What is competitive analysis for news SEO?
What is competitive analysis for news SEO?
Competitive analysis takes the guessing game out of your search efforts. In this edition, Shelby explains how to perform a competitive analysis for news SEO.
#SPONSORED
NewzDash: European Search Awards 2023 winner for Best SEO Suite
🚀 Revolutionize your workflow with personalized SEO tips, AI recommendations, ranking alerts, content gap analysis and more. Elevate your content game now!
Hello, and welcome back. Shelby here, fresh off a very healing weekend in my hometown of Niagara Falls. There’s something really special about going for a hike in the Niagara Gorge and hearing nothing but rapids and birds chirping as the sun shines on your skin. I’m a sucker for nature.
This week: How to perform a competitive analysis. Every issue, we talk about our competitors. Now, we’re finally outlining how to do that with a comprehensive competitive analysis. As implied by comprehensive, this is long! And we’re hoping it answers all of your pressing competitive analysis questions. If we did miss something, leave it in a comment (or tell us on Slack).
Join our Slack community to chat SEO any time
🚨Our community call is June 6. 🚨 Look for an event-specific version of WTF is SEO? newsletter in your inboxes Thursday, June 1.
Let’s get it.
In this issue:
What is competitive analysis?
How to perform a competitive analysis?
What to consider.
THE 101
What is competitive analysis?
Competitive analysis takes the guessing game out of your search efforts. It's the act of researching the websites that are your competitors on search.
Instead of assuming why a publisher is beating you consistently on a topic, this forces you to research what your competitors are doing and analyze it to produce actionable insights.
A successful competitive analysis can answer many questions:
Who are my search competitors? What publications are my editorial competitors?
What keywords do my competitors own, and where can we improve?
What does the competitive landscape look like?
What topics are there great opportunities?
Competitive analysis looks at a lot of different components of SEO. All areas don’t have to be done every time. You could focus on how local outlets do election coverage – or how they're using liveblogPosting structured data. It can be as micro or macro as you want.
Why is competitive analysis important?
Competitive analysis takes the guesswork out of the SEO game. It is one of the most important things you can do to enhance your search strategy. It requires you to take a step back, consider where your competitors are winning and how you can use that competitive insight to make incremental improvements.
In news, we’re often so focused on what's next – preparing for the next breaking news story or planning for the next tentpole event – that we forget that other outlets are also preparing just as much. Competitive analysis tells you where you stand, and what you must do to win in search. Uncover weaknesses or opportunities in your competitors that you can leverage to stand out.
How is it different in news SEO?
The process of competitive analysis doesn’t change much for news SEO. Researching our competitors’ performance, content and site structure are still components to include.
However, we may zoom in on the performance of certain types of stories depending on the Google surface — organic search, Discover or Google News — or hone in on a certain area (Top Stories, for example).
The key difference between competitive analysis for general SEO and news SEO is considering editorial competitors. These are publications that may not always show up for the same keywords, but produce journalism that is similar in nature or directed at the same audience as your outlet.
Read more: Search Engine Journal has a great comprehensive guide on understanding what a successful competition analysis looks like.
THE HOW TO
How to perform a competitive analysis
There are many ways to do a competitive analysis. And depending on the context, you may approach it differently each time. But, like Moz says, the fundamental process works like this:
Identify the focus: Are you looking at content? Keyword ranking? Technical components?
Identify your competitors;
Analyze what’s working for your competition (keywords, content, links, technical components, etc.);
Leverage this research to improve your own search efforts.
Every competitive analysis should focus on who, what and how.
Who are my competitors?
What are my competitors doing better/worse than my publication?
How can I leverage this to make marginal gains?
Before you start: Create a Google document or spreadsheet to keep track for your analysis. It doesn't need to be pretty – just functional. Ahrefs and Moz have templates you can copy.
Identify the focus
Decide on the focus of your competitive analysis. It’s important to identify this so that stakeholders understand where you put your attention and you don’t end up overextending your analysis.
