How To Do Competitive Analysis For New Websites

Competitor analysis is a must-have for any business – big or small, new or established. But, when you’re the new kid on the block, you might just need a different approach.

Strategic analysis of competitors, specifically the right competitors, is the key to breaking onto the scene as a newbie website. And the first step is setting expectations of what you can realistically achieve in this all-important first stage of your website’s journey.

With our guide to competitive analysis for a new website, you’ll learn how to start small and lay a foundation on which you can quickly build upon.

Here we go through how and why competitive analysis as a new website differs from the usual, as well as giving you a step-by-step of how to ace one

How is competitor analysis for new websites different than usual?

Most of the time, competitive analysis focuses on what the biggest competitors, AKA industry giants, are doing and then creating strategies around their successes.

As a brand-new website, though, you’ve not quite got the street cred to compete with those bigger players. You may lack the brand awareness, domain authority, visibility on search and customer base that they’ve been cultivating over years.

So, when it comes to competitive research for new websites, the key difference is to focus on analyzing smaller competitors instead, so you can leverage their strengths and weaknesses to redirect their traffic to your website. This will help pave the way for you to take those industry giants on with confidence later.

Standard competitive analysis takes a broad, holistic approach across multiple channels. But, as a new website, your focus at this early stage is building brand awareness and establishing an online presence, so your competitive analysis will naturally zone in on ‘quick win’ strategies that will help you do that, such as paid search, social media and referrals.

How to do competitive analysis for a new website

Step One – Identify your competitors

First, you’ve got to pinpoint the right websites for your competitive analysis. But, as a new website, you’re still trying to get to know the industry landscape and it’s tricky to know exactly who you’re up against.

Similarweb’s Website Category Analysis lets you see the top players in your industry, sorted by traffic share:

A little further down, you can view the full top 1,000 of the websites in your industry. Here, you’ll see the top 10 leaders, as well as those currently on the rise and, for the purpose of your analysis, the websites a little lower in the hierarchy:

These smaller websites in your industry are closer to you in terms of traffic, so learning from their strengths and weaknesses (and eventually stealing their traffic) will be more impactful at this early stage of your growth.

Next, to broaden your scope of competitors to target, you can use Similarweb’s Organic Competitors feature. This will help you discover competitors based on how much you have in common – for example your percentage of shared keywords and organic traffic overlap:

You can refine by country and time period to target your analysis further. See how your top 10 competitors change by selecting different metrics (total traffic, organic traffic, shared keywords and search overlap) to represent the x- and y- axis.

Step Two – Analyze their performance

Now that you’ve identified the right websites to target in your competitor analysis, it’s time to dig a little deeper

1) Review their website performance

You need to discover where they’re winning and where they’re falling behind, and most importantly, if there are any opportunities you can capitalize on.

You’ll find everything you need to know under the Website Analysis segment on our platform. Simply type in the website you’d like to analyze and you’ll get an overview of their website performance:

Here, you can dig into their engagement metrics to see how successful they are at attracting – and holding – your target audience’s attention. We show you key performance metrics like monthly visits, visit duration, bounce rate and pages per visit.

When it comes to looking at their traffic, numbers only tell part of the story. By looking into their traffic trend over time, you get a sense of whether they are steadily climbing, on the downturn, or perhaps adapting to seasonal/industry changes.

Next, move on to your competitor’s’ marketing channel data, so you can clearly see where they are gaining the most – and the least – traction across multiple channels:

Here you can identify the channels that your competitor is underutilizing. For example, performance is particularly low across email, referral, paid search and display ads. 

You can use this data to strategically target these channels for some easy wins, especially if this is a trend across all the competitors you’re analyzing. It could help you carve out a unique way to differentiate yourself to customers.

2) Dig into some SEO analysis

As you dive deeper into the competitor analysis, zero-ing in on their SEO performance is a pivotal step. Seeing how they’re driving traffic and which keywords they rank for will broaden your understanding of their strengths and weaknesses.

Keyword gaps

Start off by using Similarweb’s Keyword Gap Analysis tool to see the keyword overlap with your competitor, but more importantly, which keywords are driving traffic to their website, but not yours:

Underneath the overlap Venn diagram, you’ll find an extensive table of keywords driving traffic to their sites:

Look at the Competitive Traffic Share to see where they are getting traffic from to highlight immediate new keyword opportunities. Assess those keyword opportunities by analyzing the traffic, search volume and CPC.

Keyword analysis

Next, analyze all the keywords driving traffic to their website so you can zone into the keyword difficulty and search intent of their high-traffic keywords, as well seeing their position in the SERPs. Are they on the first page of search results? Is their traffic share for high-volume keywords increasing or decreasing?

Head to Similarweb’s Keywords tool where you’ll find a treasure trove of keyword data for each competitor. Filter out their branded terms and paid keywords for the best view of their keyword strategy:

See how much their traffic share changed over the selected time period and the top URL getting traffic from each keyword. Here you can also determine the keyword difficulty, search intent and CPC of a keyword, and see where your competitor currently ranks for it in search results. 

