Let’s face it: regardless of which industry you operate in, you will always face competition. You can either see your competitors as a threat or a teacher. Successful businesses see their competition as a rich source of information that they can benefit from.
When performed right, SEO competitor keyword analysis can give your dispensary website an insider look into what your competition does to shine on search engines. Let’s understand what the process of competitor keyword analysis involves, how your dispensary can benefit from it, and which tools work can assist you in this process.
What is Competitor Keyword Analysis?
When you conduct a competitor keyword analysis, you discover keywords your competitor is using to rank higher on search engines. This data then helps you craft content that would surpass their search engine rankings. It also discloses a list of keywords that your competitor is ranking for, and you aren’t.
The keywords you extract must both align with your current content plan and be relevant to your dispensary. Competitor keyword analysis also opens a window to how specific sites are currently ranking for certain topics. For instance, some tools include a section with a backlink profile that uncovers the sites that point to your competitor’s website.
Importance of Competitor Keyword Analysis for Dispensaries
Performing competitor keyword analysis is one of the best ways to boost your SEO rankings and outperform your competition.
You can use this data to spot problematic SEO areas that need improvement. You can find keywords that your competition is ranking for so you can target them too. You might also discover things your competition is doing that you didn’t think of before. For instance, your closest competitor’s website may have a comprehensive education section that is not linked to the main page but attracts heavy traffic to the site.
Knowing what your competitors are doing can then help you apply similar strategies to outperform them. Studying top-ranking dispensary pages can help you find out what you can do to achieve the top results in your SERPs. You can even analyze pages that don’t rank well to find out what you might need to perform better.
How to Find Competitors’ Keywords
Here are four steps to decode your competitors’ keyword strategies and outperform them on Google and other search engines:
Make a List of Competitor Sites
The first step to conducting a competitor keyword analysis is to find your top five closest competitors. Your competitors must be the ones who:
- Offer products that are similar to what your dispensary offers
- Target the same audience
- Consistently rank higher than you on Google
Identifying High-Value Keywords Your Competitors Are Ranking For
Once you determine your top competitors, it’s time to start analyzing those domains. Use an SEO tool to arrive at a list of keywords your competitors rank for the most. Review these keywords for relevance with your products. Next, rank them by their user intent, putting phrases with a higher commercial intent on top. Determine which of those keywords you don’t rank well for yet.
Once you’ve identified your competitors’ high-value keywords, it’s time to determine what makes their pages perform so well with these keywords. Assess the content they feature on that page, the way they optimize their keywords, and how the structure of their page looks.
Analyzing Competitor Backlinks to Discover Keyword Strategies
Once you accumulate keywords that your competitors consider to be high value, it’s time to research their best content’s link profiles.
Use a link analysis tool to arrive at a competitor’s backlink profile. See how your competitor engages in link building strategies to boost their rankings in search. Compare two competitor domains and identify common links and gaps in their linking profiles. Find out which links bring in traffic and which ones don’t perform so well. Hunt for backlink opportunities on sites that attract heavy organic traffic and see if you can have those pages point to your own site.
Remember, not all backlinks are good opportunities. Analyze every backlink in your competitor’s linking profile to ensure you’re choosing referral sites that are both high-quality and relevant to your audience.
Best Tools to Find Competitor Keywords
Conducting competitor keyword analysis requires the assistance of certain high-performing tools. Five of the best ones to try out include:
- Ahref’s Keywords Explorer. You’ll love Ahref’s tool if you know who your top competitors are. How does this tool work? You can simply punch in specific keywords to find the top domains that rank for that subject. It also reveals how your competition attempts to use their keywords to rank for user intent.
- SpyFu. This tool helps you look at other similar websites to gauge how their marketing is performing. SpyFu’s dashboard offers clear information like keywords, weaknesses, inbound clicks, traffic, and more. This tool also reveals your competitors’ monthly search volume and how much they spend on ads.
- SEMrush. This tool helps you run reports on how your keywords compare to those of your competition and who is currently performing better in searches. It serves as an industry-standard must-have tool for businesses to improve their SEO efforts.
- BuzzSumo. This tool helps you extract in-depth information about what your competition is ranking for and which factors help them perform well. Its domain comparison feature helps determine how two domains perform in contrast to each other.
- TagCrowd. This free and easy-to-use tool allows you to input specific web addresses to see the top keywords these addresses rank for. It also reveals which specific phrases in your own website stand out so you can use them in the future to perform better.
Competitor keyword analysis is a vital but challenging process. It demands mountains of time, knowledge, and advanced SEO tools. While you can always DIY your way through competitor keyword analysis, real results appear only if you get an expert on board. Dispensary Growth specializes in helping marijuana dispensaries just like yours shine bright on search engines. If you think your website is ready to outperform your competitors, give us a call today!
