Our clients commonly request that we examine their competitor’s well-ranking websites and duplicate those on-site optimization features in effort to achieve similar SEO results.  Clients seem to think that if their competitors are achieving results this way, then they will too.

We usually take a look at your competitor’s web sites to become better acclimated with the terminology of the particular industry for keyword research purposes.  That said, we never imitate the on-site SEO characteristics of other web sites.  Here’s why:

Web Site Structure. Your competitor’s sites are structured, designed, and built differently than yours is. Imitating on-page features may not be possible given the structural differences.

Domain Name and Age. If your top ranking competitor’s domain name consists of a highly searched industry keyword, this provides them with a huge advantage from the get-go.  Trying to optimize for that same keyword presents a major challenge.  In addition, if the age of your competitor’s domain name is older than yours, then your competitor’s site is likely a more relevant and trusted site because it has been in each search engine’s crawl longer than yours.

Inbound Links and PageRank. If your high-ranking competition has been around a while, they’ve probably built a considerable amount of links, achieving a Google PageRank of 1-10.  Imitating the optimized content of a site that has many inbound links and a quality PageRank will not achieve the same results for your site since you do not have the same PageRank or amount of quality links.

These are just a few reasons why imitating your competition’s optimized content such as meta tags or keyword frequency is generally not a wise strategy.  Also consider that your low-ranking competitors might be in the same position as you and have a similar mindset of imitating the on-page content of your top competitors.  With everyone pursuing the same keywords and optimization strategies, achieving a competitive advantage and quality rankings becomes less likely.

At Search Concepts, we’re more concerned with what your competition is not doing.  The search engines can be crowded so it’s important to find unique approaches that give your site the advantage it needs.  We’re committed to this strategy, especially in keyword research.  Instead of pursuing only the most popular search terms, we also dig for the niche keyword phrases that are searched, but don’t have millions of other sites competing for them.  You would be surprised at how many relevant and searched keywords are often overlooked by your competition and their short-sighted SEO strategy.

In conclusion, discover what your competition is not doing and find a unique angle that will differentiate your site from the rest of your competition. A unique approach will get you the results you’re looking for in the search engines. Find out how Search Concepts can achieve the results you’re looking for by requesting a free quote.