Putting money and time into digital marketing is the best thing you can do to appear in the SERP’s (Search Engine Results Page) but the problem is that your competitors are using the same strategy.  One marketing disadvantage of Search Engine Optimization services is that they are available to everyone, putting you on the same playing field with all the weaker and stronger contenders.


An analysis from Google reports that the majority of users understandably click one of the top results rather than searching further, so if you don’t rank highly you are likely losing quite a bit of potential traffic, even if you offer better quality goods or services than some top search results.

Closely analyzing regular competitors will help you understand how to improve your SEO efforts. There are plenty of useful tools available for this, but you should know what to look for.

It’s easy to research which sites are ranking best for keywords. Start by visiting Google and typing the keywords you are optimizing your site for into the search, then use a “rank checker” to clearly show your competition. Copy their URL into a tool such as Open Site Explorer to measure their domain authority and to see how your site compares.

In the last few years Google has released the Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird algorithms which blocked the black hat strategies some sites use. Black hats are detected by a use of poor grammar, stuffed keywords, and and sites that do not post fresh content regularly. Pages which were appearing at the top of the SERPs using these ‘easy’ techniques dropped far down the rankings overnight.

Real human techniques, like good grammar and relevant content, are much more effective in the long term, and less likely to be effected by new algorithms.  Hummingbird penalizes websites for publishing content lacking in natural language.  This means that you will need to regularly produce content of a high written standard, including good sentence structure and fresh content, which of course will appeal more to readers.

After all that, If your competitor’s website is still ranking higher than yours, then it may just be that they are producing better content.  Time to step up your game!