When assessing the effectiveness of SEO promotion and analyzing competitors, an important point is often missed - brand traffic. High website traffic, driven primarily by branded queries, can create a false impression of a successful SEO strategy. However, to objectively assess the competitiveness of a resource and determine growth points, it is necessary to exclude the influence of branded traffic and focus on non-branded data.
The importance of excluding branded traffic when analyzing competitors
When performing a comparative analysis with competitors and assessing their positions in search results, it is extremely important to clear the data from the influence of branded traffic. This will allow:
- Identify real competitors based on commercial and information requests — By filtering out sites with a high share of branded traffic, you can create a list of companies that actually compete with you for search queries related to a product or service.
- Assess the real effectiveness of SEO strategies — Data cleared of brand traffic allows you to objectively compare the effectiveness of SEO strategies to attract new audiences.
- Identify true problem areas and growth points — Analysis of non-branded traffic will help identify shortcomings that are holding back traffic growth and areas where the influx of new users can be increased.
- Develop a competent strategy for further development — Objective information will help you adjust your SEO strategy and compete more effectively in search results.
Example 1
Let's take an example: two online electronics stores have similar total traffic. However, upon detailed analysis, it turns out that one of the stores receives 80% of traffic from brand requests, and the second - only 20%. Despite lower overall traffic, the second store demonstrates a more effective SEO strategy for non-brand queries, which is an important factor in attracting new customers and increasing sales.
Example 2
Let's say that you are the owner of an online sportswear store and you are choosing donors for your link strategy. You may encounter two types of sites:
- Sports blog with high brand traffic is a blog of a famous athlete who attracts users thanks to his name.
- Thematic site about fitness with predominantly non-branded traffic is a site offering information on training, nutrition, sportswear reviews and other fitness-related topics.
In this case, a link from a fitness-related site will be more valuable for your SEO, since the site attracts a target audience interested in sportswear and targets relevant non-brand queries.
Benefits of traffic analysis when selecting donors
Analysis of non-branded traffic of donor sites allows you to:
- Get better links — Links from sites that attract the target audience for relevant queries are more effective for search engines and help improve the ranking of your site.
- Improve referral traffic — Links from thematic sites can bring new users interested in your products or services to your site.
In fact, the link profile of such resources may be less impressive if you exclude the “noise” from branded links that are attracted by the company's fame.
By analyzing only the non-branded link profile of competitors, you can:
- Identify real leaders in link building — Sites with high positions for commercial queries that do not have significant brand traffic most likely achieved such positions thanks to a competent link strategy.
- Identify potential sources for link building — By studying which resources your non-branded competitors receive links from, you can find platforms for mutually beneficial cooperation.
- Assess the budget and scale of link campaigns — The number and quality of links will help you evaluate your competitors’ resources and estimate the costs of a similar strategy for your site.
But in contextual advertising the opposite is true:
Higher conversion and more sales
Users who are looking for a specific brand are already familiar with it and are much more likely to make a purchase or targeted action than those who come to the site for general informational or commercial queries. It is branded traffic that often brings in the majority of sales at a lower cost.
Lower cost per click
Ads for branded queries usually have a significantly lower cost per click than contextual advertising. This is due to less competition in the auction, since the main players are the enterprise itself and a limited number of competitors. Consequently, brand promotion in contextual advertising will cost less.
Higher Conversion Rate
Users who are well aware of a brand are more likely to take targeted actions. This directly affects the high conversion rate in advertising campaigns focused on brand queries. Non-brand traffic analysis is an important tool for developing an effective SEO strategy, including a link strategy. Taking this factor into account, you will be able to select the most relevant and authoritative donor sites, get high-quality links and increase the efficiency of promoting your site in search engines. You can contact the SEO studio "SEO COMPUTER" with any question by email info@seo.computer. id 1915
