What is SEO Analysis? Improve Your SEO With These 4 Strategies

When it comes to SEO analysis, I always have a clear idea of what I’m trying to achieve from the outset. As you start to play around with SEO tools, it’s easy to fall down the rabbit hole of data and begin working your way through a treasure trove of information.

Upon logging into my SEO tools, here are just some of the tasks that I may complete:

Identify new backlink “wins” on my domain’s backlink profile.
Pinpoint which pages are starting to rank for keywords.
Review competing domains and keywords they target.
Monitor keyword movements on my domain.
Assess my domain’s overall trajectory.

If you are paying for an SEO tool on a monthly subscription, it’s critical that you are using its features to make intelligent SEO decisions. Rather than navigating from one feature to another without any real purpose, I want to help you unlock value from the SEO tools at your disposal.

In this guide, I want to break down a few of the strategies that I use to conduct SEO analysis. I’m not interested in giving you high-level ideas. Let’s get down to business and look at some practical ways to begin squeezing value from these SEO tools.

Whether you are building up an existing domain or want to gather data to launch a brand-new website, I’m going to teach you some transferable skills that will inform your approach to SEO going forward. I’m all about giving people the information they need to take action themselves.

To get started, you are going to need access to one of the leading SEO tools – you can see a list of the 21 best SEO tools here. This post will show how you how to do an SEO analysis using one of those tools, Ahrefs, but there are many other tools out there with similar functionality.

Let’s now take a look at 4 strategies that you can use to improve your SEO. Some of these are going to be more complex than others, but I promise that they will help you make the most out of whatever SEO tool subscription you have. If you are having trouble with any of these, feel free to reach out to me and I will do all I can to set you on the right path.

1. Finding Low-Hanging Fruit From Competing Domains

Finding low hanging-fruit will enable you to capitalize on potential opportunities without doing a tremendous amount of work. After all, there is no shortage of keyword opportunities out there. It all comes down to finding the right opportunities at any given moment. After all, your domain may not be able to rank for hyper-competitive keywords.

To find low-hanging fruit from competing domains, use your SEO tool to identify keywords that competitor domains already rank for. You can do this by typing your domain into the search bar, hitting ENTER, and then navigating to “Competing domains” on the right-hand side. Upon clicking on this button, you will see a full list of domains ranking for similar keywords.

While these may not be direct business competitors, they are likely in the same industry as you. If you disregard those who are not direct business competitors, this should help you to identify domains ranking for keywords with similar search intent. Ultimately, you want to start ranking for keywords that potential customers or clients are likely to search for on Google.

Copy the URL of a domain in “Competing Domains” that you would like to investigate. Navigate to the menu on the left-hand side, right-click on the “Top Pages” button, and open this up in a new tab. You should now paste the URL into the top search bar and press ENTER.

As you can see on the right, you can see some of the keywords the competing domain is ranking for. You can click on each of these keywords to explore them further. For ease, I’d always recommend right clicking on links in your SEO tool and opening these up in a new tab. This enables you to continue using a page like the one above as a reference point.

2. Discovering Untapped Keywords From Competing Domains

This is one of the easiest strategies for kickstarting your SEO efforts. Think about a seed keyword that is well-aligned with your business and has good search intent. Type this into the Keyword Explorer and press ENTER. If you want to, you can include a few different variants of the seed keyword and separate each of these using commas.

Upon pressing ENTER, you will shortly see a whole load of data surrounding the keyword. We want to dive even deeper and find untapped keywords that nobody else is targeting or perhaps even aware of. To do this, we are going to navigate to the bottom left-hand corner and look at the list called “Keyword Ideas” and click the “View all” button.

You can now see different variants of the seed keyword. The only problem is that these all have a high “KD” rating. This stands for “Keyword Difficulty” – every SEO provides a number for this, the higher the number the more difficult it will be to rank for. Rather than manually scrolling through this list and trying to pick out some easy keywords, I’d recommend narrowing things down by limiting the KD to 20.

Once you have done this, click “Show results” and you will see a full range of relatively easy keywords to potentially purse. You can click on each of these keywords to dig deeper and explore keyword variants.

Further Reading: How to Do an SEO Competitive Analysis: A Tutorial for Both Beginners and Experts

3. Exploring Potential Backlink Opportunities (Plus Pitching)

When it comes to backlinks, all you need to do is head back over to the left-hand menu for each domain and click on the “Backlinks” button.

You will then see a full breakdown of backlinks for the domain. If you need to, you can filter these by “New” and “Lost” to monitor progress and flag potential issues.

