Understanding what the competition is doing will give us some insight into what keywords they are targeting, but we don’t necessarily want to copy their strategy. Just because a business is ranked #1 doesn’t mean their SEO strategy is the best. Businesses ranked at the top of the results are often ranked there because they have been investing in SEO for years, but that doesn’t mean that their strategy doesn’t have inefficiencies. The key here is to identify what the competition is doing and identify how we can one-up the competitors in the long run.
By understanding the competition’s keyword strategy we can also identify where they aren’t ranking. This often leads to keyword opportunities for our clients. This low-hanging fruit helps us kick-start our SEO efforts as we begin any new SEO campaign.