Using web analytics tools like Google Analytics to understand your competitors’ web traffic gives you useful insights into how to improve the performance of your websites.
Sometimes, you need to spy on what others are doing to find out what your brand is missing.
Studying your competitors can help you identify new marketing strategies. It’s perfectly acceptable to borrow a few techniques that can better position your company as an industry leader.
Benchmarking will help you discover aspects of your brand’s digital marketing that you weren’t paying enough attention to. In today’s digital age, you should invest time and resources in boosting your brand’s online presence.
With the information web analytics tools provide, you can plan your digital marketing campaigns better and increase your web traffic, as you’ll learn how to make the most of every opportunity to attract new customers.
Which channels do your competitors use to generate web traffic?
Are you using those same channels as effectively as you should?
What can you do to attract more visitors?
Is your SEO strategy up to date?
You can find the answers to all these questions by paying attention to the actions that keep your competitors at the top of their game.
Even if you’re at the top of your industry, it doesn’t hurt to find out what your competitors are doing so you can stay up to date. The techniques other brands use help make sure you stay unbeaten.
There are plenty of tools that will help you stay ahead of the game by watching what your competitors are doing. Below, we’ll talk about the most effective tools for businesses of all sizes.
Google Analytics Benchmarking
Google Analytics Benchmarking is a free Google Analytics feature available to everyone. This tool is perfect for comparing your web traffic with your competitors’.
Google Analytics benchmarks give you a wealth of data about your competitors so you can see what has kept their business going.
Using this web analytics tool ensures you have access to the information you need to stay ahead of the game. These are some of the Google Analytics benchmarking metrics:
· Bounce rates
· Number of sessions
· Average session duration
· Percentage of new sessions
· Number of new visitor sessions
· Pages per session
These metrics will help you understand what you need to do to increase traffic to your website. Not to mention that Google Analytics Benchmarking categorizes the pages you’re tracking so you get information that’s relevant to your business.
If you have the benchmarking option enabled (under “Account Settings” – “Benchmarking”), you’ll see the information here:
AdClarity
AdClarity, as its name suggests, gives you insights into how to increase the traffic your ads generate on websites and social media pages. The tool lets you analyze the performance of advertising campaigns.
AdClarity provides a wide range of information to help you position your ads better and attract more potential customers. By tracking the performance of your competitors’ advertising campaigns, you can find out which traffic sources would work best for your business.
Before you start using techniques “borrowed” from other companies, you need to keep your target audience in mind. Don’t forget that while you’re using your competitors’ methods, your goal should be to reach your own customer base (and maybe theirs too).
Alexa.com
You probably didn’t know you could use Alexa to compare web traffic. Well, you can, and it’s a very effective web analytics tool. Alexa gives you access to crucial web metrics to improve your Google ranking.
You can find out how websites rank for specific keywords in your industry. This information will help you boost the conversion rate of your landing pages.
You can also check your rankings for certain keywords compared with your competitors to see whether you should update your content marketing strategy.
Besides keyword rankings, Alexa also helps you work on your website’s popularity. Alexa comes with an easy-to-use interface that helps you understand the data presented. Its color-coded charts help you understand the statistics better and see who’s in the better position, your website or your competitors’.
With Alexa, you have a real opportunity to improve the performance of your SEO campaigns, as it makes clear what your business is missing. Taking your competitors’ methods and applying them to your own audience is a great way to keep your position as an industry leader.
Quantcast Measure
Are you looking for an analytics tool that can measure performance across different devices? Quantcast Measure is the perfect app for that, because you can use it on multiple devices.
This web analytics tool can give you an idea of your competitors’ web traffic broken down by device. You can use it to optimize your website’s accessibility on every device. Not to mention that you can also use it to compare web traffic across different platforms.
Quantcast Measure gives you insights into your competitors’ performance based on their geographic and demographic data. It’s a great way to understand what your customers need and how you can offer them even more. After all, understanding your audience is the first step to success.
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SimilarWeb
SimilarWeb is another free web analytics tool you can use to track your competitors. It lets you use different metrics to see how your competitors are attracting traffic.
Some of the metrics SimilarWeb uses to track your competitors’ performance include:
· Keyword selection
· Traffic source
· Number of mobile app users
You’ll have access to this data and more, giving you a clear understanding of how your company compares with the competition. SimilarWeb will show you crucial statistics you can use to work out the best way to start meaningful conversations and engage with your customers.
The best way to get customers interested in your brand is to offer them relevant content so they come back to your website or blog again and again. Customers need to visit your website to buy or to subscribe to your newsletters.
Comparing yourself with the competition will show you how hard you still need to work to reach your goals. SimilarWeb makes sure you know your regional, national, category and global ranking. With a broader view, you’ll have more reason to invest extra time and effort in improving your company’s performance.
Although SimilarWeb is free to use, you can buy the premium version to get access to more features. The paid version lets you see your competitors’ rankings for organic and paid keywords. This information is perfect for assessing the performance of your competitors’ pages and making the necessary adjustments to your SEO strategy.
Mailcharts
Email marketing plays an essential role in increasing your website traffic.
Mailcharts provides data that makes it easier to create your email marketing campaigns. This tool gives you access to your competitors’ newsletters so you can borrow an idea or two to use in your own marketing campaigns.
Paying attention to your competitors’ email marketing campaigns is important because you and all your competitors are probably targeting the same audience.
With the information you get from Mailcharts, you’ll be able to update your strategy and send more effective newsletters.
Any business owner who has been running a company for a while knows that email marketing goes beyond catchy subject lines. Those alone aren’t compelling enough to turn leads into customers. You need to study details like sending frequency, the best time to send, the amount of text, links and images, and relevance to get a reasonable ROI from your email marketing campaigns.
This tool also provides campaigns that can help you write impactful messages. Sometimes, all you need is a little inspiration to create a successful email marketing campaign.
Ahrefs
You can use Ahrefs Backlink Checker to see your competitors’ links. You’ll get access to all the pages your competitors consider trustworthy.
Ahrefs will also help you discover the monthly organic search traffic your competitors get to all the linked pages. What value do your competitors’ customers see in your brand, and how can you use this information to increase traffic to your website?
Watching what your competitors do to stay connected with their customer base is a great way to discover the best sources of referral traffic. If those pages have enough authority, maybe you should work on appearing on them too.
Besides tracking backlinks, Ahrefs also shows you the exact keywords your competitors are using to rank in organic search. You can use this information to find out where your competitors are getting their traffic and how you can use the same keywords to rank higher on search engine results pages.
As a business, you should always be ready to adjust your content strategy to achieve your goals. Monitoring competitor content gives you insights into the best way to make those adjustments.
Conclusion
Tracking your competitors’ website performance will give you insights into how to boost your business’s performance. These free web analytics tools can help you discover the strategies other companies use to attract visitors and generate leads. Using the information these tools provide will be key to positioning your brand as a leader in your industry.
This data also gives you clues about their domain authority (DA) and Trust Flow, two key metrics for assessing your competitors.