Ever wondered why other healthcare providers consistently appear at the top of search results while your clinic struggles to gain visibility? The answer lies in strategic competitor analysis—a powerful yet often overlooked aspect of local SEO.
In this episode, we’ll break down exactly how to identify your real competitors, what to look for when analyzing their online presence, and how to use that information to improve your own SEO strategy.
And stick around to the end, because I’ll be giving you three actionable steps you can implement today to gain a competitive edge.
Webpage Episode: https://propelyourcompany.com/how-to-spy-on-your-competitors-seo-plan/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Clinic Marketing Podcast.
I'm your host, darci Sullivanfrom Propel Marketing and Design
.
Today we're diving into acritical topic how to analyze
your local SEO competitors soyou can outrank them and bring
more patients through your doors.
(00:21):
In this episode, we'll breakdown exactly how to identify
your real competitors, what tolook for when analyzing their
online presence and how to usethat information to improve your
own SEO strategy.
And stick around to the end,because I'll be giving you three
(00:41):
actionable steps you canimplement today to gain a
competitive edge.
So if you've ever wondered howother clinics seem to dominate
search results while youstruggle to gain traction, this
episode is for you.
Before we dive in, I do want tomention that today's topic came
(01:03):
in as a special request fromone of our listeners.
If you have any requests oftopics or SEO related questions
or website related questionsthat you would like answered,
please reach out to us onInstagram at Propel, your
Company.
All right, let's get started.
(01:23):
So step one you want toidentify who your real
competitors are.
The first step in a competitoranalysis is to identify who your
real competitors are.
See, many clinic owners make amistake of assuming that, just
because they're a chiropractor,that other chiropractors in
(01:45):
their direct area are theircompetition, and that's not
necessarily true.
Your real competitors are thosewho rank in the top spots for
keywords that you want to target, meaning when you type in those
keyword phrases into Google,other sites are coming up for
(02:06):
them, not yours.
They also need to meet othercriteria, like serving the same
target audience in yourgeographical area and have a
similar business model or offeroverlapping services model or
(02:28):
offer overlapping services.
So let's say you're achiropractor in Austin, texas,
you might think your competitionis every single chiropractor in
town, but if you specialize insports injury rehabilitation,
your actual competitors might bea mix.
They could be chiropractors,some physical therapists or even
other clinics like orthopedicclinics that offer similar
(02:51):
services.
So how do you find out who yourreal SEO competitors are?
Well, there's a couple quickways.
One Google search Type in thekey services along with your
location and see who appears intop search results.
Examples for this could be,given the previous example that
(03:15):
we used, you might want to typein sports injury chiropractor
Austin and see who comes up.
Now it's important to know thatwhen you're doing a search like
this, you want to make sure thatyou're actually looking at the
organic results and not justlooking at ads, because those
people are paying to play.
They are paying for some ofthose top positions on Google.
(03:38):
So we want to make sure thatwe're actually looking in the
organic results, actuallylooking in the organic results.
Next, check the top listings inGoogle Maps for relevant search
terms.
You can also use SEO tools.
There are a ton of them outthere.
Some are freed, some are paid,some are freemium, meaning they
(04:00):
have free and then premiumoptions.
Almost all of them do offer afree trial period.
Some tools that we like forthis include Ahrefs, simrush or
Moz.
They can help you analyze whichcompetitors are ranking for
some of the same keywords as you.
(04:22):
Once you've identified a list ofcompetitors, it's time to
analyze what they might be doingright.
So once you know who thesecompetitors are, next you're
going to want to analyze whatthey're doing to rank.
Here are a few key areas toevaluate.
One, their website, itsstructure and content.
(04:44):
How is the website organized?
Do they have services pagesoptimized for specific keywords?
Do they have specific servicespages that highlight what
services they offer?
Are they using blog content toanswer patients' questions or
(05:04):
provide additional valuablecontent to their website
visitors?
If you run an acupunctureclinic, at the top, your
competitor might have awell-structured website with
detailed pages regardingacupuncture for back pain or
acupuncture for migraine.
(05:25):
They might even have detailedinformation about what the
difference is between dryneedling and acupuncture.
Really honing in on what theirtarget audience is looking for,
along with combining it with SEOand making sure all of the
pages are optimized to boosttheir rankings.
(05:46):
You'll also want to look attheir Google business profile
listing.
Do they have a complete andoptimized Google business
profile?
Are they getting a steady flowof positive reviews?
How frequently are they doingGoogle posts and updating images
?
If you notice a competingclinic in this example, a
(06:11):
physical therapist clinic hasover 200 reviews with an average
star rating of 4.9.
While you only have 20 reviews,you know you need to focus on
getting more patient feedback.
What about backlinks?
These are links coming fromother websites to that
(06:33):
competition's website.
