Table of Contents
Competitor Analysis with Semrush Certification Exam Answers
Question 1: How many competitors can you compare in the audience overlap widget in the Traffic Analytics?
- 5
- 2
- 3
Question 2: In the Top Pages report, you can learn:
- Which pages are ranking in the top 5 organic placements on Google.
- Which pages are getting the lion’s share of traffic.
- Which pages are generating the most revenue for a competitor.
Question 3: What metrics govern the Market Explorer categories (Niche Player, Established Player, Game Changer, and Leaders)? Choose two answers.
- Traffic Growth
- Geographic Spread
- Traffic Volume
- Content Output
- Revenue
Question 4: If you see an Established Player has neglected Facebook and Instagram as a channel, what does that teach you?
- The channel must not be worth much since an existing giant isn’t bothering with it.
- The channel must be overly complicated and will require a lot of time and monetary investment to do well.
- The channel represents an opportunity to gain market share with limited resistance.
Question 5: Which SEMrush tool can help you to benchmark your campaigns against the competition by exploring your competitors’ best-performing pages and finding insights on which media channels to partner with?
- PPC Keyword tool
- Position Tracking
- Traffic Analytics
Question 6: True or False: With the help of the Keyword Gap tool you can optimize your organic and paid search efforts by seeing which terms you and your competitor are ranking for.
- False
- True
Question 7: What can the Topic Research tool teach you about your competitors? Choose two answers.
- The frequency with which they produce the content on a given topic.
- Content they produce that has high and low search volume.
- The subtopics of a queried topic that they have and have not covered.
Question 8: If you don’t know which competitors to focus on, which SEMrush tool can help you get the lay of the land?
- Brand Monitoring
- Market Explorer
- Traffic Analytics
Question 9: True or False: A competitor with low audience overlap should be ignored.
- False: They might represent a partnership expansion opportunity or a future threat.
- True: They don’t interact with my people and I need to focus on defense.
Question 10: True or False: In order to gain competitor insights on social campaigns, you need to connect your own social channels first.
- True
- False
Question 11: Why might it make more sense to model your strategies on Game Changers than Established Players?
- Established players hide their secrets, and Game Changers are too naive to know to do that.
- Game Changers have high traffic growth and could overtake Established players who have begun to stagnate.
- Life is always changing, and keeping up with new players helps future proof brands.
Question 12: How does assessing the traffic distribution of your competitors help you build a marketing strategy?
- It doesn’t, it just makes you feel better about your choices.
- You can identify neglected channels, and achieve easier wins.
- You can see what the Internet is.
Question 13: How can the Bulk Analysis tab in Traffic Analytics help a brand, with known competitors, create benchmarks for their marketing?
- That’s not the best use of the Bulk Analysis tab. It’s better to use the tab to discover new competitors.
- It allows you to upload your data to get in-depth information about marketing strategies you should develop.
- The Bulk Analysis tab allows you to see traffic sources, core metrics, and other useful information on up to 200 competitors.
Question 14: If you need to understand how a given brand is interacting with a market trend, how can you use the SEMrush Brand Monitoring tool to accomplish this task?
- Track their known competitors to see how often they come up in other brand mentions.
- Track the brand without filters so you can see everything.
- Use keyword filters in Brand Monitoring to get more targeted updates.
Question 15: What can a competitor’s referral and direct traffic teach you about content strategy?
- They might have an analytics error and paid traffic is getting attributed as direct.
- What content is so compelling that brands link to it and users bookmark it to go back directly.
- Nothing, competitors have nothing of value to teach a brand as mighty as yours!
Question 16: True or false: the competitors shown in Market Explorer will always be the most direct competitors.
- True
- False
Question 17: What’s one benefit of presentation mode?
- This function doesn’t exist.
- You can co-work in SEMrush while presenting on a different computer.
- You can show important metrics in a digestible format.
Introduction to Competitor Analysis with Semrush
Using SEMrush for competitor analysis is a powerful way to gain insights into your rivals’ strategies and improve your own. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to effectively use SEMrush for competitor analysis:
1. Identify Your Competitors
- Direct Competitors: Companies offering similar products or services.
- Indirect Competitors: Businesses targeting the same audience with different products.
2. Add Competitors to SEMrush
- Go to the SEMrush dashboard and navigate to the “Domain Overview” tool.
- Enter the domain of a competitor to start gathering data.
3. Analyze Competitor Traffic
- Traffic Overview: Look at total traffic, traffic trends, and sources (organic, paid, referral).
- Top Pages: See which pages drive the most traffic and assess their content strategy.
4. Examine Keywords
- Organic Keywords: Identify which keywords your competitor ranks for, their positions, and the search volume.
- Paid Keywords: Analyze the keywords your competitor is bidding on in PPC campaigns.
- Keyword Gap Analysis: Compare your keyword profile with competitors to find keyword opportunities.
5. Review Backlinks
- Backlink Analysis: Look at the number and quality of backlinks pointing to your competitor’s site.
- Referring Domains: Identify the sites linking to your competitors and assess their authority.
- Backlink Gap: Discover which backlinks your competitors have that you don’t.
6. Content Analysis
- Top Performing Content: See which types of content (blogs, articles, videos) attract the most engagement for your competitors.
- Content Strategy: Analyze the topics, formats, and frequency of their content.
7. Social Media Analysis
- Social Media Tracker: Track competitors’ social media profiles for engagement metrics and content strategies.
- Audience Engagement: Assess how competitors interact with their audience and what types of posts perform best.
8. Site Audit
- Technical SEO: Perform a site audit to identify any technical issues on your competitor’s site that could impact their SEO performance.
- On-Page SEO: Review their on-page SEO elements like meta tags, headings, and content optimization.
9. Advertising Analysis
- Display Ads: Analyze the display ads your competitors are running, including their ad copy and design.
- PPC Campaigns: Look at their ad budget and strategies for different keywords.
10. Create an Action Plan
- Strengths and Weaknesses: Identify what your competitors do well and where they fall short.
- Opportunities: Based on your findings, uncover opportunities for your own strategy, such as new keywords to target or content gaps to fill.
11. Monitor and Adjust
- Regular Check-Ins: Competitor landscapes change frequently, so make sure to periodically revisit your analysis.
- Adjust Strategies: Continuously adjust your strategies based on new data and insights.
Using SEMrush’s various tools in combination will give you a comprehensive view of your competitive landscape, helping you make informed decisions to enhance your marketing and SEO efforts.