3 Smart Ways To Find Out How Much Traffic A Website Gets

Ankit Singla Master Blogging

by Ankit Singla

Sep 24, 2023

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Have you ever wonder how much traffic your best competitor gets?

Ever wonder how they got them?

Well, you’ve come to the right place.

The truth is, spying the competitor’s traffic is a lot easier than it appears.

Allow me to show you the ropes.

Why Measure Website Traffic?

Tracking your web traffic does more than just give you that amazing sense of accomplishment.

That is, of course, if you want to measure and scale the growth of your own blog. In which case, a simple tool like Google Analytics should suffice.

I get it, knowing that your efforts are paying off is a great way to keep yourself motivated. But there’s a lot more value to be gained from website traffic monitoring — especially if you plan to do it on competitors.

1. Verify the Profitability of A Niche

Niche Poking

Before you build a blog, observing a potential competitor’s traffic data will verify the profitability of your selected niche.

You don’t need years of blogging experience to know that most lucrative niches are already saturated with competitors. As such, newcomers are advised to hunt for low-competition “micro niches.”

The thing is, there’s no guarantee that these smaller niches can garner a website readership — let alone be monetized.

Inspecting a micro-niche blog’s traffic should confirm whether or not the niche worth pursuing.

2. Use Traffic to Determine if Certain Marketing Strategies Work

Tracking Strategy Performance

Eventually, you’ll need to explore different marketing or advertising tactics to continue growing your blog. And just like micro niches, you also need to measure their impact on your competitor’s traffic to prove their effectiveness. 

Throughout this post, we will cover a handful of tools that enable you to measure traffic as well as distinguish where they’re coming from.

They can be from anywhere, be it social media, paid ad clicks, newsletters, organic search results, or non-traditional strategies like Quora marketing.

3. Find High-Traffic Keywords for Link Building

Isolate Your Top Keywords

In addition to traffic sources, there are dozens of tools out there that look at your competitors’ target keywords — a staple feature in SEO and marketing analytics tools.

Keyword analysis reports also often include the website’s backlink sources.

Not only are these details invaluable for link building, identifying high-traffic keywords will also help you fine-tune your own content development efforts.

4. Eliminate Guesswork and Let Traffic Decide the Best Content Strategy

Build on Your Best Content

Unless you have unlimited funds, you need to manage your content budget to accommodate the preferences of your would-be audience.

Many traffic analysis tools grant you the ability to pinpoint your competitor’s popular blog content.

You can then use those posts as a reference to help you create better content in the future.

5. Understand Your Competitor’s Audience Demographics to Develop More Relatable Content

Dissect Visitor Demographics

To help you build a content strategy tailored to your target audience, you can also turn to demographic data such as their location, age, and gender.

Yes — such information can also be extracted from your competitor’s traffic.

There are also traffic analysis apps that extract browser information from sessions. A use case for this is to optimize the viewing experience on your blog for the OS and devices that your users favor.

Most of the time, demographic data will also help you craft more relatable content that resonates with your audience’s culture or tradition. 

Later on, I’ll show you exactly how to cash in on most of these benefits. But before we get to that, you must first learn how to acquire the data.

It’s hard to convince anyone to do something if they don’t realize the potential rewards. And now that you know why you should check website traffic online, let’s begin plotting your course of action.

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3 Ways To Find Out Estimated Traffic of Any Website

Without further ado, let me give you a breakdown of the proven ways to measure website traffic:

Method #1: Use a Marketing Analytics Tool for In-Depth Data

As with virtually everything else a blogger does, measuring and analyzing website traffic can be made easier with the right software.

Here is a list of the top five analytics tools you can use for this:

1. SEMrush

SEMrush is among the top marketing analytics platforms that I’d gladly recommend to anyone. You can use it to track a website’s search engine rankings, backlinks, and display advertising campaigns.

But since you’re reading this post, you’re probably wondering about SEMrush’s traffic analytics features.

The tool you’re looking for is found under the ‘Marketing Insights’ sub-menu — aptly called ‘Traffic Analytics.’

Semrush traffic analysis tool

From there, you simply have to enter the domain address of the website you want to analyze and click ‘Search.’ 

SEMrush Traffic Analytics Search Bar

SEMrush will then show you a comprehensive report sprinkled with pertinent traffic analytics data.

