Resource optimization is a time-consuming process. You will never be able to raise the site to the top in just a couple of weeks, unless, of course, you are a pioneer. Therefore, it is important to take into account the huge number of parameters that other professionals follow. And for this you need to analyze the competitor's website traffic.
What is traffic?
Traffic is website traffic. This optimization factor plays an important role, as it gives an understanding of whether the SEO specialist is working with content correctly. In addition to simple numbers that indicate how many people visit your site per day, traffic can be analyzed in more detail.
For example, you can find out where users came from: from social networks, through a direct link or through other resources.
Why turn to competitors?
Many people don't understand why analyze website traffic. It is important to understand here that when you appear on the market with your product or service, you will most likely already have competitors. They have been working for a long time, so they have acquired a certain audience and understand how to work in your generalniche.
It is clear that you can learn from your mistakes, but you must admit, it is more pleasant if you notice them in competitors, and then prevent them in your own. Therefore, the analysis of website traffic will give a complete picture of the situation in the niche. It will help you get the necessary data to use it to promote your own resource.
How can competitor analysis help?
- decide on a strategy or purchase of a site;
- solve guest posting issue;
- calculate conversion;
- identify strengths and weaknesses;
- find content and deal with usability.
Of course, you need to understand that analyzing the traffic of a competitor's website will not be the solution to all your problems. In any case, you will have to adapt to your audience, work with it.
Find competitors
But before you figure out how to find traffic on a competitor's website, you need to find it. It all goes through three stages: search, selection and analysis.
In order to calculate a competitor, you need to find him on the Internet according to some specific criteria. For example, you are selling shoes in Moscow, respectively, you are looking for sites with the query “buy shoes in Moscow.”
Of course, you can pay attention to stores that deliver shoes to other regions of the country. It all depends on the nuances of your activities and products.
Remember to pay attention to search ad units as well. This will help you determine how muchcompetitors use this method of promotion and how effective, in your opinion, is this method.
Next, we make a selection. Remember that we only want the very best competitors who are clearly successful. Therefore, you can pick up 3-5 companies that can be studied further. Leaders in your niche should perform well and collect a lot of positive reviews.
Only after that you can continue to work with competitors. Website traffic analysis can be done manually or using auxiliary programs. Experts also recommend looking not only at the volume of the audience that comes to the site every day, but also to monitor traffic channels, social media work and key queries.
Analysis Options
So, the analysis of targeted traffic on a competitor's website can be done in three ways: using counters, tools and services. For the most accurate data acquisition, of course, it is better to use all three methods. Thus, you can collect the maximum amount of information on all parameters.
Counters
So, some site owners use counters that display resource traffic. Of course, it would be more accurate to say that everyone uses them, but we are talking about those widgets placed on the resource itself.
Use counters Google Analytics and "Yandex. Metrika". Sometimes both options are installed. But experts often recommend using Google Analytics indicators, as they are more accurate and correct.
"Yandex. Metrica" at the same time allows you to place a widget on the site that will show traffic statistics to all visitors. Together with it, the LiveInternet counter works in the same way.
Here it is worth understanding that "Yandex. Metrica" can be used by a large percentage of resource owners, but not everyone exposes data for display. This is often done by blogs or news sites, and among commercial ones, this option will probably never be found.
However, if you managed to notice the counter, you can analyze it. It usually indicates the number of views and visits. Accordingly, if you use these two parameters, you can find out the average number of pages that a user views in one visit.
LiveInternet is even rarer, as it has long outlived itself, like the resource of the same name. If for some reason the owner opened traffic information using the LiveInternet resource, then you can find out the number of regular users or the amount of time visitors spend on the site.
Counter Bypass
But it may happen that you can't get data using counters. Then, to analyze website traffic for free, you can use a special tool.
Enter the following data without quotes into the browser line: "https://counter.yadro.ru/values?site=competitor's site.com". Instead of "sitecompetitor.com" you need to enter the resource that you want to analyze. In this wayA page will open showing traffic data. There is information about visits for the month, week, today or online.
Search counter
And what if you can't figure out if there is a counter on the site? To do this, you can use one of the available browser extensions. In general, there are a large number of such tools for SEO. One of them is RDS Bar. It will point to a fairly large number of interesting parameters on the competitor's website, and will also give visit statistics if the owner has not closed this information.
Tools
There are a large number of website traffic analysis services. Some of them are paid, so you need to be prepared for this. There are also free counterparts, but they may not provide information on certain attendance parameters.
The most popular are:
- SE Ranking;
- SEMrush;
- Alexa;
- SimilarWeb;
- SerpStat.
The task of such tools is to analyze the site, but they do it differently, so the results may vary slightly.
SE Ranking
This is a universal resource, which, in principle, is useful for any SEO. He also copes with the analysis of sites. It provides information about visitors who come to the resource from search engines. Returns a list of keywords that led users to the site.
Thanks to the tool, you can get an overview of organic and paid traffic. Find out pages that attractmost attention, share of visitors for a particular keyword, etc.
SEMrush
Similar tool to the previous one, showing the necessary information using graphs and statistics. It also allows you to analyze your site and a competitor's site. Help find out:
- data on organic and paid traffic;
- top most effective keywords;
- search channels.
The service has a free version, but it has some restrictions on obtaining information.
Alexa
The service is under the wing of Amazon. Works with traffic data collection. Based on the algorithms, an assessment was invented, which is called Alexa Rank. The lower the score, the greater the site traffic.
The service also provides analysis of site traffic by country. You can find out the approximate age of visitors, their gender, education, etc. The resource collects information through a special plug-in that is loaded on the site. Owners can also embed an Alexa code to get certified.
But there is one problem: if no plugins or codes are installed on the site, the service will not be able to collect statistics. In this case, it issues generalized data using the statistics of available resources. Agree that in this case the accuracy of the information is out of the question.
SimilarWeb
Another statistics service that works with a huge range of services. He helps:
- analyze attendance;
- check traffic channels;
- research demographics;
- detect the traffic of a certain country, etc.
The resource works with the global panel of devices and services. It also uses provider data for analysis. Can launch search bots on a resource to collect information. Collects data through installed counters on the site.
SerpStat
This is one of the most popular platforms used by almost all SEOs. It analyzes competitor traffic, examines links and monitors positions. This convenient service will help you analyze keywords and paid issuance. On the site, you can find out the position of the resource, monitor links and study infographics.
Other ways
Analyzing website traffic sources is not an easy task. Most likely, you will have to buy a subscription to one of the services. And often you need to use several resources at once. To avoid using anything like this, you can independently research the sites of competitors.
For example, experts recommend looking at the ratings. There you can find some information about your competitors. Among them, there may be resources with open statistics, which will also be useful to you.
You can also pretend to be an advertiser and request statistical information from the site owner. Of course, this is not always effective, but it can work.
It will not be superfluous to independently evaluate the resource of a competitor. You can pay attention to audience engagement: see likes andcomments. You can also look at the frequency of posts, find out the number of those who shared information on social networks.
Conclusions
Traffic is one of the main indicators of the quality of the site. Over time, you will assemble your ideal set, which will be necessary for competitor analysis.
Despite the fact that resource analysis is, in principle, a real process, it is worth considering its correctness. If you have already worked with various web analytics, then you know that even they sometimes give different numbers. That is why it is recommended to use more than one research tool. Only by collecting data in several ways can one understand the average statistics.
