SWOT Analysis: How to optimize your site where it counts

The pace of change has increased with the integration of AI into search technology. It is becoming increasingly difficult to know where you should spend your time and energy.

Are they helpful in the majority of cases? Are the suggested jobs merely busywork that won’t help you improve your results in any way?

Looking back at the past and learning from it is the best way to navigate the future in such a time of change.

It is a blessing that there are many powerful, proven marketing tools we can use to bring order to the chaos of rapid changes.

SWOT analysis can be a classic marketing tool to guide your SEO efforts, and maximize your return on investment.

This article will show you how to perform a SWOT SEO analysis.

SWOT: Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities and Threats

A SWOT Analysis is a tool for strategic planning that:

• Strengths.
• Weaknesses.
• Opportunities.
• Threats.

The SWOT tool is used to analyze the situation in each area.

• Strengths The areas in which you excel and have an edge over your competitors and should be exploited.
• Weaknesses : Areas in which you are at an advantage relative to your competitors, and where it is important that you address them.
• Opportunity: Areas with potential for growth that you can exploit to your benefit.
• Threats The environmental threats that can cause problems for your business today and in the future.

A SWOT analysis has the purpose of arming you with information about your market position, and guiding you in maximizing opportunities by leveraging strengths and addressing threats and weaknesses. Attack and defend.

The SEO SWOT is best presented as a grid with four panels, which cover the helpful, harmful, and internal factors.

The top row outlines strengths and weaknesses that are usually internal to a business. The bottom row focuses on threats and opportunities, usually external.

In the first column you will find strengths and opportunities that can help you achieve your goal. The second column contains the threats and weaknesses that are in your way.

Your SEO SWOT should inform and build upon your digital marketing plan, which will allow you to plan ( Here, SOSTAC can be your best friend).

PPC or SEO may be the best approach to a keyword.

SWOT Analysis for SEO

We can adapt this classic marketing tool for SEO, being the dynamic and hard-optimizing marketers we are.

Your goals and circumstances will determine the finer details. Typically, I recommend using a Manual SEO Audit to guide you.

Consider the following topics as a place to start:

SEO Strengths

This is where you are most likely to excel. So reviewing your Google Search Console, ranking-tracking software and analytics will be a good first step.

You can also check the technical, off-page and on-page optimizations of your website.

• Organic traffic
• High-performing keywords
• High-performance pages
• Domain authority
• Content quality
• On-page optimization
• 
  Backlink profile
  
• User experience (UX)
• 
  Site speed
  

SEO weaknesses

You may be at a disadvantage to your competitors in these areas. The best way to proceed is by reviewing your visibility metrics that are relevant to your optimization.

• No keyword strategy
• Local listings with low visibility
• Organic listings with low visibility
• Mobile experience is poor
• Slow loading times
• Technical SEO is not adequate
• Low-quality links
• History penalties or low quality SEO
• Content of low quality

SEO Opportunities

There are many areas where your business can grow. You can identify potential growth areas by reviewing your weaknesses, your keyword strategy, the SERPs and keeping up to date with search news.

• Improve weak areas
• Expand your business into new areas
• Keywords that you rank poorly for
• The latest keywords for your industry
• Long-tail keywords
• Content opportunities
• New SERP Features
• Guest posting on relevant sites
• New opportunities in technical SEO (AI, Schema, etc.

SEO Threats

You can avoid problems by being aware of potential threats and continue to push for visibility as the search landscape rapidly changes.

• Algorithm updates
• New competitors enter the market
• Improve your SEO to compete with existing competitors
• Fluctuations of search volume (school holidays may be low).
• Keep up with Google’s latest goals (e.g. E.E.A.T).
• Website issues
• Security Issues: (hacking of websites, spam comments)

To get the most out of a SEO SWOT Analysis, we recommend customizing these points to fit your specific situation.

Local business? Perform a audit of local SEO.

Ecommerce? Perform an ecommerce audit.

You can customize your output to suit your specific situation and get the best value.

A SWOT analysis of SEO

Consider the fictional company Bob’s Widgets.