For example: For an analysis on content created for a national election, technical components are less important. This is completely acceptable, but make a note in your report.
That said, your competitive analysis could also be general, and you’re hoping to holistically analyze the playing field. That’s fine! Make note of this.
Also, include the key SEO metrics that align with your editorial priorities.
Identify your competitors
Always start by identifying your search and editorial competitors. Search competitors are publications that are competing for your desired keywords/ranking/Top Stories positioning in search. Editorial competitors are those outlets that may not directly compete for certain keywords, but your reporters and editors consistently refer to when discussing story ideas.
Search competitors can be found using a variety of tools, or using Google itself by looking at who shows up for a keyword/event on SERPs already (seriously, just Google it!).
There are many tools you can use to identify your competitors, including the regular suspects like Ahrefs, SEMRush and SimilarWeb. SEJ has a list of 10 competitor analysis tools you can use. Ahrefs has a list of five competitor analysis tools you can use, too.
Most of these tools will generate a “main organic competitors” report based on who you share common keywords with and do some of the hard work for you. For example, below, SEMRush reports that The Guardian’s main competitors are bbc.com, npr.org and cnn.com.
However, tools might list websites you haven't considered before. This could be two things:
A new competitor has emerged, and you can analyze what they're doing well;
It's a website you don't think of as a competitor, and you don't want to copy their tactics.
If you’re focusing on a specific content type, keyword or tentpole event, you can also hone in on a few different keywords and see who shows up for those. Looking at the keyword “Donald Trump," SimilarWeb lists the top websites right now for traffic share:
Editorial competitors are harder to identify, but important to include because these publications compete for awards, journalism resources (where they put their reporters or editors’ time) and brand awareness (how people talk about the organization).
Depending on the focus of your analysis, ask the appropriate editors, reporters and other stakeholders in the newsroom which publications they look at regularly. Include the outlets as editorial competitors.
You may end up with a very long list of competitors. Focus on five competitors at a time (try 4 search competitors and 1 editorial if they do not overlap).
Gather the data and analyze your competitors
Now that you know who is performing well, you’ll want to start analyzing what they’re doing as it relates to your defined focus.
When gathering the data, consider the strength of your competitors from certain signals, such as domain country, site age, backlinks, traffic levels, social signals and brand reputation.
Note: A lot of competitive analyses say to keep note of the domain rating (which indicates a solid backlink profile). While understanding a competitor's backlink profile is important, the domain rating is less vital. Instead, put the competitor’s publication legacy in context – you’re likely not going to compete with the New York Times on a big keyword, but you may look at them as the star in editorial production. It’s all about the context.
Keywords or keyword ranking
Run the keyword(s) through your competitive tool of choice, while also looking at what ranks in Top Stories already on SERPs (make note if they’re different). Look at the pages of the content.
What is the current headline? What’s the length? Where is the main keyword?
How is the URL structured? Where is the main keyword?
How does the page answer reader intent?
How do they link to and from this page internally?
How do they include tags or links to build topical authority on this page?
What media (photo, video, interactive element) is included?
How long is the story?
How is the story found by readers on their site? Is it on the homepage, section page or available in sidebars?
What can you provide that they can’t? (Think about 10x content.)
Read more: There’s much more you can do around a full keyword analysis. Ahrefs has a great full-scope guide to keyword competitive analysis.
Content- or event-specific analysis
This process will mirror keyword ranking, but you’re looking at many keywords at once (that may have different intent) or a specific type of content (for example, an explainer on all of the mayors running for election).
How are the headlines structured for this event?
How are the URLs structured?
Where is the main keyword?
Do they have a section hub? How do they link to it?
How is the page linked to from the homepage?
How much content did they produce? Go further, how many live blogs, explainers, reported pieces or commentary were available?
How quick did they publish in a breaking news situation?