Are they getting mentioned inlocal news sites, directories or
industry blogs?
Have they formed any localpartnerships like gyms or
wellness centers that arescoring them quality backlinks
to their website?
If a competitor's website islinked from popular local
(06:57):
fitness blogs that review healthand wellness, maybe you could
reach out to them.
Again, there are tons of toolsout there, so I don't want to
get into the nitty gritty ofwhat specific tools you should
use, but you can look forbacklink data tools to find out
(07:18):
what backlinks your competitionmight be getting.
Now, one thing that I want tomention with this is I know some
people go a little crazy overthe whole backlink idea, and
there used to be this popularidea of just going out and
hiring somebody to build you allthese backlinks, but they were
(07:41):
usually kind of worthlessbacklinks that had nothing to do
with the services that peopleoffered and or the industry that
they were in.
So we don't want to just likego out and buy backlinks.
What we want to do is look andsee what popular websites are
back linking to your competitionand how you might be able to
(08:05):
target and approach thoseorganizations.
We also want to look at localcitations and directories.
Does your competition havelistings and key directories
like Yelp, zocdoc orHealthgrades?
Is their business informationconsistent?
We talk a lot about NAPconsistency name, address and
(08:28):
phone number consistency onlineand that is one place that you
really want to practice that is,making sure that you do have
appropriate name and address andphone number listed throughout
all of your listings online, andthat's something that you want
to look and see.
Is your competition doing that?
What about social media?
What is their social mediapresence and engagement?
(08:50):
Do they have an active socialmedia presence?
Are they posting content that'sactually engaging?
If so, how can you leverage anddrive some ideas of types of
content you can use?
We're not copying ourcompetition, but if your
(09:11):
competitors are thriving, forinstance on Instagram by sharing
before and after patientsuccess stories, it might be
worth incorporating similarcontent into your strategy.
Be worth incorporating similarcontent into your strategy.
Next, we want to use thecompetitive insights to improve
(09:32):
SEO.
Now that you've gathered thesedata points and you've got this
information as to what yourcompetition is doing, what are
you going to do with it?
Well, one you don't want tocopy exactly what they're doing.
You can never be the best inyour industry by copying
somebody else.
You also want to remember that,even though you've done this
(09:55):
research and I've seen this timeand time again, especially when
it comes to websites is peoplewill look at their competition
and stare down theircompetition's websites over and
over again and fall in love withthe idea of some of the
elements on their competition'swebsites implemented on their
website, just to see that theircompetition gets a new website
(10:15):
days later.
Because, even though you'restaring at it and there might be
some elements that you like,you want to ask your chart to
get audience and get theminvolved, to make sure that the
items that you're thinking ofincluding and optimizing in your
website one reflect yourservices, your offering and also
(10:37):
your website visitors.
So if competitors, for instance, have deep service pages, you
might want to consider expandingyour own, but you're not going
to use the same content thatthey're using.
You're going to use contentthat relates to your business.
If they have a strong blogstrategy, then you can start
having a strong blog strategy.
(10:59):
But start by answering some ofthe most common patient
questions you get as blog posts.
Don't start by just copying theblog post that your competition
has.
And when it comes to improvingyour Google business profile, we
have tons of resources andwe've done tons of episodes that
really highlight optimizingcertain elements of your Google
(11:22):
business profile listing.
But again, you want to look atthe frequency.
How often are they putting timeand energy into their Google
business profile listing?
How many reviews do they haveand how can you jump in and make
sure that you're able tocompete with them when it comes
to that.
Also, those backlinks that wetalked about reach out to local
(11:45):
blogs, news sites, companieswithin your area that make sense
for you to create partnershipopportunities and try to gain
new backlinks.
There was one episode that wedid that I'll link in the show
notes that really went intodetail about how to leverage
other people's audience in theright way to create quality
(12:08):
backlinks and also stay activeon social media.
Make sure that you're engagingwith your audience by sharing
patient testimonials, casestudies and educational content.
Let's say you're a med spa andyou realize one of your top
competitors has tons ofengagement on their Facebook by
(12:28):
hosting a live Q&A session abouttheir treatments.
You could start doing the same,positioning yourself as the
go-to expert in your area.
Let's wrap this up with someaction steps you can take today.
One, run a quick Google searchfor your top services plus your
(12:49):
location, and write down yourtop three competitors that show
up Again in the local results,not in the ad section.
Two, analyze their website,their Google business profile,
listing their backlink profile,their social media campaigns and
more, to see what they're doingwell.
Then implement at least oneimprovement on your own website
(13:10):
or your Google business profilebased on the information that
you've gained.
Remember, your goal is not tocopy your competitors.
It's to learn from them and doan even better job.
