Competitive Analysis and Reverse Engineering Other Websites

In the preceding four years I have been reverse engineering many hundreds of websites for strengths and weaknesses. These examinations have been completed both for my business competitive query space, and also for other more competitive query spaces in other markets. The objective was to learn as many characteristics and attributes as possible that were present on high ranking sites (and to beat the competition).

This examination process has given me practical field knowledge and valuable insight into the ongoing evolution of online search. Good content and links generate consistency and a solid foundation that will always be a mainstay of high-performing sites. The topic of content is very broad and goes beyond keywords and basic topical information. I have observed and applied new content upgrade techniques such as those learned through studying Latent Semantic Indexing for example.

Links continually challenge us because it is an important area in which to stay ahead of the game. Links deserve careful observation and continual learning due to the continual search engine algorithm tweeks and updates placing more value, or less value on certain link types. For example the introduction of social media marketing and social media optimization brought about new linking opportunities, but along with that opportunity came overindulgence practices by spammers and thus a reaction and clamp down by social media site overseers and search engines regarding recognition of these types of links. Many social media sites now include no-follow links which limits the ability to pass page rank value to the destination site.

Reverse Engineering Websites

There are a few things I look at when reverse engineering competitors' websites. The first thing I look at usually is their incoming links. By examining a site's back links you can not only identify link popularity but identify the most important sites and partners that are connecting to them. The obvious goal is to get links for our client published on any worthy sites discovered that will pass value to our site. Look at your competitors' link profile -where are the majority of their links coming from? Look at how many pages they have already indexed in the Google main index to get an idea on the amount of work required to meet a challenge, and look at the page rank achieved on those indexed pages as an indicator. Most of this topic will be covered on other link-related pages of this blog. What is the degree of thoroughness and complexity in the content of your competitor? How many keywords to they have content written for?

Competitive Analysis

Any particular site will have its own strengths and weaknesses affecting rankings, and any particular factor or combination of factors can be the catalyst for achieving, or not achieving, rankings and success. By reviewing and examining top sites and higher-ranking sites in our own search query space and by knowing the universal factors present for top ranking sites it’s not difficult to set a working agenda for our own site, plus implement SEO Best Practice methods that our competitive analysis has brought to our attention where our competitors aren't yet using those techniques.