The first metrics you’ll see include the total number of visits, the average pages opened per session, bounce rate, and unique visitors per month.

Semrush Apple Traffic Analysis Results

Scrolling down the overview page, you can get visualized summaries of traffic data, such as their sources, device breakdown, and location. Of course, you can click the ‘View full report’ button for a more in-depth look at these data sections.

SEMrush View Full Report Buttons

Alternatively, you can jump straight into these full reports by simply clicking the navigation tabs at the top of the report page.

On the ‘Traffic Sources’ page, you’ll learn how much of your competitor’s traffic comes from direct visitors, referrals, social media, organic search, and paid clicks.

SEMrush Traffic Sources Tab

These should give you an idea of your competitor’s most effective traffic generation strategies. However, you still need to identify the actual websites that funnel visitors into their site — not just their categories.

Fortunately, you don’t need to look far in order to do so. Below the traffic sources data section, you should see an exhaustive list of the referring sites, search engines, and social media networks that supply your competitor with traffic.

SEMrush Traffic Sources List

You can see these features for yourself using the free Semrush 14-day trial here.


2. Ahrefs

Here’s something you ought to know when it comes to website analytics tools.

If there’s something Semrush can do, there’s a good chance that Ahrefs can do it as well. They are, after all, my top two backlink checker tools for bloggers and digital marketers alike.

Yes — it can also help you find out how much traffic a website gets.

On the Ahrefs Site Explorer tool, enter the domain address or the URL of a specific page you want to check and click the ‘Search’ button.

Ahrefs Site Explorer Start Page

At first, you will be taken to a broad overview page with a range of analytics for the domain or page you entered.

Don’t fret — an estimate of the site’s monthly traffic is visible there as well.

Ahrefs Traffic Overview

You can also go to the ‘Organic search’ or ‘Paid search’ tabs for a closer look at the site’s free and paid traffic, respectively.

On the ‘Organic search’ tab, you’ll find data such as the volume of monthly organic traffic, ranked keywords, SERP positions, and so on — all presented via interactive data visualizations.

Ahrefs Organic Search Tab

The organic search report also includes the website’s top five organic keywords and pages. A more detailed report, however, can be accessed by going to the ‘Organic keywords’ page under ‘Organic search’ on the main navigation menu.

Ahrefs Organic Keywords Page

Moving on to the ‘Paid search’ tab, Ahrefs lets you take a peek at your competitor’s Pay-Per-Click or PPC ad campaigns.

A PPC timeline of the ads served for a specific number of keywords is displayed at the top of the paid search report page. Directly below are previews of the site’s top five ads followed by their top keywords and landing pages.

Ahrefs Paid Search Report

To learn more about the keywords responsible for the site’s paid traffic, head over to ‘PPC keywords’ in the ‘Paid search’ sub-menu. Everything there is to disclose — from the keyword’s paid traffic share to the target landing page — will be shown.

Ahrefs PPC Keywords Page

Ahrefs also allows you to track website visitors from referring domains.

For this, click ‘Referring domains’ from the main navigation menu below ‘Backlink profile.’

Ahrefs Referring Domains List

Just like SEMrush, Ahrefs is also loaded with analytics features for SEO, PPC, and online marketing in general. You can review a website’s backlink profile, its top anchor texts, and more.


3. Alexa

Here’s a tool I don’t get the pleasure of discussing often.

Alexa — a subsidiary of the e-commerce giant Amazon — is a web traffic analysis service designed to help website owners turn traffic data into foolproof marketing decisions.

Upon registration, Alexa personalizes the experience based on your needs. This is done by utilizing information such as your individual website goals, content topics, competitors, and so on.

Alexa Getting Started Guide

Alexa instantly compiles traffic statistics for your website on the dashboard page. Some of the included data are your website’s “Global Rank,” monthly unique visitors, daily time on site, and the percentage of traffic that you get organically.

Alexa Dashboard

What you really want, however, is to look at your competitor’s traffic data.

You can do this in a flash by entering their domain URL on the “Search for a site” field.

Alexa Site Search Tool

This will instantly refresh the site overview page, but with your competitor’s domain data.

Here, you will also find a summary of their audience’s locations, alongwith their website’s Alexa rank for their country.