Ranking trends

To get a fuller understanding of their position in search results, review their ranking trends with Similarweb’s Ranking Distribution feature. Here you can see their average position in the SERPs over a particular time period:

See the percentage of their keywords in positions 1-3, 4-10, 11-20 etc to gauge the strength of their presence in organic search. From here you can pinpoint where you could potentially outrank them and create strategies around those keywords. 

Organic pages analysis

Next, have a look at your competitor’s organic page performance to gain some insight into the general effectiveness of their content and SEO strategies. You’ll see which of their pages get the most traffic share and spot gaps in your own content plan.

To analyze the performance of their top pages, head to Similarweb’s Organic Pages feature:

You can see which pages are bringing in the most traffic for each website along with the traffic trend and associated top keyword for each page. 

This is a great opportunity to analyze what they’re doing right. Could you focus on similar topics or keywords to divert some of that traffic to your website? To help you with this, review the full list of keywords that are driving traffic to each top-performing page:

Here, you’ll see their traffic share, along with the search volume and CPC for each keyword driving traffic to that page. 

3) Focus on some quick wins

When you’re new on the scene, your customers don’t know who you are – yet. Building up brand awareness and presence in organic search results takes time, so what can you do to drive traffic and establish yourself in the meantime?

Here are some quick win channels to focus on and help you on your way

Paid search

Think of paid search like the fast lane to visibility. By strategically bidding on relevant keywords you can get your brand name and product/service showing up in search results. But it’s not always as easy as it sounds.

To get your ads seen by the right eyes, you’ve got to know the right PPC tactics and strategies. And, these you can learn from your competitors.

The first step is identifying who your specific paid competitors are, as they’ll be different to the one’s you’ve analyzed so far in your competitor analysis.

If you don’t feel like trawling through Google to see which ads come up when you type in your target keywords, Similarweb’s Paid Competitors features will help you find who you’re competing against in the blink of an eye:

This view lets you visualize your top 10 PPC competitors on a graph so you can gauge the degree of overlap with them using different metrics (total traffic, paid traffic, % of shared keywords and search overlap score) 

Once you’ve nailed down the right PPC competitors to analyze, all that’s left to do is scrutinize their strategies

Start with their paid ads. Analyze them closely to find out what messaging, creative elements and calls-to-action (CTAs) resonates best with your shared target audience. You can find your competitors’ paid ads using Similarweb’s Search Ads tool:

You’ll see your competitors’ ads exactly as they appear in search results, as well as the estimated ad impressions, average position and the keywords driving traffic to the ad. With these juicy insights you can start figuring out why their ads are getting such great visibility. 

Where do their ads lead? Check out the ‘Final URLs’ of each ad listed to find out where users are taken once they click through. Analyze these landing pages to understand the design, content, imagery and user experience that successfully captivates your audience.

Next, have a look at their PPC Spend. Here, you can find out not only how much they’re spending, but when they’re spending. This helps stop you overspending, underspending or simply throwing money down the drain with poorly-timed ad campaigns.

Review your competitors’ ad spend with Similarweb’s PPC Spend tool, which gives you an overview of their budget decisions over time:

Here, you can look at their total spend or spend by device over a period of time to see when in the year they invest more heavily. Review the pages per visit, visit duration and bounce rate to get further insight into the effectiveness of their ads. 

Referring websites

Referral traffic is all about tapping into existing networks. Getting your brand showcased by sources that your target audience trusts can really help propel you into the spotlight.

Uncover your competitors’ biggest referral traffic sources for a strong starting point of where – and with whom – to forge the most advantageous partnerships and collaborations for maximum brand awareness.

To find their best referring domains, head the Incoming Traffic feature on Similarweb’s platform. Type in a website and see all of their key referral data, including the total number of referral visits and an extensive list of their top referring domains:

We help you go deeper with data on the most common industries and topics that found within your competitors’ top referring domains. You can also see each website’s global rank and traffic share to help you decide whether or not they’re good candidates. 

Social media

Social media can be a powerful way to increase brand awareness for a new website and begin growing a super engaged and loyal following. Many companies have whole teams dedicated to this channel, and for good reason.

Social media is about more than posting, as you’ll find when you start scrutinizing your competitor’s best social media tactics to see if there’s anything you’re missing

Here’s a quick breakdown of how to analyze their social media strategies:

1) Examine their social media profiles

Look at elements such as their logos, cover images and bio descriptions to see how they represent their brand consistently across each platform.

2) Analyze content types and common themes

Do they mostly share image, video or text based posts, or a mix? Identify the recurring content types, themes and topics that most engage your target audience on each social media platform

3) Review post frequency and timing

Do they post a few times a week, once a day, or several times a day? There may be specific days, or even times of day that you notice engagement is higher.

4) Dive into engagement metrics

Analyze the engagement metrics/markers of their posts – look at the number of likes, shares and comments to identify what sort of content strikes a cord with your target audience.

5) Adapt and implement

Gather these insights together and come up with your own social media strategy to begin laying the foundations for brand awareness and to spark some customer engagement.

