Analyzing Other Websites' Traffic with Semrush

Competitive quality tin go a game-changing plus for companies looking to optimize their integer show and accelerate growth. Knowing wherever your rivals' oregon imaginable partners' postulation comes from, knowing however they interact with their users, and seeing if they are affected by marketplace trends can help you marque much substantiated concern decisions. 

The SEMrush Traffic Analytics tool offers estimations of immoderate website’s desktop and mobile traffic, idiosyncratic behaviour stats, and postulation sources analytics. This data lets you break down the integer selling strategy of a competitor, estimation a prospective partner’s capabilities, research caller markets, physique winning presales pitches (if you are an agency), and overmuch more.

Traffic Analytics vs Google Analytics

In Google Analytics you tin cheque the show metrics of your ain website. And what astir the show of your rivals? Traffic Analytics is designed to let you bash the aforesaid with your rivals. It besides helps you compare the website postulation and idiosyncratic behaviour of 2 oregon much competitors.

Traffic Analytics doesn’t get the website’s postulation stats from its interior analytics. SEMrush analyzes petabytes of clickstream information collected from assorted proprietary and 3rd enactment sources utilizing instrumentality learning algorithms and Big Data technologies.

Exploring Other Websites’ Traffic and User Behavior 

Even basal accusation astir your competitor’s oregon imaginable partner’s/customer’s postulation tin go a boatload of insights if you look astatine it astatine the close angle. Below, you volition find recommendations connected however to cheque different websites’ postulation utilizing SEMrush Traffic Analytics, construe collected data, and usage it to execute your concern goals.

General Traffic Data

Start by uncovering retired however overmuch postulation the website of involvement gets. Type successful a competitor’s URL to spot their website postulation study (Overview Report). Check retired the estimated fig of Visits and Unique Visitors to their website for the caller month. The fig of visits will fto you estimation the size of your competitor's audience. The inclination enactment volition amusement if they experienced growth oregon autumn in the request for their products and services online.

Then adhd up to 4 rivals to comparison them against each different and estimation each company’s marketplace share.

As you tin see, the COVID 19 pandemic deed the world’s starring low-cost airlines rather hard, and adjacent the vacation play didn’t bring them the desired recovery. However, easyJet suffered little than Ryanair. 

The Overview study shows you the information for the past 6 months, 1 year, oregon all-time (dating backmost to Jan 2017). 

Watch however Sam Ruchlewicz, Vice President of Digital Strategy and Data Analytics astatine Warschawski, utilized SEMrush to analyse a abrupt highest successful competitor’s traffic:

Audience Behavior

To instrumentality a sneak peek into the prime of postulation a rival gets and marque immoderate conclusions astir the ratio of their integer selling activities you tin analyse Pages/Visit and Bounce Rate. *

For example, if a website's full postulation is growing, the Bounce Rate is increasing, and the fig of Pages/Visit is falling, it is imaginable that the postulation coming to this website is of mediocre prime oregon irrelevant. There tin beryllium galore reasons for that. Here are conscionable a few:

• Users don't find the content absorbing oregon helpful;
• The connection promoted successful an advertizing run is not arsenic bully is it mightiness seem;
• A batch of postulation comes from the territories wherever the product/service is not marketed. To analyse specified a concern and debar it for your ain campaigns, you tin besides cheque retired the Traffic Journey (Traffic Sources) and Geo Distribution.

*Please enactment that the quality successful values successful the Traffic Analytics and Domain Overview reports is caused by the quality successful the calculation methods (in Domain Overview you spot the information calculated connected the ground of the website’s presumption successful SERP). 

To get idiosyncratic behaviour information for galore competitors astatine once, you tin effort the Bulk Analysis report, which allows you to retrieve the above-listed metrics for up to 200 URLs. 

Breaking Down Competitors’ Strategies

To recognize how your rivals acceptable their priorities and interact with their assemblage successful presumption of SEO, PPC, SMM, and Content and PR, you’ll person to dive deeper into the Traffic Analytics reports. In this portion of the article, we’ll effort to reply much circumstantial questions specified as:

• Where does your rival’s assemblage travel from?

• Where bash they spell afterwards?

• Are your rivals competing for the aforesaid audience?

• What integer selling strategies crook retired to beryllium astir effective?

• What pages of your competitor’s website pull the astir attention?

Traffic Journey

In the Traffic Journey report, you’ll find the people website’s postulation divided into direct, referral, search, social, and paid. 

This is however you tin larn that Nike gets astir of its traffic from integrated hunt and nonstop visits. Now, let's adhd immoderate other sportswear producers to spot that the concern is akin for each of them.

To marque the information much granular, you tin filter the study to spot the domain’s astir ‘traffic-yielding’ referring sites, hunt engines, oregon societal networks.

Now let’s cheque retired wherever radical go. At the bottommost of the Traffic Journey report, you’ll find a very wide strategy of the people website’s postulation flow. For example, from the surface beneath you tin larn that Etsy visitors mostly caput backmost to hunt oregon wage for their orders and way their parcels.

What you tin bash aft analyzing the data

• Prioritize your integer selling campaigns based connected accusation astir your rivals’ astir palmy postulation channels.

• Leverage your competitors’ strategies to increase postulation to your ain website.

Audience Insights

The Audience Insights study lets you compare the assemblage of up to 5 websites and find the different domains they visit. For example, you mightiness beryllium amazed to larn that the world’s biggest cosmetic companies person alternatively antithetic audiences, each of which are inactive looking for the champion deal.

What you tin bash aft analyzing the data

• Try retired antithetic websites to gain much insights from the Audience Insights report.
• Switch to the Market Explorer instrumentality to collect other information astir your competitors' audiences.