Alexa Audience Geography Metrics

Essential data such as website bounce rate, daily time on site, and top keywords can also be found on the site overview page.

Alexa Additional Site Traffic Data

To learn more about your competitor site’s audience, scroll down to the “who visits” section.

This is where you’ll find important demographic data, including but not limited to the audience’s gender, education level, age, and — in some sites — income.

Alexa Audience Demographics

Sure, knowing how old your ideal readers are and identifying their education level will help define the writing style you can use on your blog. But if you want potential content ideas that will pique their interest, use Alexa’s built-in ‘Audience Interest Tool.’

Alexa Audience Interest Tool

After entering your competitor’s domain and clicking ‘Explore Interests,” you will be presented with a clear-cut view of topics that get their audience’s attention.

Alexa also estimates the likelihood of those users to visit in comparison with the general online population. Other details include their overall interest level, percentage in the site’s total traffic, and the number of sites in the same interest category.

Audience Interest Metrics

If you click ‘See details,’ Alexa will produce a cloud of the popular topics in your chosen interest.

For example, viewing the details for the “Consumer Electronics” interest category will yield the following popular topics:

Alexa Popular Topics Cloud

Comparing Domains with Alexa

With Alexa, you can also compare website traffic between two or more domains.

From the ‘Competitive Analysis’ sub-menu, click ‘Site Comparisons’ and enter up to 10 websites and click ‘Run Comparison.’ You may also specify an existing website list, which can be your traffic competition, competitors, or industry leaders.

Alexa Website Comparisons

If you want, you can enter your own domain to see how your traffic fares against known competitors.

Below the “Historical Traffic Trends” data section, switch to the ‘Pageviews %’ tab for a side-by-side comparison of each competitor’s website traffic statistics.

Alexa Pageviews Comparison Chart

You can view more concrete numbers for each website’s traffic details under the “Traffic Metrics” and “Monthly Unique Visitors” data sections. Other insights include engagement metrics, traffic sources, and audience demographics — just scroll down the site comparisons page to find them.

Alexa Website Comparisons Traffic Metrics

4. SimilarWeb

Before we go any further, bear in mind that the SimilarWeb “Essentials” package is over the price range of new bloggers.

Thankfully, you don’t have to purchase the tool to take advantage of its site traffic checker. Not only do they offer a free demo mode, you can also use their free web interface without having to create an account.

On the SimilarWeb homepage, all you have to do is paste the website or app link and press ‘Enter.’

SimilarWeb Start Page

SimilarWeb then proceeds to showcase an impressive collection of data for the specified domain. This may include the date the company was founded, a preview of their mobile and desktop websites, and links to their apps or services.

Relevant domain insights like global and country ranks are also presented at the top of the domain overview.

SimilarWeb Domain Overview

The overview page also contains the web traffic analysis of the domain being inspected — from its total visits to the site’s bounce rate.

SimilarWeb Traffic Overview

Despite being accessed as a guest, SimilarWeb also provides in-depth traffic data like the website’s top traffic sources, referring domains, and visitor distribution between organic and paid traffic channels. All these data sets are revealed on the free website traffic report — you just have to keep scrolling down to find the information you need.

You may also use the sidebar to quickly navigate to any section.

SimilarWeb Sidebar

As the cherry on top, the website comparison feature comes fully unlocked with the SimilarWeb free web interface.

To use it, click ‘Compare’ at the very top of the overview page. You will then be prompted to enter the competing website’s URL or pick from the auto-generated list of competitors.

SimilarWeb Compare Domains

As expected, SimilarWeb will refresh the overview page with the addition of the competing website’s traffic data.

SimilarWeb Domain Comparisons

If you’re a blogger who likes free stuff, don’t worry about the number of times you can generate free reports with SimilarWeb — you can keep using the free web interface as much as you like.

There are, however, a few perks of creating a SimilarWeb account. Even with the free demo version, you can get a clearer view of a website’s traffic analytics.

Let me show you how it’s done…

For example, with a SimilarWeb account, you’ll also discover the traffic share of emails.

SimilarWeb Marketing Channels

You’re also able to add metrics to a custom dashboard, which makes it significantly easier to track insights that matter to you.

To do this, look for the metric you want to watch and click the ‘Plus’ button at the upper-right corner of the data card.

