In order to edge out your competition you need to know who your competition is, what their marketing strategies are, and how audiences respond to them. Zee will walk through how Distilled performs its own competitive analyses, what kind of actionable insights a great analysis can uncover, and when it’s worth it to go toe-to-toe with your competitors vs. when it’s a better idea to run off with a new approach.

1. A Competitive Analysis that
Saved $337,000
Zee Hoffmann Jones - @itszeezle
SearchLove London 2017

2. New phone, who dis?

5. Who are your search competitors?
Build customer profilesWho are your audiences?
What are your business goals?

6. If you can’t answer these
questions, how do you know
what features you need?

7. If you can’t answer these
questions, how do you know
what features you need?

8. Activity

9. So, how do we find our competitors?

10. We start with
our favorite
tool(s).
SearchMetrics

11. We start with
our favorite
tool(s).
SEMRush
Link to the “hard” way is in this post: moz.com/blog/competitive-analysis

12. Sense check
your domain
picks.
Do they write about Broadway?
Build customer profiles
Are they associated with irrelevant
industries?
Do they sell tickets to Broadway shows?

13. Sense check
your domain
picks.
SearchMetrics

14. Sense check
your domain
picks.
SEMRush

15. Next we need our sample page sets.

16. Picking 5
sample pages
per domain.
Editorial Pages?
Build customer profilesBrowse Pages?
Product Pages?
Build customer profilesHome Pages?

17. Picking 5
sample pages
per domain.

18. The Balanced Digital Scorecard
PLATFORM
AUDIENCE
MEASUREMENT
CONTENT
CONVERSION

19. The Balanced Digital Scorecard
PLATFORM
AUDIENCE
MEASUREMENT
CONTENT
CONVERSION

20. What about these line items?

21. Platform
PAGES ARE WELL OPTIMIZED
GOT SCHEMA?
HOME FOR NEW CONTENT
INTERNAL LINKING PROMOTES INDEXABLE CONTENT
NOT MESSING UP TECHNICAL SEO

22. Platform

23. Post Platform Fixes

24. Content
PAGES ARE EDITORIALLY OPTIMIZED
APPROPRIATE TRANSACTIONAL & INFORMATIONAL CONTENT
QUALITY OF IMAGES AND VIDEO?
INTERNAL LINKING SUPPORTS ORGANIC CONTENT
QUALITY OF CONTENT?

25. Content

26. Audience
LINKING ROOT DOMAINS
PROMOTING CONTENT
CREATING ENGAGING CONTENT FOR USERS
QUALITY OF LINKING ROOT DOMAINS
CREATING CONTENT TO ATTRACT ORGANIC TRAFFIC

27. Audience

28. Our New Content & Audience Targets

29. Conversion
CLEAR CTAS ON SITE
CTAS MATCH USER INTENT
STEPS TO CONVERSIONS ARE APPROPRIATE
CLEAR LINK BETWEEN CONVERSIONS AND REVENUE

30. Conversion

31. How did this change our roadmap?
And save all that cash?

32. Opening Our Eyes

33. The secret to edging out your
competition?
Empathy.

34. Avg. Time
on Page
Sessions
YoY
Sitewide 2:07 15.5%
Original
Editorials
2:39 –
Newly
Targeted
Editorials
3:50 37.3%

35. Thank you!
@itszeezle

36. Links to Resources
HOW TO USE THE CHECKLIST
SEMRUSH
THE CHECKLIST
SEARCHMETRICS