As a small business, you probably serve customers in your local area. This means you must prioritize optimizing all your online platforms, including your business website, for local search. Local intent is characteristic of large portion of all Google searches, offering you a great opportunity to boost visibility for your business.

One challenge you’ll face as a local business is that several other companies are vying for the same customers in your area. Competition can be quite fierce. That’s where local competitor analysis comes in. Local SEO competitor analysis involves researching and analyzing your local competitors. These are the businesses ranking for your target local keywords in search engines. This includes checking out their Google Business Profile and even social media.

It will help you find ways to stand out and stay ahead of your competitors. In this article, we’ll discuss the concept of local SEO analysis, its significance, and six straightforward actions you can take to study your competitors’ activities.

Why You Need to Pay Attention to the Competition in Your Local Area

Think about this: if your business is active in a specific area and local competitors outperform you, how can you expect to thrive or grow? You must first dominate your local market, including appearing at the top of local search results. And analyzing local SEO is an excellent approach.

Performing thorough local SEO competitor research can provide valuable insights and enhance your own SEO tactics. By analyzing their successful approaches, you can adopt effective ideas for your own business.

Make sure you don’t just imitate your top competitors but rather gain knowledge from their methods to enhance your own strategies. Utilize their strengths and areas for improvement to strengthen your plans and establish dominance in your local market.

How to Perform Local Competitor Analysis

Much of this task requires manual effort, but you may opt for an SEO site audit service that has competitor analysis tools. Additionally, there are various SEO tools, such as SEMRush, that offer competitor analysis. To begin, we’ve outlined six impactful approaches that can assist with local SEO analysis:

1. Take a Look at Their Website

We can begin by examining local competitors’ websites to assess how they measure up. This involves a basic evaluation of usability, UI, and customer experience, as well as reviewing factors such as page loading speed, image optimization, and keyword utilization.

You can glean a great deal of information from a company’s website and identify some valuable strategies you could integrate into your website or online store. Just be sure not to directly copy anything!

2. Examine the Keywords They Are Using

Keywords are the foundation of SEO strategies. So your competitive analysis must include evaluating the keywords used by your local competitors. Several tools are accessible for local keyword analysis, and you can leverage platforms like Google Analytics for more in-depth insights.

You want to identify what short-term and long-tail keywords your competitors are targeting and ranking for in local searches. You can then use this information to your benefit. Additionally, you might discover new keywords that they are not ranking for. This presents an opportunity for you to capitalize on and boost your business visibility, thus attracting more organic traffic.

3. Do They Have a Google My Business Page?

Google My Business is an incredibly useful tool. By using it you ensure your company has a proper listing on Google Maps, search results, etc. 

You can also look at competitor business listings to find out helpful information about them and also see what customers are saying about them. Info such as negative feedback can be used to your advantage as selling points where you can offer something more than your competitors can.

4. What Backlinks Are They Using?

A strong backlink portfolio is crucial for SEO, and it is important to ensure that your content contains both external and internal links. Checking the backlinks used by your competitors can help you find high-quality websites to incorporate into your link-building strategies.

Start by assessing their backlink profile to see who is linking to them. Note down all the high-authority sites that link to their website. This is a great way to identify new link-building opportunities.

5. Are They Active on Social Media?

Social media is crucial for engaging with customers and can also enhance search engine optimization (SEO). Google favors businesses that are active on social media and have a substantial following.

Examine the social media profiles of your local competitors. Are they engaging regularly? If so, which platforms do they use? Do they share any distinctive post types or content that you could leverage?

Reviewing their presence on social media can help you identify shortcomings in your own profiles and determine if you could make a more substantial impact on a particular platform.

6. How Are They Ranking on SERPs?

Finally, are they performing well on Google search rankings? Since organic search results are among the most effective ways to attract visitors, examining how your local competitors are faring on Google is beneficial.

You can assess the search engine results pages (SERPs) for keywords you are ranking for and compare your performance with your competitors. Furthermore, you can identify other keywords for which they are visible and generally get a sense of their ranking. This provides you with fundamental information and an understanding of the position you must strive for to outperform them!

Analyzing Local SEO is Crucial for Achieving Growth and Making Progress.

Analyzing local SEO and understanding your competitors’ successful strategies is an essential part of creating competitive SEO listings. The insights you obtain are extremely valuable, and identifying where their SEO strategies outperform yours can help you enhance your own marketing efforts and gain a competitive edge.

Assess their website and keyword rankings, see where they appear on Google’s search results, and check out their Google Business Profile and social media. You can do this manually but if you can access local SEO tools, make proper use of them.

This should only be one component of your overall SEO strategy, and you should not neglect other critical elements such as keyword research and on-page optimization. However, if you aim to establish dominance in the local market, this is undoubtedly a crucial step to take.