SimilarWeb Add New Metric

This will trigger a pop-up window where you can select a custom dashboard or create a new one from scratch. After adding the metric, you can view your dashboard by going to the ‘Dashboards’ tab.

SimilarWeb Your Dashboard

Pretty neat, right?

Remember, this is just the free version of SimilarWeb. Traffic analysis is just the tip of the iceberg for this all-in-one analytics platform.

But since this post is only about tools that find website traffic statistics, I wouldn’t recommend purchasing a premium SimilarWeb plan. Rather, you should stick to the free demo or web interface just for this purpose.

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Method #2: Quickly Get Stats with a Web Traffic Estimator

While PRNEWS.io is still technically a web-based tool that can help you identify a website’s traffic, it’s best described as a “sponsored content marketplace.” Its main purpose is to guide marketers into finding sites that can help with their publicity.

Perhaps the best way to understand how PRNEWS.io works is to look at their “Marketplace” page.

PRNews Marketplace Link

On this page, you can get a glimpse of PRNEWS.io’s network of publications where marketers can promote their business.

What helps them decide which publication to work with? Why — each website’s estimated monthly visits, of course!

PRNews Sponsored Marketplace Traffic Preview

Wait a minute — what if my competitor isn’t a news publication?

I’m glad you asked.

It’s true that PRNEWS.io only presents data for the online publications in their network. Fortunately, it also has a free “Unique Viewers Estimator” tool that works for just about any site.

You can access this tool by clicking this link.

PRNEWS web traffic estimator

After clicking ‘Estimate,’ PRNEWS.io will show you a snapshot of the site’s online reach — represented by their estimated monthly audience, social shares, time on site, and a few other metrics.

PRNEWS Domain Traffic Estimator

Again, their goal is to help brands make the most out of their PR efforts by finding high-traffic websites. But it should give you an estimate of your competitor’s traffic all the same.

Here’s one more tool…

SiteWorthTraffic is another estimator that aggregates data from multiple sources, including Google and Alexa, to calculate the visitors a website gets.

As always, you start the tool with the URL of your competitor’s website. Click ‘Submit’ and SiteWorthTraffic should fetch the estimated metrics you want.

SiteWorthTraffic Domain Search Page

I appreciate the way SiteWorthTraffic wraps up the most important site information in one paragraph.

Apart from the site’s unique visitors and total pageviews per day, the tool also estimates the overall value of the site and their daily revenue. It also mentions the site’s Alexa Global Rank — a metric that you should already be familiar with if you’ve been paying attention.

SiteWorthTraffic Domain Summary

You’re more than welcome to read the rest of the report. Most of the remaining data sections, however, are pulled from the Alexa platform.

But hey — at least, you get to access these metrics for free.

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Method #3: Scan Your Competitor’s Website for Free Traffic Information

Truth be told, it’s always a preferable option to leverage time-saving tools or services.

But in case you’re wondering, then yes — there is a way to answer the question “how much traffic does a website get” without any help from software.

Brands sometimes flaunt their website’s milestones for the sake of boosting their credibility, attracting more customers, or wooing over potential advertisers. Websites that accept guest post contributions may also disclose their traffic figures to encourage influential bloggers to make a submission.

For your reference, take a look at the page below by TechCrunch.

TechCrunch Traffic Statistics

Although big companies are more likely to publicize their traffic information, even bloggers do it sometimes to reel in potential guest writers and advertisers.

Here is another example from The Savvy Couple — a money-management blog that also shares useful demographic data about their reader base.

The Savvy Couple Traffic Stats

Finding the Right Pages

If you want to find out whether or not your competitor has such a page, the simplest way is to perform a Google search. You just need a hand from the “site:” operator plus a couple of possible “footprint” phrases that lead to the page you need.

Let’s say ThinkMaverick is one of your top competitors. To see if they share traffic statistics on their site, fire up Google and enter the following:

Google Site Search Operator

Next, you’ll need to plug in certain terms that describe the page that may contain traffic data.

In this scenario, we can go with the keywords “submit guest post.” Once the results are in, use your own discretion to choose the right page.

ThinkMaverick in SERP

If you’re lucky, the site’s traffic information should be the first thing you see. Otherwise, you may have to skim through the page to find it.

