Lesson 2: Domain Overview

Summary

Learn how to effectively analyze your website's performance against competitors using the Domain Overview tool. This video demonstrates how to compare key metrics like Authority Score, Organic Traffic, Backlinks, and Paid Keywords across up to four competitors. You'll also discover how to track competitor growth over time, analyze performance across countries, and use insights to inform your strategy. Perfect for conducting competitive research in any industry, this lesson equips you with tools to better understand your market landscape and gain a competitive edge.

Takeaways

• 🌐 Use the Domain Overview tool to instantly compare your website against up to four competitors.
• 📊 The tool provides insights into authority score, backlinks, organic keywords, traffic share, and more.
• 📅 Historical data is available to analyze trends in competitors' growth or decline in organic traffic and other metrics.
• 📝 Annotations and notes, including Google updates and major industry events, help track changes in organic traffic.
• 📑 The Compare Domains feature allows side-by-side analysis of competitors' authority score, traffic, keywords, and backlinks.
• 🔍 The Keyword Gap tool helps identify missed keyword opportunities by showing shared and unique keywords among competitors.
• 📈 The Growth Report tracks organic and paid traffic, backlinks, and keyword trends over specific periods.
• 🌍 Compare up to five countries for traffic share, organic growth, and paid keyword performance across regions.
• 🚀 Actionable competitive insights help businesses understand shifts in market strategies and refine their own tactics.
• 📥 Export reports and share insights with clients to improve their marketing strategy and performance.

Q & A

What is the primary purpose of the Domain Overview tool in Semrush?

The Domain Overview tool allows users to compare their website’s performance against competitors, providing insights into Authority score, Backlinks, Organic keywords, Traffic share, and other metrics.

How many competitors can be analyzed simultaneously with the Domain Overview tool?

You can analyze up to four competitors simultaneously using the Domain Overview tool.

What are the three main categories covered by the Domain Overview report?

The three main categories covered by the Domain Overview report are Organic search, Paid search, and Backlinks.

What historical data can the Domain Overview tool provide, and how can it be useful?

The tool provides historical data on competitor growth or decline, helping users understand competitors' strategies, such as increases in branded traffic, paid keywords, or ad spend.

What is the significance of Semrush sensor annotations in the organic traffic module?

Semrush automatically annotates when Google updates occur or when the Semrush sensor detects search volatility. Users can also add custom notes, such as industry events or competitor website changes.

How does the ‘Compare domains’ feature help with competitive analysis?

The 'Compare domains' feature allows users to compare key metrics like authority score, organic traffic, organic keywords, backlinks, and paid traffic cost for their website and competitors side-by-side.

How can the Domain Overview tool help businesses refine their keyword strategy?

By comparing domains, businesses can see if they are competing with the right players and adjust their keyword strategy accordingly, such as targeting smaller competitors or specific branded keywords.

What kind of actionable data does the Domain Overview report provide?

The report provides actionable data related to keywords, helping users identify shared and unique keywords their competitors rank for, which they may be missing out on.

What insights can be gained from the Growth Report in the Domain Overview tool?

The Growth Report shows organic and paid traffic, backlinks, and other metrics over time, helping users understand competitors’ past strategies and significant changes in their performance.

How can the Domain Overview tool be used for international competitive analysis?

The tool provides organic traffic by country, allowing users to compare traffic share across different regions and analyze growth or stagnation in specific geographic markets.

Outlines

00:00

📊 Instantly Analyze Website Performance with Domain Overview

In this section, we are introduced to Semrush’s Domain Overview tool, which allows users to analyze a website’s performance against up to four competitors. Key metrics include Authority score, Backlinks, Organic keywords, and Traffic share. The tool offers insights into competitors' strategies by tracking changes in metrics over time, including branded traffic, paid keywords, and ad spend. Users can also add notes, such as important industry events or significant changes on competitors’ sites. Google updates and search volatility are automatically annotated to help users stay informed.

