The difference between competitor monitoring and blatant copying
Anybody advising or providing search engine optimisation services will tell you the importance of keeping on track of your competitors’ behaviour. This is of course not just applicable in the online world. For years and years companies have been monitoring what their competitors are doing, conducting competitor research and reading trade and industry press so that they know what is going on. Competitor monitoring increases your knowledge of the industry you are in, enables you to respond to clients or customers in a confident and professional manner, and most of all, it ensures that both you as an individual and a company do not get left behind.
In terms of search engine optimisation tools, there are plenty of resources available which can help you track your competitor activity. Along with tools, it is also fairly straightforward to conduct some research yourself. When a competitor does something effective or positive, it is all too easy to jump on the bandwagon and reiterate what they are doing. However, there is a very fine line between adopting a similar strategy and downright copying their content or technique. This fine line should be monitored carefully, as if you are found out then the damage it could cause your website and company in the long run will not have been worth it.
To offer examples of this, consider your rankings within search engine results pages (SERP’s). One day your website is ranking on page one of Google, the next it has dropped down the list and as a replacement you are seeing one or two of your main competitors. Identifying what SEO strategies they have used to get this high ranking is crucial, and stealing an element of it is fine, as long as you do not take it too far. Take note of what links they have and devise your own link building strategies to match and surpass them.
Their use of keywords and quality of content are likely to be two of the main reasons as to why their pages are ranking higher than yours. Look at the difference in long tail keywords and key phrases and see if it is obvious you are missing a trick. Whilst it is ok and unavoidable that companies in the same industry will overlap on keywords, rather than try and directly copy their keywords, try and do one better. Look at what they are using and incorporate more descriptive phrases and words into yours, so that your pages will be displayed in more relevant search results.
One thing to be wary of is any black hat techniques which are being used. Along with the majority of companies providing search engine optimisation services, www.seoconsult.co.uk frown heavily upon unethical techniques and they are certainly not something which should be replicated. If you are dubious that a competitor is using underhand strategies, then it should be fairly easy to identify. Consider alternative links and look out for random places where links will appear when you know the nature of the business is irrelevant to the search. Under no circumstances should black hat techniques be copied or even considered in any optimisation strategy.