Build a Site that Leaves Competitors in the Dust

Looking at your competitor's SEO efforts is wise if they outrank you, however, it is not worth the expense if you haven't done everything possible to move up in the ranks already.

Backlinks

Neglecting to build links yourself and simply using your competitors to find backlink opportunities means you may have the same backlinks, which is counterproductive. You need better backlinks to rise above competitors in the SERPs. You have wasted your time chasing the same links when you could have tried to earn high quality links on your own, although, you may uncover some opportunities that you missed.

Keywords

If you have already done everything possible to move up in the SERPs, the analyzing your competitor's keywords is the first thing that you should do; both Ahrefs and SEM Rush have excellent tools for this. Once you have their keywords, look at your content that targets these keywords. Are their articles longer, more engaging and more useful? You will need better content to outrank them.

Traffic

Use Similar Web to discover where your competitors are getting their traffic from to uncover new opportunities. For example, if your competitors receive far more traffic from social media than you do, look at their Facebook page and see what they are doing that is encouraging click-throughs. Google considers social signals when ranking websites in the SERPs.

PPC

If your main competitor holds the first position in the SERPs and the run AdWords campaigns, their cost per conversion may be high. When your competitor is receiving twice the amount of traffic that you are, but they are getting the majority of their traffic by paying for each click, you are better off in the end. Organic traffic is free; if you are getting more free traffic with buying keywords, you are probably making more money than your competitor.

In the end, it is the amount of money that you earn from your website that counts, not the number of visitors.