05:01

📈 Compare Your Website’s Metrics Against Competitors

This part demonstrates how to compare a website with competitors using the Domain Overview tool. Users can compare up to four competitors side-by-side for metrics like Authority score, Organic traffic, Backlinks, and Paid traffic cost. A case study is shared where a boutique manufacturing company pivots its strategy to target smaller competitors, realizing quicker wins in local markets. The importance of using actionable keyword data from the Keyword Gap tool is highlighted, revealing potential areas for growth by identifying missed keywords.

📊 Track Website Growth with the Growth Report

This section covers the Growth Report, a tool for tracking the organic and paid traffic, as well as backlinks, over selected time periods. The report uses historical data from as far back as 2012, helping users to understand competitor strategies and major changes over time. The report is customizable for different time periods, like quarter-over-quarter or year-over-year, and includes insights on the geographic distribution of organic traffic by country.

🌍 Compare Website Performance Across Countries

Here, the focus shifts to comparing website performance across different countries using the 'Compare by Countries' report. This tool allows users to compare up to five countries at once, viewing metrics such as Traffic share, Organic and Paid traffic fluctuations, Keywords, and Traffic cost. Users can toggle between organic and paid metrics, and customize the date range to visualize performance trends over time.

🛠 Conducting a Competitive Analysis for a Client

In this scenario, the video walks through conducting a competitive analysis for a client in the high-end furniture and interior design space. After using the Domain Overview tool to analyze competitors' domains, the analysis reveals a decline in organic traffic and increased paid traffic costs among competitors. This information is useful for informing the client about market conditions and guiding their advertising strategy. The tool also offers the option to export the data or create a formal report using Semrush's reporting tools.

🚀 Wrapping Up: Domain Overview Tool for Competitive Advantage

The conclusion emphasizes the importance of the Domain Overview tool in conducting competitive research for any website in any industry. Users learn how to access metrics like Organic traffic, Paid traffic, Backlinks, Authority score, and Keywords, and track trends over time and across countries. The video invites users to explore the tool through a 7-day trial and teases the next lesson, which will focus on using Semrush's Organic Research Tool for deeper SEO insights.

Keywords

💡Domain Overview Tool

The Domain Overview Tool is a feature of Semrush that allows users to analyze the performance of their own website or their competitors' websites. It provides insights into metrics such as organic traffic, paid traffic, backlinks, and authority score. In the video, this tool is shown as a central resource for competitive analysis, helping users understand how their website fares against others in the industry.

💡Authority Score

Authority Score is a metric that measures the overall strength of a website’s visibility and influence on search engines. Higher authority scores suggest better performance in SEO and higher credibility. In the video, the tool compares authority scores across competitors, offering insights into who has the strongest online presence.

💡Backlinks

Backlinks refer to the links from external websites pointing back to your website. These are important for SEO as they help improve a site's authority and search rankings. The video explains how the Domain Overview Tool analyzes backlinks to measure how competitive a website is compared to others.

💡Organic Keywords

Organic Keywords are search terms for which a website ranks without the need for paid advertising. These keywords drive organic traffic, meaning visitors that come through unpaid search results. The video emphasizes how important it is to track organic keywords to understand a competitor's SEO strategy and discover potential keywords for your site.

💡Paid Traffic

Paid Traffic refers to visitors that come to a website through paid advertisements, such as Google Ads. It is a critical metric in understanding a company’s marketing spend and strategy. The video illustrates how the Domain Overview Tool shows whether competitors are increasing their paid traffic, possibly indicating shifts in their marketing efforts.

💡Traffic Share

Traffic Share represents the percentage of total visitors that a website receives compared to its competitors. It helps gauge how much market share a website holds in terms of user visits. The video shows how users can compare their traffic share with competitors to assess where they stand in the market.

💡Competitive Analysis

Competitive Analysis is the process of comparing a business’s online performance with that of its competitors. It involves reviewing key metrics such as traffic, keywords, backlinks, and authority score. The video demonstrates how the Domain Overview Tool assists in conducting a competitive analysis, offering a clear picture of the industry landscape.