On ThinkMaverick, the site information can be found near the bottom of the guest post guidelines page.

ThinkMaverick Traffic Statistics

Aside from “submit guest post,” below are a few more search phrases you can use on Google to find competitor pages with traffic data:

  • Advertise
  • Advertise with Us
  • Why Submit Guest Post
  • Guest Post
  • Guest Posting Guidelines
  • Site Statistics
  • Traffic Statistics
  • Monthly Sessions
  • Monthly Page Views
  • Unique Visitors
  • Visitors per Month
Google SERP with Different Keywords

More helpful tips…

Easy, right?

Although this method isn’t guaranteed to work, it’s definitely a much faster and cheaper way to gain some traffic insights on your competitors. You merely have to launch Google, search with the right query, and check if your competitor’s website offers their traffic data willingly.

But aside from the chance that your competitor chose to keep their traffic data private, there are a couple more caveats to this tactic.

  • Outdated Traffic Statistics
    Let’s be honest, not a lot of website owners care that much about their public traffic information to keep it updated. Even big companies don’t update this data often, so try to take their website stats with a grain of salt.
  • Rounded Off Numbers
    Here’s a tip: websites sometimes round up their traffic data to make it seem like they’re getting more traffic. If they claim to get 5,000 visitors per day, chances are they only get somewhere between 4,700 and 4,900.
  • Dishonest Website Owners
    Lastly, there are dishonest website owners out there who may release false traffic data so as to attract advertisers and build their authority. That’s why you need to take a few extra steps if you’re doubtful of the numbers.

Manually Checking Engagement Metrics

If you aren’t satisfied or convinced with the data presented by a website, you may factor other engagement metrics into your traffic estimate.

I’m talking about the number of post comments, social media shares, and — if possible — YouTube views they get.

The website’s blogroll should be a great place to start. Looking at ThinkMaverick, the fact that some of their latest posts can garner dozens of comments is a good sign.

ThinkMaverick Recent Posts

Want to know why I think such a small amount of comments matches ThinkMaverick’s supposed monthly visitors?

To put things into perspective, Neil Patel’s blog clocks in at 1.2 million visitors per month. Despite its large readership topped with Neil’s authority, posts with only around 100-200 comments are quite common in his blog.

Neil Patel's blog comments

You may dig deeper by inspecting the social shares their posts get. Just like traffic stats, most established sites display this information and use it as social proof.

Take note, these methods aren’t an exact science, but it should be a good way to gauge the potential reach of a competitor along with the type of content that gets their audience’s engagement.

This takes us to the next section of this post:


How to Use a Website’s Traffic Information for Blog Growth?

What good are analytics data if you don’t know how to turn them into actionable strategies?

With all the information above, you should be more than able to accomplish five things:

  • How to check a competitor’s website visitors numbers
  • Get to know your ideal audience on a deeper level
  • Determine content types and topics that get the most traffic
  • Identify the top keywords in your niche
  • Do all of the above on a competitor’s website

The question is, what are you supposed to do with these newly-acquired skills?

I’ll show you:

1. Find and Use the Best Traffic Acquisition Channels

Throughout this post, you’ve learned how to review referring domains to find the ones that generate the most traffic. SimilarWeb, for example, sorts referring domains based on traffic share.

You can find this report by clicking on ‘Incoming Traffic’ in the ‘Referral Traffic’ sub-menu.

SimilarWeb Incoming Traffic Page

Under the “Referring Websites” section, you should see a list of the top referring domains to a website along with their total share on your website’s referral traffic.

SimilarWeb Referring Domains Traffic Share

What should you do after naming your top sources of referral traffic?

Simple: assimilate their strategy into your own.

Look around the referring domain and see whether they accept guest submissions, sponsored posts, and other advertising propositions. If the domain has a forum section, search for any mention of your competitor’s name — they may be absorbing traffic from the site by answering questions and linking to their own site.

You can also use Ahrefs as a starting point by entering your competitor’s domain address and going to the ‘Backlinks’ section of the dashboard.

Ahrefs Backlink Checker

Ahrefs should then provide you an exhaustive list of referring pages and the average monthly traffic they get.

Take note that this doesn’t directly reflect the number of visitors who actually click to your competitor’s website, but it should be a good measure of how valuable the link is — both for SEO and traffic generation.