What can you provide that they can’t? (Think about 10x content)
Technical SEO
Technical SEO competitive analysis can be a whole issue of its own. If you’re looking holistically, run the sites individually through a crawler of your choice and write down what differences you notice (or, hire a consultant to do this for you!). If you’re honing in on one area of technical, consider the following:
What is the site speed on this page/section?
How do Google’s crawl bots see this page? How does Google crawl your comparable pages?
How quick can Google find this page versus yours?
What does the code look like in comparison to your site?
Is there structured data they are using that you are not?
How is the paywall implemented (if there is one)?
How quick does the page load?
What are your CWV scores in comparison to theirs?
Template-based
Perhaps you're looking to improve a specific template – for example, a live blog, FAQ, product review or roundup. Always ensure you're making an apples-to-apples comparison:
Is the main intent of the page obvious?
Does it help the reader fulfill their intent?
How does the publication link internally to and from this page?
How do they link externally from this page (if it includes products)?
Does it include E.E.A.T signals, like experience or authority?
How often is the page updated? What do the datePublished/dateModified elements say?
How do they include tags or identify topical authority on this page?
What is the current headline? What’s the length? Where is the main keyword?
How is the URL structured? Where is the main keyword?
Below is an example from a competitive analysis I did around live blogs and how certain publications identify new posts.
Make actionable insights
It’s nice to say that The Guardian has one of the best live blog experiences. It’s even better to say what exactly they do and how it can be implemented on your site. After analyzing your findings, make concrete actionable insights based on the evidence in your report.
At the top of your report, write an executive summary with 3-5 actions your publication can take to make incremental gains. Use the wealth of evidence at your disposal from other publications. Show what they do, but also how you can incorporate it.
If you notice they use a specific type of Schema every time they post a breaking news explainer, identify the code and how it can be implemented on your site, with evidence from the competitor.
If you want to start creating a specific type of content before every college football game in the football season because your competitor continuously outranks you every Saturday, create a structure for what the article could look like, including headline and URL recommendations.
Your insights help make sense of the analysis for stakeholders that can help you implement the changes you want.
Continue to analyze
Competitive analysis is an ongoing process. Doing it once is great, but doing it regularly – especially in an ever-changing search landscape – will help cement your publication as an authority on your priority topics. Continue to look at what your competitors are doing on certain content types, technically and in breaking news situations.
The bottom line: Competitive analysis takes the guessing work out of your search strategy. Analyze what your editorial and search competitors are doing regularly to make incremental gains and drive more traffic – and authority – to your outlet.
Get your company in front of more than 6,500 writers, editors and digital marketers working in news and publishing.
What did you think of this week's newsletter?
(Click to leave feedback.)
RECOMMENDED READING
🤔 Search Engine Roundtable: Google Search Console Performance Report delayed 60+ hours.
🤓 Search Engine Journal: Google Topic Authority: An SEO Ranking System for News Sites.
🔎 Google: 3 new ways generative AI can help you search.
Kevin Indig: 11 realizations from testing the Search Generative Experience.
Search Engine Journal: A look at SGE with 12 AI overviews.
Brodie Clark: I have early access to Google’s AI SGE. Here’s what you need to know.
Aleyda Solis: A few thoughts from my initial SGE tests.
🔎 Danny Goodwin for Search Engine Land: Google Search won't exist in 10 years, says DeepMind co-founder.
📱 Barry Schwartz for Search Engine Land: Google has (finally) done its last mobile-first indexing switch, a six-year process.
✏️ Nieman Lab: The NYT launches “enhanced bylines” with more information about how journalists did the reporting.
🔌 SEOSLY: 40-step SEO migration checklist for a successful site migration.
🍊 Aleyda Solis for Moz: The ultimate low-hanging fruit SEO strategy (Whiteboard Friday).
CATHCH UP: Last week’s newsletter
Have something you’d like us to discuss? Send us a note on Twitter (Jessie or Shelby) or to our email: seoforjournalism@gmail.com. Join our Slack community to chat SEO any time. We’re on Facebook and Instagram, too.
Written by Jessie Willms and Shelby Blackley