Competitive search and international competitor analysis

Any company looking to expand into foreign markets must first gather information on its competitors and understand how they successully managed to position their website on foreign markets. In today’s international  business environment, competitive intelligence is necessary to draw actionable informations of your competitor’s strategies abroad,  to make better decisions. International competitor analysis is a key step in any successful global online strategy. The Openvalley agency helps companies of any size understand their online competitors and SEO  environment with specific actionable data.

Competitive intelligence can help your company to improve its international rankings, increease the trafic to your website  and improve your overall e-business strategy, by looking at your  competitors tactics.  The good news is that thanks to big data, we have access to far more information on your competitors than ever before. However, competitive intelligence at an international level means monitoring a huge amount of channels and data, and using this information in an appropriate way to understand which actions should be taken to improve your international business strategy can be tricky.

Identify your foreign online  competitors

Every SEO competitive analysis should started by identifying  who your competitors are within search engines. Competition in international online search will be composed of both traditional competitors  in your market, and the websites ranking predominantly for keyword phrases important to your SEO strategy. In some cases they are the same, but quite often they are different players. Benchmarking is very useful to spot oppotunities. We use specific tools to  to identify your search engine competitors.

Know your international competitors main traffic sources and identify trends

We also gather information on the amount of visitors that a competitor website receives, as well as the engagement that this competitor is obtaining, which countries send the most traffic to its site, which are its main social media channels and which are its main traffic sources.

Analyze your international competitors keyword rankings

Once we have established who your main competitors, we search what keywords are providing them with the bulk of their traffic. By knowing their main ranking keywords, you can focus on these yourself and work on outranking them.

On the web, the competition changes. Some of your competitors grow, some of them don’t and some of them are newly born.  we need to be  tracking the rankings of the right websites.  What if new competitors are hunting for your rankings? To avoid such situations, we need to search for new competitors and analyze rankings on a continuous basis.

Our agency is using tools that are checking periodically the  ranked websites for the keywords you are interested. Rankings change significantly based on the locations where the searches are made. Our LocalRank service lets you know accurately  how your site ranks at an international level. We can even track keyword rankings for mobile devices, with on demand keyword rankings from mobile search engines.

Analyze your competitor websites and online strategies

Once we know who your competitors are, we start analyzing their website, and their overall online strategy.  Performing an on-site analysis on the top ranking sites  will help us know what strategies they’re following to obtain a successful ranking in the target country, and to reach their foreign customers

Some aspects of your competitors strategy  we can analyze:  

a. Checking source code

Once we know your competition and the keywords they are ranking for, we can visit their website and check their source code. We can examine the page’s Title tag and Description Meta tag, and check which international keywords they are targeting on each page.

b. Content

Openvalley has Access to a range of tools  to analyze which type content is performing the best in your sector and who are the top influencers in your niche. We can analyse your competitors’ domains to find their most socially shared content. Once we’ve identified your competitors’ best performing pieces of content, we need to take a look at who’s supporting it. Those linking to and sharing content from your competitors are likely to do the same for your pieces too.

c. Analyze the backlinks of your foreign competitors

In 2016, onr of  the most important off-site factor for SEO are still  the backlinks. Here, we can analyze where your competitors are getting their backlinks. You should be able to use that information to your benefit.

Since companies try to get links from relevant websites, the backlinks that your competitors receive consist of a competitive intelligence goldmine. BY researching links, we can discover link building opportunities. If a competitor of yours received a link from a website, your site has the potential to be linked to as well. When you approach websites that explore subjects that are similar to yours, your chances of getting a link are increased.

d. Discover overseas competitors’ advertising strategy

We can also check on how much on average they are spending on advertising in the country you are targeting, particularly on Google AdWords. That’s information worth knowing. If you are new to a country, and are unsure what keywords to rank for, we can bring very useful information and find out what keywords your competitors are using for their Ads, and even show you the Ads of your competitors.

e. Social media competitive analysis

The analysis of your competitor social data is needed to get a full picture. Your foreign competitors may actually be performing better than you, so analyzing their performance is needed.
From that, you can tell:
• Which brands in your industry hold the highest share of voice on social media
• What people are talking about in conversations about your industry and competitors
• What your industry is talking about to start the most buzz
• Which influencers are talking about your brand and competitors

There are two areas to focus on: engagement and share data. Our tools allow us to see the social networks where a competitor gets most of their shares or engaement. With the data gathered, we can improve your performance on social networks:
• Put more focus on a different network
• Use different content formats
• Publish on different days / hours
• Find influencers to reach

Analyse your competitor pricing

On the web, consumers browse. They check out various sites and portals. They can even use a website designed specifically for that purpose – like Google Shopping or which pull data from several sources and display it side-by-side to find the best overall deal. You have to be very competitive, because you’re competing against everyone. It can be a dauntingtask to check prices. Most consumers are checking out your competition for  their online purchases. Do your prices measure up? Are you competitive?

For that reason, monitoring the prices of your competitors is necessary. Monitoring makes you more proactive and able to react almost immediately. At Openvalley, we build extractors to pull or scrape the data in a fast, easy, automatic, and convenient, way.

Some businesses think it’s best to just go about their own plans and ignore the foreign competitors.We believe that understanding what your competition is doing in the digital world is crucial your international success. Monitoring your competition regularly can be a great source of information. Call Openvalley today or send us an email to know more about your competitors and gain a competitive advantage.