Do you know who your competitors are?
I’m sure we can all name most of the sites in our niches,
But do you have a list of your competitors and what they’re doing?
Here’s how you can use that info to your advantage, without copying anyone.
A note on copying:
There will always be good guys, bad guys and everyone in between.
The bad guys will scrape your whole site, steal your pictures, spin your content and post it as their own.
Whether you believe in karma, follow a religion, like to sleep well at night or just don’t want to fall in the category of a class A douchebag, there are many reasons to avoid that route.
Instead, what I’m talking about is:
- Looking at every site in your niche
- Noting the tactics that work particularly well
- Being inspired to do similar things.
How to get a list of your competitors in 2 seconds:
I like to use the Explorer tab in KeySearch.
You just enter your domain name and it will show your top 20 competitors. So easy.
Let’s pretend I own Nerd Wallet.
My competitors would look like this…
Once you have the list, there are lots of things you can do.
Here are some examples…
1. Find Content Gaps
I click on ‘Competitor Gap Tool’ in KeySearch.
This will show me all the keywords that BankRate, Forbes and Investopedia rank for, where Nerd Wallet doesn’t.
As the boss of Nerd Wallet, I’d want the team to cover these too.
I like to export the data to CSV and upload it in Google Sheets.
That way, I can filter it to only the KWs that the competitors are ranking in the Top 10 for.
An example:
The keyword: ‘How To Become A Millionaire’
- Bankrate is number 1
- Investopedia is number 2
- Forbes is number 4
But Nerd Wallet hasn’t covered it.
Even though it gets 40,500 searches per month and they could easily rank on the first page!
Plus, the CEO has a net worth of $170 million, so he defo has the EEAT, haha.
You don’t want to be missing keywords like this.
2. Be Inspired By Competitor’s Keywords
Another thing you can do with KeySearch, is look at a particular competitor in the Explorer.
If I see a site copying my keywords (which happens all the time), you can be sure I’m going to copy them back 10X harder.
If the site has a much lower authority (i.e. fewer backlinks) than you, then it’s usually pretty easy to outrank them.
But even if their site is older and has more links, you can still outrank them if you create much better content.
Or, they might be the only ones ranking with a relevant article, so you’ll be happy to be number 2.
Now with a huge site like Bankrate, you can see that they rank for some super-competitive keywords.
Even Nerd Wallet would struggle to rank for these.
So, what I like to do is export the data to a CSV, upload it to Google Sheets and filter it by ‘Score’, which is a measure of difficulty.
Then, you’ll find keywords like ” buy to let mortgage interest only calculator” which gets 720 searches per month, but is much easier to rank for.
Ker-ching!
3. Sign Up To Competitor’s Emails
When you have your list of competitors, be sure to sign up to get all of their marketing emails.
You can add a filter in your inbox so that these all go into a folder, rather than cluttering your inbox.
After a few weeks, go through them all and make a note of…
- How often they send
- The format of the emails
- Which affiliates they link to
You can use this info to inspire your own email strategy.
Larger sites will have tested what works in emails over several years, so you can assume that what they’re sending now will be doing well for them.
4. Follow Competitors on Social Media
Following your competitors on social is an easy way to immerse yourself in your niche.
Rather than mindlessly scrolling from your personal Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or TikTok, instead, spend that time scrolling from your brand account that follows only competitors.
You’ll soon be aware of industry trends and news, as well as the tactics they’re using to make money via social media.
All while you’re sitting on the toilet.
So your work-time investment is zero.
If social media is part of your strategy in 2024, then be sure to look out for my email next Tuesday.
I’ll be sharing more details about how I monitor competitors on Facebook, and use that to make my own strategy more efficient.
See you then!
P.S. If you don’t yet have KeySearch, you can get 30% off with code NICHESITELADY here.
It’s only $11.90 per month and easily as valuable as the pricey tools like ahrefs and SEM Rush.
P.P.S. I’ve sent this newsletter every week, without a break, since May 2022.
If you’d like to read every single back issue in one place, ad free, you can read those here.
Love,
– NSL
P.P.P.S (last one!)
I just read this case study about an 18-month-old site that sold for mid 6 figures. I’m sharing this with you because its PACKED full of golden nuggets to help you do the same, if you wanna be rich by 2025.