How to Perform an SEO SWOT Analysis to Rank Higher

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Marketers considering an SEO initiative face an almost endless list of on-site and off-site optimization tactics and tasks to complete based on an overwhelming amount of data. With limited resources, it’s critical to concentrate your efforts on the items that will provide the greatest return on your time and money.

Researching competitors to drive your SEO strategy is perhaps the most important weapon of any SEO. Acknowledging one’s weaknesses and potential opportunities in the seo competition and focusing on them might save a lot of time in your SEO growth.

To establish such a focus, conduct a SWOT analysis of your web presence to identify areas of priority in terms of keyword, content, technical, linking, and competitive positioning.

A thorough SWOT analysis for SEO provides a road map against which tasks can be tackled methodically. While keyword research should never be neglected, we could devote an entire SWOT analysis to keywords alone. We’ll assume the analysis here is based on a well-defined set of target keywords established for a specific point in time for the sake of a broader SEO perspective.

Understanding SEO and SWOT Analysis: Foundations for Effective Digital Strategy

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) stands as the cornerstone of digital marketing, essential for businesses striving to enhance their online visibility, attract organic traffic, and ultimately, drive conversions. In its essence, SEO comprises a set of techniques and practices aimed at optimizing a website’s visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs), thereby increasing its chances of being discovered by users searching for relevant queries. This section delves into the fundamental concepts of SEO and introduces the concept of SWOT analysis as a strategic tool for maximizing SEO effectiveness.

A. Brief Explanation of SEO

SEO encompasses a multifaceted approach to improving a website’s search engine ranking and visibility. At its core, SEO revolves around optimizing various aspects of a website, including its content, structure, and backend coding, to align with search engine algorithms’ preferences. By adhering to SEO best practices, website owners aim to enhance their site’s relevance, authority, and user experience, thereby increasing its likelihood of appearing prominently in organic search results.

Key components of SEO include keyword research, where relevant search terms are identified and strategically incorporated into website content; on-page optimization, which involves optimizing individual web pages’ content, metadata, and HTML markup; off-page optimization, which entails building high-quality backlinks from reputable sources to increase a site’s authority and credibility; and technical SEO, focusing on improving website performance, accessibility, and crawlability for search engine bots.

B. Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning framework commonly used in business contexts to assess an organization’s internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as external opportunities and threats. This structured approach enables businesses to gain insights into their competitive position, identify areas for improvement, and develop strategic initiatives to capitalize on opportunities and mitigate risks.

SWOT is an acronym that stands for Opportunities, Weaknesses, Threats, and Strengths. Strengths and weaknesses refer to internal factors inherent to the organization, such as resources, capabilities, and competitive advantages. Opportunities and threats, on the other hand, pertain to external factors in the business environment, including market trends, competitor actions, and regulatory changes.

C. How SWOT Analysis Applies to SEO

Applying the SWOT analysis framework to SEO involves evaluating the internal and external factors that influence a website’s search engine performance. By conducting a comprehensive assessment of SEO-related strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, website owners can gain valuable insights into their current SEO standing and develop informed strategies for improvement.

Strengths in the context of SEO may include factors such as high-quality content, a strong backlink profile, technical optimization prowess, and a robust social media presence. Weaknesses, on the other hand, could encompass issues such as poor site structure, slow page speed, keyword stuffing, or lack of mobile optimization. Identifying these internal strengths and weaknesses is crucial for understanding areas of SEO expertise and areas requiring improvement.

Moreover, opportunities in SEO may arise from emerging trends, untapped keyword niches, or gaps in competitors’ strategies, presenting avenues for growth and expansion. Conversely, threats in the SEO landscape may emanate from algorithm updates, intense competition, negative SEO tactics, or shifts in user behavior and preferences. Recognizing these external opportunities and threats is essential for proactively adapting SEO strategies to changing market dynamics.