Ahrefs Competitor Referring Pages

If I were you, I’d also click on the “Traffic” column header to sort the referring pages according to audience size. This should make it easier for you to find potential domains where you can get that juicy referral traffic from.

Also, note the anchor text and destination page used in the backlink. Give your competitor’s content a quick gander and learn their content practices, such as their use of visuals, topic, and overall content tone.

Ahrefs Sort Referring Pages

Below are a few more tips to remember if you want to incorporate traffic data into your marketing decision-making:

  • If your competitors are getting referral traffic from guest posts, read this guide for tips on how to expand their strategy.
  • For social media and email traffic channels, manage and track their posting times manually or with a social media listening tool like Crowdfire.
  • Don’t be tunnel-visioned on their top-performing traffic channels — don’t hesitate to look at low-performing traffic sources and try to augment it with your own tweaks.

Doubling the efforts…

You can also look for similar sites and attempt to replicate the same strategy with a different audience, be it a sponsored review, advertisement, or a guest post.

This process is a walk in the park with Ahrefs. Using their ‘Site Explorer’ tool, simply enter the domain address of your referral traffic source and go to ‘Competing Domains.’

A list of similar websites should appear before you, including “common” keyword metrics.

Ahrefs Competing Domains

You should be able to utilize the same strategies with these similar domains and expect comparable results.

2. Find High-Traffic Keywords to Bolster Your Blog Visibility

Here’s the thing: analyzing a website’s traffic data also often reveals keywords that get the most clicks.

As a matter of fact, I rank both SEMrush and Ahrefs as some of the best keyword research tools for bloggers. Not only can they help you figure out your competitor’s target keywords, they’ve also made it easy to handpick the ones with the most traffic potential.

You can use SEMrush to identify competitor keywords that get the most traffic from search engines. Simply open the ‘Organic Research’ page below ‘Domain Analytics’ and enter your competitor’s domain.

SEMrush organic research tool

You then have to switch to the ‘Positions’ tab to view your competitor’s top target keywords for organic search engine rankings.

The results, of course, include relevant metrics such as the competitor’s organic position for each keyword, the keyword’s traffic share on the site, and the content that ranks for said keyword.

Organic Search Positions

In the screenshot above, we can conclude that 10.06 percent of 99 Tech Post’s organic traffic comes from the keyword “online PSD editor.” Their post — a simple roundup of online PSD tools — currently ranks at position number 11 on Google.

You can view their content by clicking the link under the “URL” column and jot down their noticeable content practices. Spare no detail, from the post’s total word count to the target keyword’s placements, if you plan to overtake their keyword position and claim their organic traffic for yourself.

Going for gold…

That reminds me — since you’re plotting to acquire your competitor’s target keyword as your own, you might as well go all the way and shoot for the number one position.

After you identify the competitor keyword you want to target, don’t forget other websites who also rank for it. The moment you decide to use their keyword, consider them your competitors, too.

Google Online PSD Editor SERP

For the top spot on SERPs, being able to create killer content isn’t enough. You should also be able to deliver a compelling user experience that could drive up the rank-worthiness of your content in the eyes of search engines.

This leads to the final section of this post:

3. Create Posts Similar to Your Competitor’s Best Content

Tracking the traffic that flows into your competitor’s website is a surefire way to spot their best content.

To show you what I mean, let’s pretend that Trello is your competitor.

On Ahrefs’ Site Explorer, enter Trello’s domain URL and click the ‘Search’ button to start your research.

Ahrefs Site Explorer Competitor Research

By going to the ‘Top Content’ page, you’ll see a roundup of Trello’s most popular content.

These are content ideas that are proven to work, and you need to publish your own version on your blog to gain some traffic.

Ahrefs Trello Best Content

According to the results, their post called “The ‘Coffee Shop Effect’: Why Changing Your Location Boosts Your Productivity” is the best in terms of social reach. Go ahead and click on the content’s title for firsthand observation of the content.

Trello Best Post

Of course, you shouldn’t make a blatant rip-off of your competitor’s content, especially since it’s already big on social media. What you can do is add your own twist and look for a new angle using the same idea.

