Resource optimization is a laborious process. You will never be able to raise a site to the top in just a couple of weeks, unless of course you are a pioneer. Therefore, it is important to consider the huge number of parameters that other professionals follow. And for this you need to analyze the traffic of a competitorās site.
What is traffic?
Traffic is site traffic. This factor plays an important role for optimization, as it provides an understanding of whether the SEO specialist works with the content correctly. In addition to simple numbers that indicate how many people a day come to your site, traffic can be analyzed in more detail.
For example, you can find out where users came from: from social networks, through a direct link or through other resources.
Why contact competitors?
Many do not understand why to analyze site traffic. It is important to understand that when you appear on the market with your product or service, you are very likely to have competitors. They have been working for a long time, therefore they have acquired a certain audience and understand how to work in your common niche.
It is clear that you can learn from your mistakes, but you must agree, it is more pleasant if you notice them from competitors, and then prevent them from yourself. Therefore, the analysis of site traffic will give a complete picture of the situation in the niche. He will help to obtain the necessary data in order to use it to promote your own resource.
How will competitor analysis help?
- decide on a strategy or purchase a site;
- solve the problem with the placement of guest posts;
- calculate conversion
- identify strengths and weaknesses;
- find content and deal with usability.
Of course, you need to understand that competitor site traffic analysis will not be the solution to all your problems. In any case, you will have to adapt to your audience and work with it.
Find competitors
But before you figure out how to find out traffic on a competitorās site, you need to find it. It goes through all of this in three stages: search, selection and analysis.
In order to calculate a competitor, you need to find him on the Internet according to some specific criteria. For example, you are selling shoes in Moscow, respectively, you are looking for sites that search for "buy shoes in Moscow."
Of course, you can pay attention to the stores that deliver shoes to other regions of the country. It all depends on the nuances of your business and products.
Remember that pay attention to the blocks of search advertising. This will help you determine how many competitors use this method of promotion and how effective, in your opinion, this method is.
Next, we make a selection. Remember that we need only the best competitors who are clearly successful. Therefore, you can pick up 3-5 companies that can be further studied. Leaders in your niche should prove themselves well and collect a lot of positive feedback.
Only after this can you continue to work with competitors. Website traffic analysis can be done manually or thanks to auxiliary programs. Experts also recommend looking not only at the volume of the audience that comes to the site daily, but also monitoring the traffic channels, work on social networks and key requests.
Analysis Options
So, the analysis of targeted traffic on a competitorās website can be carried out in three ways: using counters, tools and services. For the most accurate data acquisition, of course, it is better to use all three methods. Thus, you can collect the maximum amount of information on all parameters.
Counters
So, some site owners use counters that display resource traffic. Of course, it will be more accurate to say that everyone uses them, but we are talking about those widgets that are located on the resource itself.
They use Google Analytics and Yandex.Metrica counters. Sometimes both options are installed. But experts often recommend using Google Analytics metrics because they are more accurate and accurate.
Yandex.Metrica at the same time allows you to place a widget on the site that will show all visitors traffic statistics. Together with it, the LiveInternet counter works in the same way.
It should be understood that Yandex.Metrica can be used by a large percentage of resource owners, but not everyone exposes data to display. Often this is done by blogs or news sites, and among commercial ones such an option, perhaps, will never be found.
However, if you manage to notice the counter, you can analyze it. Usually it indicates the number of views and visits. Accordingly, if you use these two parameters, you can find out the average number of pages that the user views in one go.
LiveInternet is even less common because it has long become obsolete, as is the resource of the same name. If for some reason the owner has opened traffic information using the LiveInternet resource, then you can find out the number of regular users or the amount of time visitors spend on the site.
Counter bypass
But it may happen that you cannot get data using counters. Then, to conduct an analysis of site traffic for free, you can use a special tool.
Enter the following data without quotation marks in the browser line: "http://counter.yadro.ru/values?site=site of the competitor.com". Instead of āsite competitor.comā you need to enter the resource that you want to analyze. This will open a page on which traffic data will be indicated. There is information on visits for a month, a week, today or online.
Counter search
But what if you cannot understand if there is a counter on the site? You can use one of the available browser extensions for this. In general, there are a large number of similar tools for a seoshnik. One of them is the RDS Bar. He will indicate a rather large number of interesting parameters on the competitorās website, and also give statistics on visits if the owner has not closed this information.
Instruments
There are a large number of site traffic analysis services. Some of them are paid, so you need to be prepared for this. There are free analogues, but they may not give out information on certain parameters of attendance.
The most popular are:
- SE Ranking
- SEMrush;
- Alexa
- SimilarWeb;
- SerpStat.
The task of such tools is to analyze the site, but they do it differently, so the results may vary slightly.
SE Ranking
This is a universal resource, which, in principle, is useful for any seoshnik. He also copes with site analysis. It provides information about visitors who get to the resource from search engines. Gives a list of keywords that made it possible for users to go to the site.
Thanks to the tool, you can get an overview of organic and paid traffic. Find out the pages that attract the most attention, the proportion of visitors to a particular keyword, etc.
Semrush
A similar tool to the previous one, showing the necessary information using graphs and statistics. Also allows you to analyze your site and the site of a competitor. It will help to find out:
- organic and paid traffic data;
- top most effective keywords;
- search channels.
The service has a free version, but it has some restrictions on obtaining information.
Alexa
The service is under the wing of Amazon. Works with traffic data collection. Based on the algorithms, an estimate was called, which is called Alexa Rank. The lower the score, the greater the traffic to the site.
The service also provides an analysis of website traffic by country. You can find out the approximate age of visitors, their gender, education, etc. The resource collects information through a special plug-in that is uploaded to the site. Owners can also implement the Alexa code to get certified.
But there is one problem: if no plugins or codes are installed on the site, the service will not be able to collect statistics. In this case, it provides generalized data using statistics of available resources. Agree that in this case there can be no talk about the accuracy of the information.
SimilarWeb
Another statistics service that works with a huge range of services. He helps:
- analyze attendance;
- Check traffic channels
- explore demographic parameters;
- determine the traffic of a specific country, etc.
The resource works with a global panel of devices and services. It also uses data from providers for analysis. Can run search bots on a resource to collect information. Collects data from installed counters on the site.
Serpstat
This is one of the most popular platforms that almost all seoshniks use. She analyzes competitor traffic, examines links and monitors positions. This convenient service will help to analyze keys and paid issuance. On the site you can find out the position of the resource, monitor links and study infographics.
other methods
Analysis of the sources of website traffic is not an easy task. Most likely, you will have to buy a subscription to one of the services. And often you need to use several resources at once. In order not to use anything like this, you can independently explore the sites of competitors.
For example, experts recommend looking into the ratings. There you can find some information about your competitors. Among them there may be resources with open statistics, which will also be useful to you.
You can also pretend to be an advertiser and request statistical information from the site owner. Of course, this is not always effective, but it can work out.
It will not be superfluous to independently evaluate a competitor's resource. You can pay attention to the involvement of the audience: see likes and comments. You can also look at the frequency of posts, find out the number of those who shared information on social networks.
conclusions
Traffic is one of the main indicators of the quality of the site. Over time, you will collect your ideal set, which will be necessary for the analysis of competitors.
Despite the fact that the analysis of resources is, in principle, a real process, its correctness is worth considering. If you have already worked with various web analytics, you know that even they sometimes give out different numbers. That is why it is recommended to use more than one research tool. Only by collecting data in several ways can we understand the average statistics.