💡Growth Report

The Growth Report is a feature in Semrush that provides insights into the performance of a website over time. It tracks metrics like organic and paid traffic, backlinks, and keywords across a specific period, allowing users to see historical trends. The video highlights this as a tool for understanding changes in competitors’ strategies and growth.

💡Keyword Gap

The Keyword Gap is a feature within Semrush that compares the keywords that two or more competing websites are ranking for. It helps identify missing opportunities where one website could target keywords that others are already ranking for. In the video, this tool is mentioned as a key resource for discovering untapped keywords that a website might be missing.

💡Google Updates

Google Updates refer to changes in Google’s search algorithm that can impact website rankings. These updates often influence organic traffic patterns, making it critical to stay informed. In the video, it is mentioned that Semrush automatically notes when significant Google updates occur, helping users correlate these changes with fluctuations in website performance.

Highlights

Use the Domain Overview tool to compare your website with up to four competitors and analyze metrics like Authority score, Backlinks, Organic keywords, and Traffic share.

The tool allows you to analyze root domains, specific URLs, subdomains, or subfolders, giving a detailed performance overview.

Track competition’s growth or decline by reviewing historical trends in organic and paid traffic, backlinks, and keyword strategy.

Annotations in the organic traffic module automatically capture Google updates or search volatility and allow users to create custom notes.

The Domain Overview’s Compare domains tab lets you benchmark against competitors with authority score, organic traffic, backlinks, and paid keywords.

Keyword Gap tool integration helps identify shared and unique keywords your site could be missing.

Use the Growth Report to analyze the evolution of organic and paid traffic, keywords, and backlinks over time, with historical data going back to 2012.

The Compare by Countries report offers insights into international traffic share, including organic and paid traffic fluctuations across countries.

Real-time competitor analysis helps identify trends such as declines in organic traffic or increased paid traffic costs, guiding advertising strategies.

Competitive intel on organic traffic decline could indicate industry-wide issues like supply chain or economic factors, which inform strategic recommendations.

Historical data from the Growth Report is invaluable for understanding competitor strategies and detecting major changes impacting their performance.

Export your findings or use the My Reports feature to build a comprehensive competitive analysis for clients.

The Domain Overview tool is integral for conducting competitive research across any industry, offering a global perspective.

Get insights on paid traffic costs and estimated organic traffic to help clients develop competitive advertising strategies.

Try the Domain Overview tool with a risk-free 7-day trial to discover competitor insights and benchmark performance across metrics.

Transcripts

[Music].

Lesson 2, Domain Overview.

Want to instantly see how your website fares

against the biggest players in your target market?

With the Domain Overview tool, you can do this with up to four

other competitors and get a clear picture of the landscape,

including who wins for Authority score, Backlinks,

Organic keywords, Traffic share, and more.

Let's show you how.

Exploring the Domain Overview tool.

To get started, just enter the competitor's website and hit search.

Note that you can use this report to analyze

the root domain and exact URL, a subdomain, or subfolder.

It'll give you a summary of that website's

performance covering three main categories,

organic search, paid search, and backlinks.

What's most useful is that you can go back historically

and see where your competition has been growing or declining,

which can tell you more about their strategy.

For instance, you might discover an increase in branded traffic over time,

paid keywords, or an increase in ad spend that

could potentially indicate something going on in your industry.

Another helpful feature is the ability to compose notes,

like you see here on the organic traffic module.

Semrush will automatically annotate when a Google update takes place,

or red notes when our Semrush sensor captures search volatility.

You can also create notes that include details

such as when a competitor made significant changes on their website,

or if some big event occurred in your industry.

Compare domains.

Now, let's move on to comparing your site

side-by-side against your biggest competitors.

Click on the Compare domains tab and

add up to four competitors you want to analyze.

You can select from the root domain, subdomain,

specific URL, or subfolder to get an instant report

that'll help you benchmark the most important metrics.