Top Pages and Subdomains

The Top Pages study shows unique leafage views, unsocial visitors, entrances, and postulation sources (direct, referral, societal media, hunt engines, and paid ads) for up to 1, 000 website’s pages that get the astir traffic. You tin filter the database by immoderate circumstantial benignant of page. 

Let’s person a look astatine nike.com, archetypal without filters. Men look to beryllium much funny successful buying their sports worldly present than women, astir of them travel from the US, and they reached the website done a nonstop link.

Then we'll find retired which Air Max models are searched for astir often. These are Evergreen Aura for gents and Pure Platinum for ladies.

In the aforesaid way, you tin usage the Subdomains study to find and analyse your rival’s apical subdomains, beryllium it the blog, quality section, determination subdomain, oregon an e-commerce store. 

What you tin bash aft analyzing the data

• Expand your rival analysis to their SEO, societal media, advertising, and contented and PR strategies.
• Automate your rival monitoring to support up with their ups and downs. 

Using Traffic Data to Facilitate Growth 

Apart from learning your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, Traffic Analytics tin go a root of useful insights erstwhile you effort to grow your business, transportation a imaginable to adjacent the deal, oregon found a beardown and fruitful partnership.

Conducting Preliminary Analysis of a New Market/Niche

If you are considering a go-to-market campaign, Traffic Analytics tin assistance you estimate the imaginable of the people market. 

By looking astatine the Geo Distribution study that we mentioned earlier, you tin place the areas of the satellite wherever your rival has a higher demand. Knowing the full postulation and postulation stock from each country/subcontinent comes successful useful if you privation to larn which planetary markets your rival has already covered. The postulation and idiosyncratic behaviour metrics volition archer you if they person been palmy successful their expansion. 

As you tin spot from the surface above, the institution of involvement gets 31% of its postulation from the US, which means you person rather a bully accidental of beating it successful Europe arsenic agelong arsenic it’s your strongest rival there. 

This information tin springiness your run a bully start. To behaviour a deeper analysis please cheque retired our Go-to-Market Strategy Checklist and proceed with the Market Explorer tool. 

Evaluating a Prospective Partner

An ingenious mode to usage Traffic Analytics reports is discovering if you and your imaginable spouse marque a cleanable match. 

• Use the Overview study to see however overmuch postulation they are getting and whether it is of bully quality.

• Learn how they get their postulation from the Traffic Journey report.

• Check retired the Audience Insights to marque definite you are targeting the aforesaid people.

• Look astatine their postulation Geo Distribution to recognize that you are targeting the aforesaid countries. 

Say I americium the New York Times and I person to take betwixt 3 bully newspapers to spouse with. Why not benchmark them against each different and myself to marque definite we are looking successful the aforesaid direction?

USA Today, the New York Post, and the Washington Post get much postulation than the others and it continues to grow. The Average Visit Duration grows too. Besides that, the New York Post is successfully coping with the bounce complaint and the Washington Post has the lowest bounce complaint of all. This lets america accidental that the listed media connection engaging contented for their assemblage and partnering with them tin assistance america grow the reach.

USA Today beats the New York Post for hunt traffic, which is valuable, arsenic integrated hunt is the main root of visitors for newspapers and magazines.

However, they person comparatively the aforesaid size audience. So, who shall we pick? Let’s leverage the geography. If we are looking to get more readers from Canada we tin prime the spouse who already has this state covered. USA Today had postulation of 6M from there, the New York Post has 2.6M, and the Washington Post has 8.4M (you tin find this information successful the Traffic by Country widget of the Overview study erstwhile benchmarking your imaginable partners). The second means USA Today and the Washington Post volition marque the champion partners.

Equipping Presales 

Using a competitory investigation instrumentality for presales mightiness dependable strange, but erstwhile you are offering your services you request to recognize your prospect’s existent situation and the issues you are going to code with your solution. 

It’s besides precise important to marque your connection astatine the close infinitesimal and successful the close form. And of course, you person to marque definite that you show your ain strengths truthful that the imaginable won’t hesitate to take you. 

You tin analyse your imaginable customer’s postulation the aforesaid mode you analyse your contention to find areas for betterment successful their SEO oregon different strategies and usage the SEMrush pitching and reporting functionalities to make a wide visualization of wherever they basal against the competition. 

The Pitch Mode lets you contiguous Traffic Analytics information connected a plain surface without immoderate notation to SEMrush tools, and My Reports allows you to cod this information into a bully PDF study to beryllium sent to your client. 

For example, the website we are looking astatine is struggling against a serious postulation decline.

However, if we look a the postulation sources, we'll spot that its referral and hunt postulation is somewhat increasing and is astir backmost to the pre-crisis level.

If you correspond a selling oregon an SEO bureau you tin item this and connection your services to accelerate this maturation via expanding the semantic core, placing contented connected authoritative resources, oregon trying to screen societal media which is not presently used. 

You tin besides usage Traffic Analytics information to take the astir opportune clip erstwhile involvement successful your connection is astatine its highest, for example, if your prospects’ competitors are going done a atrocious patch.

There’s More to It

Traffic Analytics is not conscionable a almighty competitory quality solution but a portion of a broad Competitive Research Toolkit that is perfect for running an in-depth investigation of each and each facet of your rivals’ selling strategy, from integrated hunt and advertizing to PR and affiliate programs, exploring caller markets, and researching your people assemblage demographics and psychographics.

With it, you volition beryllium capable to follow the winning practices of the renowned marketplace leaders and instrumentality your campaigns to the adjacent level. To larn much astir utilizing the SEMrush Competitive Intelligence toolkit, delight cheque retired our astir fashionable workflows.

• Monitoring Market Trends

• Competitor Benchmarking With SEMrush

• Estimating a New Country’s Market Potential