If you found this episodehelpful, be sure to subscribe to
the Clinic Marketing Podcast soyou don't miss future episodes
(13:31):
packed with practical strategiesfor growing your clinic.
And if you want personalizedhelp with your SEO, please visit
propellyourcompanycom to learnmore about how we can help you
attract more patients and growyour business.
Thanks for listening.
Welcome to the Clinic Marketing Podcast.
I'm your host, darci Sullivanfrom Propel Marketing and Design
.
Today we're diving into acritical topic how to analyze
your local SEO competitors soyou can outrank them and bring
more patients through your doors.
(00:21):
In this episode, we'll breakdown exactly how to identify
your real competitors, what tolook for when analyzing their
online presence and how to usethat information to improve your
own SEO strategy.
And stick around to the end,because I'll be giving you three
(00:41):
actionable steps you canimplement today to gain a
competitive edge.
So if you've ever wondered howother clinics seem to dominate
search results while youstruggle to gain traction, this
episode is for you.
Before we dive in, I do want tomention that today's topic came
(01:03):
in as a special request fromone of our listeners.
If you have any requests oftopics or SEO related questions
or website related questionsthat you would like answered,
please reach out to us onInstagram at Propel, your
Company.
All right, let's get started.
(01:23):
So step one you want toidentify who your real
competitors are.
The first step in a competitoranalysis is to identify who your
real competitors are.
See, many clinic owners make amistake of assuming that, just
because they're a chiropractor,that other chiropractors in
(01:45):
their direct area are theircompetition, and that's not
necessarily true.
Your real competitors are thosewho rank in the top spots for
keywords that you want to target, meaning when you type in those
keyword phrases into Google,other sites are coming up for
(02:06):
them, not yours.
They also need to meet othercriteria, like serving the same
target audience in yourgeographical area and have a
similar business model or offeroverlapping services model or
(02:28):
offer overlapping services.
So let's say you're achiropractor in Austin, texas,
you might think your competitionis every single chiropractor in
town, but if you specialize insports injury rehabilitation,
your actual competitors might bea mix.
They could be chiropractors,some physical therapists or even
other clinics like orthopedicclinics that offer similar
(02:51):
services.
So how do you find out who yourreal SEO competitors are?
Well, there's a couple quickways.
One Google search Type in thekey services along with your
location and see who appears intop search results.
Examples for this could be,given the previous example that
(03:15):
we used, you might want to typein sports injury chiropractor
Austin and see who comes up.
Now it's important to know thatwhen you're doing a search like
this, you want to make sure thatyou're actually looking at the
organic results and not justlooking at ads, because those
people are paying to play.
They are paying for some ofthose top positions on Google.
(03:38):
So we want to make sure thatwe're actually looking in the
organic results, actuallylooking in the organic results.
Next, check the top listings inGoogle Maps for relevant search
terms.
You can also use SEO tools.
There are a ton of them outthere.
Some are freed, some are paid,some are freemium, meaning they
(04:00):
have free and then premiumoptions.
Almost all of them do offer afree trial period.
Some tools that we like forthis include Ahrefs, simrush or
Moz.
They can help you analyze whichcompetitors are ranking for
some of the same keywords as you.
(04:22):
Once you've identified a list ofcompetitors, it's time to
analyze what they might be doingright.
So once you know who thesecompetitors are, next you're
going to want to analyze whatthey're doing to rank.
Here are a few key areas toevaluate.
One, their website, itsstructure and content.
(04:44):
How is the website organized?
Do they have services pagesoptimized for specific keywords?
Do they have specific servicespages that highlight what
services they offer?
Are they using blog content toanswer patients' questions or
(05:04):
provide additional valuablecontent to their website
visitors?
If you run an acupunctureclinic, at the top, your
competitor might have awell-structured website with
detailed pages regardingacupuncture for back pain or
acupuncture for migraine.
(05:25):
They might even have detailedinformation about what the
difference is between dryneedling and acupuncture.
Really honing in on what theirtarget audience is looking for,
along with combining it with SEOand making sure all of the
pages are optimized to boosttheir rankings.
(05:46):
You'll also want to look attheir Google business profile
listing.
Do they have a complete andoptimized Google business
profile?
Are they getting a steady flowof positive reviews?
How frequently are they doingGoogle posts and updating images
?
If you notice a competingclinic in this example, a
(06:11):
physical therapist clinic hasover 200 reviews with an average
star rating of 4.9.
While you only have 20 reviews,you know you need to focus on
getting more patient feedback.
What about backlinks?
These are links coming fromother websites to that
(06:33):
competition's website.
Are they getting mentioned inlocal news sites, directories or
industry blogs?
Have they formed any localpartnerships like gyms or
wellness centers that arescoring them quality backlinks
to their website?
If a competitor's website islinked from popular local
(06:57):
fitness blogs that review healthand wellness, maybe you could
reach out to them.