In the first table, you'll find how each

competitor fares an authority score,

organic traffic, the number of organic keywords,

backlinks, referring domains, and any paid keywords and their traffic cost.

This gives you an unambiguous snapshot of how

your website stacks up against your competitors,

including traffic share, whose running ads,

and who has the highest number of backlinks.

You can switch out any of the competitors at any time

if you want to analyze a different player in your market.

It's possible to underestimate or overestimate the competition.

For instance, a boutique client in the manufacturing space

was determined to compete against a multinational

firm for keywords related to 3D printing.

After seeing this comparison reports,

they realized that it was far more beneficial to compete with smaller companies

and make quicker wins within their geographic location.

They pivoted their keyword strategy to include more branded search terms,

which helped them gain more brand awareness and

recognition amongst US manufacturers,

and they found success there.

This report also shows you actionable data,

specifically related to keywords,

which is generated by the Keyword Gap tool.

We'll dive deeper into that and keyword Gap lesson,

but there you'll find all the keywords that your competitors are ranking for,

including shared and unique keywords that your site could be missing out on.

Now, let's show you how to compare a domain's performance

over time with the growth reports in the next tab.

Growth Report.

The Growth Report helps you see progress for organic and paid traffic

and backlinks across a selected time period,

giving you the most important data in one place.

Semrush's database provides historical data going back to 2012,

so it's a great resource that will give you a lot of context

on any domain and save you a lot of time in the process.

To get started, just enter your specific period,

such as the past three months, past six months,

season over season, quarter over quarter, or year over year.

You can use this report to analyze the growth of metrics,

such as estimated organic traffic, keywords, backlinks,

as well as estimated paid traffic and keywords.

You'll find this to be really helpful in

understanding the history of your competitor strategy,

seeing what worked in the past for them and whether or not

they made any drastic changes over time that impacted their performance.

If your industry is international, you'll see the organic traffic by

country reports where the most growth or stagnation occurred geographically.

Let's investigate this further by clicking the “show more” button.

Compare by Countries.

You'll be prompted to enter additional countries.

You can compare up to 5 in the Compare by Countries report.

This table gives you a bird's eye view of traffic share percentage,

plus fluctuations on organic and paid traffic,

keywords, and traffic cost over that designated time frame.

You have the option here to toggle between organic and paid metrics,

and to select a specific date range to display on the graph here.

With that said, let's put the Domain Overview tool into practice

and conduct competitive research in real time.

Using the Domain Overview to analyze your competitors.

Let's imagine you're a marketing specialist at an agency,

and your manager is asking you to perform

a competitive analysis for a new client.

They are in the business of high-end furniture

and interior design for office spaces.

The client provides you with a list of competitors,

and they want to know what kind of

organic traffic and paid traffic they receive.

After entering their domains in the Domain Overview tool,

we see which sites have the highest authority in traffic,

and we also note a few other changes.

Most of these competitors are receiving significantly

less organic traffic than the previous period,

and they've increased their paid traffic cost and response.

Right off the bat, you can use this competitive intel to let your

client know that within their industry there's a decline in organic traffic.

This might be attributed to a variety of factors,

such as economic reasons, supply chain issues,

or something else happening within the market.

You can also provide them with the estimated paid traffic cost

to help create a competitive advertising strategy

using these figures as a benchmark.

As for a client, this kind of information is invaluable.

You can easily share your findings with them

by clicking on the export button on the module,

or you can build out a formal competitive analysis using my reports.

Thanks for joining us as we explore Domain Overview,

an integral tool for conducting competitive research

for any industry, any website, anywhere in the world.

You learned how to access estimated organic traffic,

Paid traffic, Backlinks, Authority score, and Keywords,

plus analyze trends over time and compare

by country to your competitive advantage.

Be sure to try out the tool yourself

and see what discoveries you'll make.

Click the link below to access your

risk-free 7-day trial.

Stick around for the next lesson.

We'll talk about how you can use Semrush's Organic Research Tool

to gain insights into your competitor's SEO strategies.

[Music].