For the example above, you can write something with any of the following titles:

  • Productivity Hacks: Supercharging Your Workflow by Choosing the Right Location
  • Case Study: How Choosing a Different Workplace Affects Your Productivity
  • How to Improve Your Productivity by Working Somewhere Else

But that’s not enough…

To have even the slightest chance of outranking a competitor, you need to create content that’s better in every single facet. This should be plausible now that you can use their own content as a benchmark.

Here are five content quality factors you can focus on:

  • More Visual Content
    Using visual assets like screenshots, infographics, and videos will help your content get more backlinks and maximize the engagement of readers. Click here to learn more image optimization tips that can help you beat your competitor in the visual content game.
  • Increased Word Count
    It’s no secret that longer articles tend to rank higher in search engine results. Just be sure to avoid the fluff and, instead, beef up your content with more actionable steps.
  • Updated Statistics
    If your competitor’s content has been published for a while, there’s a good chance they cited outdated data sources. Give readers more value by mentioning updated statistics whenever possible.
  • More Keywords
    In the free market that is the SEO industry, anyone has the right to optimize their content for as many keywords as they deem fit. The only rule here is to make sure keywords aren’t forced and are naturally weaved in.
  • Sharing Options
    To rack up social media shares, use tools that make it easier for readers to spread your content across multiple networks. Installing the Social Snap plugin on your blog is a shortcut for this step since the setup has no coding required.

4. Turn Audience Interests into Topic Ideas for Your Blog

Remember when I showed you how to use Alexa to view the interests of your competitor’s audience?

This time, we’ll take it a step further by fashioning those interests into usable content ideas.

Suppose Mailchimp is your competitor and you want to generate content that will steal their audience’s attention.

On Alexa, let’s head on straight to the ‘Audience Interest Tool’ and enter Mailchimp’s domain URL to begin our analysis.

Audience Interest Tool on Mailchimp

After a few seconds, the interests of Mailchimp’s audience base should be laid bare before you.

Mailchimp Audience Interests

If you’ve been in the industry for a while, the audience interest categories of your competitor should be predictable. This means you probably already have a firm grasp on these interests and can come up with relevant topics with ease.

Regardless, I will show you a series of steps that will help you generate even more content ideas for these interest categories.

For example, if you view the details for the “Business Services” interest category, you should find these popular topics:

Mailchimp Business Services Topic Cloud

You can probably easily spot prominent terms in Alexa’s topic cloud. In the case above, you can see that “Salesforce” is mentioned several times.

To turn this into a potential post for your blog, allow me to introduce you to one of my favorite keyword research tools — AnswerThePublic.

AnswerThePublic Homepage

You’ll understand in a minute why this is one of my favorite apps whenever I need to do keyword research.

In simple terms, AnswerThePublic works by extending keywords into actual questions that online users are asking.

So, what are you waiting for?

Enter “Salesforce” into AnswerThePublic and click ‘Get Questions.’

Within seconds, AnswerThePublic should provide you with a collection of long-tail keywords in the form of a visualization.

The first image will be a set of questions, which — by themselves — make for excellent topics to cover on your blog.

AnswerThePublic Salesforce Cloud

Aside from questions, AnswerThePublic also generates phrases based on prepositions, comparisons, and other related terms. You can learn more about the tool in my post on the best keyword research tools for bloggers.


Conclusion

I congratulate you for finishing what I believe to be one of my most advanced posts!

Hopefully, you learned a lot about traffic analysis, the tools of the trade, and how to leverage the data you’ve collected to scale your blog. It’s a vital strategy that every blogger should learn if they care about their website’s growth.

If you liked this post, help me spread the word by sharing this page on social media. I’d also like to hear about your blogging journey, so be sure to leave a comment below and tell us about your experience with the tips above.

Good luck!

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Ankit Singla Master Blogging

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Ankit Singla

Ankit Singla is a full-time blogger, YouTuber, author, and public speaker. He founded and leads Master Blogging. With over 13 years of blogging expertise, he has assisted numerous aspiring bloggers in achieving their dreams of creating successful blogs.

Ankit Singla Master Blogging

Ankit Singla

Ankit Singla is a full-time blogger, YouTuber, author, and public speaker. He founded and leads Master Blogging. With over 14 years of blogging expertise, he has assisted numerous aspiring bloggers in achieving their dreams of creating successful blogs.

Ankit Singla Master Blogging

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