If you are looking at a competitor’s backlink profile, you can identify potential opportunities for guest posting and reach out directly to those behind the domain.

Here’s a very basic email template for you to build on:

Further Reading: Backlink Building Hacks & Secrets Revealed: How We Got 12,000 Backlinks in One Year

4. Doubling Down On Target Keywords In Your Blog Content

If you go back to the “Top Pages” section, you will see a list of the top keywords you are ranking for across all pages. In some cases, you may rank for a keyword but not be optimized around it. With a few small tweaks to these pages, you could climb the SERPs in no time at all.

While I’m here, I might as well do some SEO myth-busting and answer some common questions related to SEO analysis.

Author Bio

Marcus is the founder of Searchant — a digital marketing agency that helps businesses increase their organic visibility with transparent SEO methods.

Hero Photo by Choong Deng Xiang on Unsplash

SEO Analysis Strategy FAQs

How can I improve my website’s search rankings?

Taking an SEO tool for a spin can help you identify potential opportunities to improve your website’s rankings. From identifying new backlink wins to exploring untapped keywords from competing domains, there is no shortage of ways to analyze and optimize your website for search engine performance.

Even if you can’t get your hands on a paid subscription, there are plenty of free SEO tools available online to help you analyze your website’s performance which you can research here: The 15 Best Free SEO Tools You Need to Know in 2023

Further Reading: Looking for a Google SEO Checker? Here’s 15 to Check Out

What are the most important ranking factors for search engines?

As Google does not share its exact ranking algorithms, it’s hard to definitively answer this question. However, we do know that Google loves informative, original content that’s written by authoritative sources. If you can establish yourself as an authority on a specific subject and provide readers with a ton of value, you are off to the races.

How do I conduct a thorough SEO analysis of my website?

I would always recommend getting a website audit completed by a specialist agency with the right tools at their disposal. You should seek out professionals that are willing to take a deep dive into the data and provide you with tangible, actionable advice.A professional website audit should, in the main do two things:

Uncover issues and errors that might be holding a website back from doing better organically.
Start mapping out a roadmap to not only fix existing issues, but also capitalize on untapped opportunities.

These audits are incredibly useful for monitoring the technical health of your website, and they can give you a clear signal of where to focus your SEO efforts.

Further Reading: Technical SEO: The 15 Technical Aspects of Search Engine Optimization That You Need to Know

What tools can I use to analyze my website’s SEO performance?

Alongside an SEO tool, you need to have access to Google Search Console and Google Analytics. These two platforms can play a pivotal role in helping you build an understanding of how your website is performing from an SEO perspective. You can use Google Search Console to potentially accelerate the ranking process by submitting content for indexing.

As you start to publish new blog content or add new pages to your website, you can simply paste the URLs individually into Google Search Console and submit these for indexing. Once they are on Google’s radar, it should only be a matter of time before they start appearing in the relevant search results and you can unlock a new stream of organic traffic.

Google Analytics can is also used for tracking website performance, with its data helping you to build a foundational understanding of which pages are performing well and which ones need improvement. With a range of KPIs at your fingertips, you can begin to make informed decisions about where to focus your time and how to push your domain further.

How do I track my website’s search engine rankings over time?

Tracking your website’s rankings over time is an important aspect of any SEO strategy. It goes without saying that the higher you rank in the SERPs, the more visitors you can expect to receive. You can use an SEO tool to track your website’s progress in the search engine results pages and adapt your strategy accordingly.

Further Reading: The 15 Best Rank Tracker Tools to Rock Your SEO in 2023

What are the common mistakes to avoid in SEO?

Attempting to guess which keywords have search volume and trying to shoehorn them into your content is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. Keyword research tools will play a critical role in helping you to identify the content topics and phrases that your audience is actively searching for and create content that has a chance of ranking.

In the keyword research process, you should also look beyond the keywords that your competitors are ranking for and look at what nobody else is targeting. There is low-hanging fruit in every niche, and keyword research tools can help you to identify these opportunities.

Another mistake to avoid is failing to produce content that provides value and is written by an authoritative source. Google wants its users to be able to find the best possible resources in response to their search queries, so make sure you are only publishing valuable, original content. Offering up actionable tips that help readers to achieve their goals will go a long way.

How do I optimize my website for mobile devices?

Google Search Console will provide you with data on how your website is performing across all devices, so it’s worth taking a look at this first. If there are any issues that need addressing in terms of mobile optimization, then use the Mobile Usability report to identify and fix them. An SEO specialist can help you interpret this information and make strategic improvements.