Step Three: Create an action plan

Armed with the many insights gathered from competitor analysis, you now have a realistic and achievable path forward. Now, you create an action plan to put it all to good use

By leveraging your competitors’ strengths, you can come up with strategies proven to resonate with your shared audience and put your best foot forward. By capitalizing on their weaknesses and addressing content gaps, you have a ready-made road map of low-hanging opportunities to tap into.

Here’s how to create a winning action plan based on your findings:

1) Compile a keyword list to target

Use the competitive keyword data you uncovered with Similarweb’s Keyword Gap

And Keyword Analysis tools to put together a list of impactful and relevant keywords that

are proven to drive traffic.

2) Prioritize long-tail keywords

Don’t forget to validate your keyword choices using metrics like keyword difficulty, search intent and CPC. Also, don’t overlook lower volume, long-tail variations that will drive more targeted traffic to your site.

3) Set up a rank tracker

When you’re trying to climb up the organic rankings as a new website, setting up a rank tracker will help you navigate and monitor where you stand in the competitive landscape over time.

You can track the ebb and flow of your website’s position in the SERPs and gain real-time understanding of what’s working and where adjustments are needed.

With Similarweb’s Rank Tracker, our daily tracking means you’ll always have actionable insights to guide you as you ascend the ranks:

Track the changing visibility, average position in search results and clicks of your closest competitors based on your shared keywords: 

With this view, you can keep a keen eye on where your existing competitors rank, watch for emerging threats and make data-backed decisions to adapt your SEO or content strategies to ensure you keep steadily climbing the SERPs. 

4) Set up a brand protection campaign

As Paid search will be forming a big chunk of your action plan, you need a quick and easy way to keep tabs on when competitors bid on the paid keywords that are key to building up your brand’s presence in search results. These could include a mixture of branded keywords and non-branded keywords.

You can set up a brand protection campaign with Similarweb, under our dedicated Brand Protection module. With this feature, you can specify the device, location and list of keywords to track:

You’ll be alerted as soon as competitors bid on your tracked keywords, with daily reports sent to you directly. The tool will show you the ads and landing pages that are targeting the keywords, along with their position in search results and details of how long the ad has been active. This gives you the timely data you need to pivot your strategies and win back traffic.

5) Go after quick wins first

Get the ball rolling by grabbing that low hanging fruit

While you wait for your long term organic strategies to kick in, focus on some quick wins by boosting your paid search, social and referral traffic.

Use Similarweb’s platform to glean best practice from your closest competitors and A/B test your social media posts and paid ads to learn over time what resonates most with your specific target audience.

6) Monitor your competitors over time

Things move quickly, and so do your competitors. It can be tricky to stay on top of what they’re up to, but it’s an important part of competitive analysis for a new website.

Similarweb can help you monitor your competitors over time with our comprehensive Competitive Tracker, which you can set up directly on Similarweb’s platform and monitor up to 25 websites.

With this tracker, you will get a monthly review of their organic traffic and engagement, as well as their paid search, social media and referral activity compared with yours:

Here, you can keep an eye on changes in paid traffic, traffic share and when competitors bid on the same paid keywords as you.

Track changes in your competitors’ referral traffic and see when opportunities to collaborate with new affiliates arise.

To sum up…

Competitive analysis done right is the key to carving out your place as a new website in a competitive digital landscape. You now know which competitors to target, and how to leverage both their strengths and weaknesses to build a strong foundation and begin propelling your new website into the spotlight

And it couldn’t be easier with Similarweb’s range of competitive analysis tools – from our Website Analysis and Search Ads tools to our series of trackers that help you monitor your competitors over time. As a new website, you’ll be able to stay agile, adapt your strategies and capitalize on every new opportunity at a pivotal time in your growth.

FAQs

How is competitive analysis for a new website different than usual?

Competitive analysis for a new website differs from the traditional approach by shifting focus from analyzing industry giants to smaller competitors. The key difference lies in analyzing and learning from smaller competitors, strategically leveraging their strengths, weaknesses and winning tactics to acquire some of their traffic and pave the way for future competition with industry leaders.

What performance metrics should a new website focus on when analyzing competitors?

When analyzing competitors, a new website should focus on key performance metrics such as monthly visits, visit duration, bounce rate, pages per visit, and traffic trends. Additionally, delving into competitors’ marketing channel data helps identify underutilized channels and informs strategies for differentiation.

How does Similarweb help identify competitors for a new website’s analysis?

Similarweb’s Website Category Analysis and Organic Competitors feature allow new websites to pinpoint competitors efficiently. The tools provide insights into top players in the industry, sorted by traffic share, and help discover those smaller competitors based on shared keywords and organic traffic overlap.

How can a new website leverage ‘quick win’ strategies in their competitive analysis?

New websites can start building brand awareness and driving traffic by focusing on ‘quick win’ channels like paid search, social media, and referral traffic. Utilize tools like Similarweb to analyze competitors, adapt successful elements, and strategically target opportunities for increased brand visibility and engagement.