D. Benefits of Conducting an SEO SWOT Analysis

Conducting an SEO SWOT analysis offers several compelling benefits for businesses seeking to optimize their online presence and drive organic traffic:

Enhanced Strategic Planning: Businesses can develop more informed and targeted SEO strategies aligned with their overarching goals and objectives by systematically evaluating internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats.
Improved Competitive Positioning: Identifying competitive strengths and weaknesses enables businesses to differentiate themselves from competitors and capitalize on areas where they hold a competitive advantage, ultimately strengthening their position in the market.
Proactive Risk Management: Anticipating potential threats and vulnerabilities allows businesses to implement preemptive measures to mitigate risks and safeguard their SEO performance against adverse external factors.
Strategic Resource Allocation: Prioritizing SEO initiatives based on their potential impact and feasibility enables businesses to allocate resources more effectively, maximizing the return on investment and optimizing resource utilization.

Understanding the fundamentals of SEO and SWOT analysis lays the groundwork for developing a robust and effective digital marketing strategy. By leveraging the insights gained from a comprehensive SEO SWOT analysis, businesses can optimize their online presence, increase their search engine visibility, and stay ahead of the competition in today’s dynamic digital landscape.

So How to Do a Proper SWOT Analysis

For this example, we have taken our website thatware.co and two other competitor websites namely:

www.webfx.com/

npdigital.com/

In this SEO Comparison, we are going to use Ahref as our main SEO Tool. However, we will also be using other web apps as well which will be relieved.

Some Common SEO Stats

Competitor 1: NPDigital.com

Competitor 2: InfiDigit.com

Your Website: ThatWare.co

Observation: One of the competitors NPDigital are investing in paid advertisement which may be a potential threat as they might be stealing potential clients by bidding on some competitive keywords.

Top Performing Keywords:

Competitor 1: NPDigital.com

From an initial analysis of the top-performing keywords, it is evident that NPDigital is mostly

ranking on Branded terms which are earning them the largest chunk of their traffic. This indicates brand awareness is their main traffic acquisition strategy.

Competitor 2: InfiDigit.com

From an initial analysis of their top performing keywords, it is evident that most of their traffic comes from informational and seo based queries. This suggests that educational content marketing is their main traffic acquisition strategy.

Your Website: ThatWare.co

An initial analysis of the top performing keywords indicates a mix of both informational and transactional keywords ranking in the top 10 and driving the most traffic.

Observation: Although we rank for a significant number of keywords, our rankings are outmatched by INfDigit.com. Also, NPDigital has the significant number of traffic from direct searches which could be highly valuable in terms of intent.

Based on this, a mix of aggressive content marketing and brand awareness activities may be pursued to gain more organic rankings and direct traffic.

Traffic Demographics

From the above comparison, it is clear that both NPDigital and INFDigit drive a significant amount of traffic from Tier 1 countries. We should focus on targeted backlink acquisition from Tier 1 countries to close this gap.

Competitor Gap Keywords

In this we use a Gap analysis tool of any keyword research tool to find out keyword opportunities that are competitors are ranking for but we don’t.

Using the content gap tool we have 851 keyword opportunities in the USA alone with good volume and moderate keyword difficulty. These are potential content marketing opportunities that can be explored.

Traffic Value Analysis

Competitor 1: NPDigital.com

Competitor 2: InfiDigit.com

Your Website: ThatWare.co

A low traffic value indicates a lower quality of traffic. Both our competitors have a higher strength of traffic quality. This can be attributed to the fact that they are drawing most of their traffic from Tier 1 countries.

Website Quality Analysis using website.grader.com

Potential Opportunities:

SEO Stats using WebsiteSEOChecker

Thatware has high spam Score.
The Percentage of Quality Backlinks is moderate however still less than NPDigital.com
TF/CF Ratio is not ideal. Need to improve it to achieve near the Golden Ratio.

Inference

From analyzing competitor keywords, we have uncovered multiple gap keyword opportunities with relatively low keyword difficulty and decent search volume.
Those can be leveraged in our content marketing to gain more stable organic traffic.
The majority of our traffic is from India which is not our ideal customer base. We can create alternate versions of the website using hreflang tags and get more backlinks from tier 1 countries. This will also improve the traffic value.
The number of page requests is high. The more HTTP requests your website makes, the slower it becomes. Try reducing the number of files your site loads.
ThatWare has high spam Score. Need to reduce it.
The Percentage of Quality Backlinks is moderate however still less than NPDigital.com
TF/CF Ratio is not ideal. We need to improve it to achieve near the Golden Ratio.

Final Thoughts

Doing such a SWOT uncovers many SEO opportunities to boost your SEO Growth.