SEO Strategy: Knowing Your Competitors & Non-Competitors

If you were to list your direct competitors, you would probably name the top 3 without hesitating.

Are you sure that these companies are your only competitors? Could there be others that could pose as a threat to your business? Seems far-fetched, right?

Well, actually not.

More Than You Think.

• When you hear the word “competitors”, you instantly think about the websites that sell the same products as you. Yes, that is considered competition. However, there’s more to it.
• There are other websites, blog sites, tweets, Facebook posts, Instagram photos, and other social media platforms that compete with you. Once you search a business, you would immediately see the social media pages of these businesses.

Social Media IS Dominating.

• You know what fills the first page of the search engine results page? You are competing with different pages… and YES, EVEN THOSE PAGES UNRELATED TO YOUR BUSINESS!
• The social media, in general, is gaining a lot of following. People are eager to get on these sites. So, if you think it’s not worry because they are not your competition, you still competing against the distant businesses.

Related: Using Social Media to Boost Advocacy

Your Non-Competitors Are Taking the Top Spots.

Of course, other business would go after the same target keywords as you. This fact can’t be avoided.

Several websites would write about a single keywords, and it’s up to you on how you are going to make your content stand out from the rest.

For you, you may not be after the money, but everyone in this field is after the audience. We are all competing to get our target audience.

For example, you are checking for results on “Party Cake Suppliers”. The results are not purely cake businesses. Whether you believe it or not, there are songs about cakes and they take a coveted spot.

Your job is to find ways to unseat them. It does not matter who gets removed as long as you get a chance to take their place.

To prepare for this, you need some oldie but goodie SEO tactics:

• Do keyword research.
• Produce content related to these keywords and terms.
• Edit your content’s title, meta description, URL, and other on-page SEO factors.
• The goal here is to be fully aware of the searcher’s intent.

When they search for “Party Cake Suppliers”, are they looking for cake ingredients to buy? Perhaps, they want to buy a customized cake? Maybe they are merely looking for cake baking tips and are looking for suggested brands?

Related: A List of Important On-Page SEO Elements

The Thing with Social Media.

• Social media is a tricky place because it is the place where everyone can publish any content.
• Even your audience can regularly send out posts. The thing is you are competing with your audience.
• What’s worse is that social media sites always update their algorithms. Your posts won’t been seen by many if no one engages with it.
• User interaction is important for your social posts to be visible. Well, unless you pay for additional boosting then you won’t worry about your posts getting toppled by other social posts.

Create More of What Your Users Want.

The online community is such a competitive world. The only way to be different is to go where you users are. Produce more content based from their needs, interests, and hobbies.

Related: What Is User Engagement and Why Is It Important for SEO?