosen keywords. Take note of what sets these pages apart. What type of content do they provide? What does their backlink profile look like? Which on-page SEO strategies do they apply?
- Examine SERP features: Pay close attention to the kind of features that appear on the SERP after entering a search query. Are there featured snippets, image carousels, or other elements?
- Create content based on your SERP analysis: Create high-quality content based on the analysis of the SERP you target. Each of these steps can be done manually, but there are special SEO tools that can streamline this process.
Using SE Ranking to perform a SERP analysis
SE Ranking provides a range of tools and features that can help you perform a SERP analysis. Here's how to use their tools to optimize your SEO strategy:
- Define target keywords: Search for the keywords your competitors use and find related terms using seed keywords. Sort through this list to identify the best keywords for your goal.
- Understand the SERP intent: Use the Keyword Suggestion tool to determine the intent behind chosen queries. This tool defines the intent within seconds, analyzing both the words in the query and the pages and features in search results.
- Analyze SERPs for your target keywords: Use the SERP Analysis tool to get a SERP overview. This provides a snapshot of the top-ranking results for a specific keyword.
- Assess page quality: Determine page quality by focusing on the quality scores and making comparisons between them. These scores are based on content optimization and technical metrics.
- Analyze your SERP competitors’ content: Examine the content structure, quality, and optimization approaches used by your SERP rivals.
- Assess domain metrics and backlink profiles: Take a close look at the backlinks of the SERP players you selected (on both page- and domain-levels).
- Examine on-page and user experience metrics: Understand both your and your competitors’ on-page SEO and user experience metrics, which directly influence your website’s ranking.
By following these steps and using SE Ranking's tools, you can conduct a comprehensive SERP analysis and use the insights to improve your SEO strategy and outrank your competitors.