Again, there are tons of toolsout there, so I don't want to
get into the nitty gritty ofwhat specific tools you should
use, but you can look forbacklink data tools to find out
(07:18):
what backlinks your competitionmight be getting.
Now, one thing that I want tomention with this is I know some
people go a little crazy overthe whole backlink idea, and
there used to be this popularidea of just going out and
hiring somebody to build you allthese backlinks, but they were
(07:41):
usually kind of worthlessbacklinks that had nothing to do
with the services that peopleoffered and or the industry that
they were in.
So we don't want to just likego out and buy backlinks.
What we want to do is look andsee what popular websites are
back linking to your competitionand how you might be able to
(08:05):
target and approach thoseorganizations.
We also want to look at localcitations and directories.
Does your competition havelistings and key directories
like Yelp, zocdoc orHealthgrades?
Is their business informationconsistent?
We talk a lot about NAPconsistency name, address and
(08:28):
phone number consistency onlineand that is one place that you
really want to practice that is,making sure that you do have
appropriate name and address andphone number listed throughout
all of your listings online, andthat's something that you want
to look and see.
Is your competition doing that?
What about social media?
What is their social mediapresence and engagement?
(08:50):
Do they have an active socialmedia presence?
Are they posting content that'sactually engaging?
If so, how can you leverage anddrive some ideas of types of
content you can use?
We're not copying ourcompetition, but if your
(09:11):
competitors are thriving, forinstance on Instagram by sharing
before and after patientsuccess stories, it might be
worth incorporating similarcontent into your strategy.
Be worth incorporating similarcontent into your strategy.
Next, we want to use thecompetitive insights to improve
(09:32):
SEO.
Now that you've gathered thesedata points and you've got this
information as to what yourcompetition is doing, what are
you going to do with it?
Well, one you don't want tocopy exactly what they're doing.
You can never be the best inyour industry by copying
somebody else.
You also want to remember that,even though you've done this
(09:55):
research and I've seen this timeand time again, especially when
it comes to websites is peoplewill look at their competition
and stare down theircompetition's websites over and
over again and fall in love withthe idea of some of the
elements on their competition'swebsites implemented on their
website, just to see that theircompetition gets a new website
(10:15):
days later.
Because, even though you'restaring at it and there might be
some elements that you like,you want to ask your chart to
get audience and get theminvolved, to make sure that the
items that you're thinking ofincluding and optimizing in your
website one reflect yourservices, your offering and also
(10:37):
your website visitors.
So if competitors, for instance, have deep service pages, you
might want to consider expandingyour own, but you're not going
to use the same content thatthey're using.
You're going to use contentthat relates to your business.
If they have a strong blogstrategy, then you can start
having a strong blog strategy.
(10:59):
But start by answering some ofthe most common patient
questions you get as blog posts.
Don't start by just copying theblog post that your competition
has.
And when it comes to improvingyour Google business profile, we
have tons of resources andwe've done tons of episodes that
really highlight optimizingcertain elements of your Google
(11:22):
business profile listing.
But again, you want to look atthe frequency.
How often are they putting timeand energy into their Google
business profile listing?
How many reviews do they haveand how can you jump in and make
sure that you're able tocompete with them when it comes
to that.
Also, those backlinks that wetalked about reach out to local
(11:45):
blogs, news sites, companieswithin your area that make sense
for you to create partnershipopportunities and try to gain
new backlinks.
There was one episode that wedid that I'll link in the show
notes that really went intodetail about how to leverage
other people's audience in theright way to create quality
(12:08):
backlinks and also stay activeon social media.
Make sure that you're engagingwith your audience by sharing
patient testimonials, casestudies and educational content.
Let's say you're a med spa andyou realize one of your top
competitors has tons ofengagement on their Facebook by
(12:28):
hosting a live Q&A session abouttheir treatments.
You could start doing the same,positioning yourself as the
go-to expert in your area.
Let's wrap this up with someaction steps you can take today.
One, run a quick Google searchfor your top services plus your
(12:49):
location, and write down yourtop three competitors that show
up Again in the local results,not in the ad section.
Two, analyze their website,their Google business profile,
listing their backlink profile,their social media campaigns and
more, to see what they're doingwell.
Then implement at least oneimprovement on your own website
(13:10):
or your Google business profilebased on the information that
you've gained.
Remember, your goal is not tocopy your competitors.
It's to learn from them and doan even better job.
If you found this episodehelpful, be sure to subscribe to
the Clinic Marketing Podcast soyou don't miss future episodes
(13:31):
packed with practical strategiesfor growing your clinic.
And if you want personalizedhelp with your SEO, please visit
propellyourcompanycom to learnmore about how we can help you
attract more patients and growyour business.
Thanks for listening.
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