Ubersuggest can indeed help in tracking changes in competitors' SEO strategies over time by offering a variety of tools designed to monitor keyword usage, traffic trends, backlink profiles, and other SEO performance indicators. Here is an in-depth explanation of how Ubersuggest supports competitor SEO tracking and what features it provides to help users stay informed about competitors' activities.
Competitor Tracking Setup
Ubersuggest allows users to add competitors to projects within the platform. Once a competitor's domain is added, Ubersuggest begins tracking several key SEO metrics related to that competitor. This setup is essential for ongoing monitoring of changes in competitor strategies. Users can monitor:
- Organic Traffic: Estimated monthly traffic to the competitor's website, which helps in understanding competitive audience size and identifying growth or decline trends.
- Keyword Rankings: Tracking keywords that competitors rank for, including both shared keywords (those the user's site and the competitor both rank for) and unique keywords (those only the competitor ranks for). This is crucial for spotting new keywords competitors are targeting or losing traction on.
- Backlinks: Monitoring the quantity and quality of backlinks to competitors, including the sources of these backlinks. This data helps in identifying potential link-building opportunities and observing competitors' external SEO efforts.
Competitor tracking is available for multiple geographic locations, allowing businesses that operate in or target various regions to see localized SEO competition. The number of competitors that can be tracked depends on the Ubersuggest subscription plan, with higher-tier plans allowing more competitors to be tracked.
Keyword and Traffic Monitoring
Ubersuggest provides detailed keyword tracking features that allow users to see how competitors' keyword rankings and organic traffic fluctuate over time. Users can:
- View Keyword and Traffic Trends: Analyze how competitors' keyword positions and estimated traffic volumes change day by day or over longer periods. This visibility allows users to detect shifts in SEO focus or the impact of new content or campaigns by competitors.
- Keyword Gap Analysis: Identify keywords competitors rank for that the user does not. This insight is valuable for discovering new content opportunities or areas where the user's SEO strategy could be improved by covering untapped or underperforming keywords.
- Common Keywords: Review keywords that both competitors and the user's site are competing on, providing a clear comparison of where a competitor is outranking and what content or optimization changes might be needed.
Tracking these changes over time helps users dynamically adjust their strategies to either reclaim lost ground or capitalize on observed competitor weaknesses.
Backlink Analysis
Backlinks remain a critical factor in SEO rankings, and Ubersuggest provides comprehensive tools to monitor this aspect of competitor SEO strategies:
- Backlink Reports: These reports show the domains linking to competitor websites, the number of backlinks, and new or lost backlinks over time. This allows users to track how competitors are building links and identify new outreach targets for themselves.
- Link Quality Analysis: Users can see the authority and relevance of linking domains to assess how quality backlink profiles evolve for competitors, which may indicate shifts in their outreach or content marketing strategies.
By keeping track of backlinks over time, users gain insight into competitor tactics in link building that might be driving ranking improvements or helping defend existing positions.
Competitor Project and Keyword List Creation
To deepen the tracking process, Ubersuggest allows users to create separate projects for each competitor website. Each competitor project can include:
- Keyword Lists: Users can add keywords the competitor ranks for into tracking lists. These lists can be reviewed regularly to monitor ranking changes or shifts in keyword targeting.
- Keyword Suggestions: Ubersuggest provides keyword ideas based on competitor content and ranking data, aiding in expanding tracking to include newly emerging or strategically valuable keywords.
Users can also compare multiple competitors within a project, giving a comprehensive overview of how several key industry players are performing relative to each other and to the user's own site.
Traffic Distribution and Top Pages Analysis
Ubersuggest not only tracks keywords but also provides reports highlighting:
- Top Pages by Traffic: This feature lists a competitor's highest-traffic pages, showing estimated visitor numbers, backlink profiles, and even social share metrics from Facebook, Pinterest, and Reddit. Understanding which pages drive traffic for competitors can inform the user's content strategy, highlighting topics to prioritize or formats that resonate well.
- Traffic Trends Over Time: Displaying traffic progression over days, weeks, or months helps to correlate SEO efforts with periods of traffic growth or decline, providing a timeline of competitor performance.
This detailed insight into traffic sources and popular content areas aids the user in adapting their content to better compete or fill gaps left by competitors.
Location-Based Rank Tracking
Ubersuggest supports tracking rankings across various geographies, which is particularly useful for users who compete in multiple markets or want localized insights. The platform highlights the visibility and performance of competitor keywords by location, allowing users to detect region-specific strategy changes or opportunities.
Competitive Analysis and SEO Reporting
Ubersuggest includes competitive analysis features that offer:
- Competitor Comparison Reports: These reports aggregate data across competitors, showing traffic, backlinks, and keyword commonality. They highlight opportunities where competitors may be outpacing the user, as well as weaknesses competitors have that could be exploited.
- Keyword Position Tracking: Daily updates on keyword positions for competitors allow users to observe not just static snapshots but real-time fluctuations, which can reveal the effects of competitor SEO campaigns or algorithm changes.
The tool also provides alerts and notifications when significant changes occur in competitor metrics, ensuring users can react promptly.
Limitations and Suitability
While Ubersuggest offers robust tools for monitoring competitor SEO, it is tailored more toward small to medium-sized businesses and those with straightforward SEO needs. The number of keywords and competitors that can be tracked is somewhat limited compared to enterprise-focused tools like Semrush or Ahrefs, which offer more extensive datasets, richer engagement metrics, and advanced SERP feature tracking.
Ubersuggest's competitor tracking focuses primarily on rankings, backlink profiles, and traffic estimates rather than engagement metrics like time on site or bounce rate. It also lacks visual competitor positioning maps provided by some other platforms. Nonetheless, for its price point and usability, Ubersuggest offers sufficient data to effectively track and analyze changes in competitors' SEO strategies over time and to identify key actionable opportunities.
Continuous Updates and User Support
Ubersuggest continuously refines its platform and adds new features that enhance SEO tracking capabilities. Its auto-crawling project feature means that users' sites and competitor projects are regularly scanned for new SEO errors and updates, providing up-to-date insights without manual intervention.
Support is available for users who need help with competitor tracking, including step-by-step guides and customer support to clarify how best to utilize the platform for SEO competitive analysis.
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In summary, Ubersuggest facilitates tracking of competitor SEO strategy changes through a suite of features such as monitoring organic traffic trends, keyword rankings and gaps, backlink profiles, top traffic pages, and location-based performance. Its project-based approach allows continuous and detailed comparison of competitors, supporting dynamic SEO strategy adjustments. While designed primarily for smaller businesses, it offers actionable insights on competitor SEO evolution over time and helps users identify opportunities to refine their own SEO efforts effectively.