Bob’s Widgets is a widget industry expert with a WordPress site and possesses specialized knowledge. Bob’s Widgets is able to serve customers from its local store in Birmingham, UK. However, the biggest win comes when they target people who are looking to purchase widgets online.

Bob is not listed in local search results when the user searches with local intent. While Bob produces some informative, useful content each week, it does not appear on the first search engine page.

Some content from competitors may rank high on the first page but is not of the same quality as that published by Bob’s team.

Bob’s Widgets has some SEO software that reports some technical issues. However, there is no plan at this time to improve organic search results.

Site optimization is not good beyond the homepage and main service pages. The WordPress CMS does not have a SEO plugin, and the SEO software reports duplicate content.

Bob has identified important commercial keywords. He is currently ranked around page 2 of the results for these terms. Bob’s main competitors are ranked around the top 5 with Wikipedia, Amazon and eBay filling the rest of the spaces.

Search results often include featured snippets, “People Also Ask” results and other SERP features.

Bob’s Widgets is a company that has been around for 15 years. However, newer companies have started to appear on the first page of search results.

When comparing these two businesses, it is clear that Bob’s Widgets has more authority metrics. They appear to be actively working on improving their SEO.

Bob doesn’t know where traffic is coming from, even though the website generates inquiries.

Strengths

• Expertise in the industry
• Expert content

Weaknesses

• Low domain authority metrics
• Rankings for commercial keywords are poor.
• The site is not optimized.
• Some duplicate content.
• No SEO plugin.
• Technical SEO issues (soft-404s, duplicates etc.). ).
• Bob’s Widgets does not return local results when you search for them locally.
• Basic Analytics setup without conversion tracking.

Opportunities

• gaining links and authority will help you rank in the top 5 results for commercial terms.
• Improve the ranking of useful and informative content.
• Continue to publish valuable content
• Target featured snippets, and “People Also Ask” results.
• Create links to relevant content to increase authority.

Threats

• The gap between major competitors is widening.
• Bob’s Widgets is being overtaken by newer, less experienced competitors.
• The gap between Bob’s Widgets’ and its competitors’ authority is increasing.

The SWOT analysis would include the following:

We can now put together a plan based on this information.

SEO Action Plan

This simple analysis will help define the SEO strategy of Bob’s widgets in the future.

In the above example, Bob has good content and a decent site. Just get the basics right:

• Install an SEO plugin
• On-page optimization is important.
• Fix any technical SEO issues that the SEO tool has reported.
• Conduct a campaign for local SEO.
• Develop a strategy for link building to increase authority.
• Rewrite content to focus on featured snippets.
• Continue publishing content and investing in the content marketing and SEO strategy.

My agency tends to use a spreadsheet to organize the SEO action plans. We also add a few figures in order to help us prioritize our efforts.

We will usually order tasks based on difficulty, time, and benefit. To ensure that you are spending your SEO time on tasks which are realistic and achievable, it makes sense to use SMART SEO goals.

These jobs will not change the world, but they should be completed to build a solid foundation. Prioritizing these tasks before tackling the longer-term ones makes sense.

SEO SWOT questions

These questions will guide you in implementing this plan. You may also have other weaknesses if you are unable to answer these questions.

SEO Strengths

Strengths are internal factors – usually the easiest to describe, so let’s start with this.

• What keywords are you ranking well for?
• What is the most popular content?
• What kind of content drives organic traffic well?
• What are your digital resources?
• What is your best asset?
• What makes you different from your competitors?
• What makes you different from your competitors
• What is the main driver of organic traffic?
• What are the best links you have? What content attracts links to our site?
• What SEO strategy has produced the best results in the past?
• What SEO strategies have we been successful at in the past and what are our strengths?

SEO weaknesses

Weaknesses come from within, and it is difficult to determine them. You’ll have to be truthful.

You will be targeted by competitors, so it is important to identify your weaknesses and use them as an opportunity to improve your SEO.

• What areas are in need of improvement?
• What can you do better (in business) than your competitors?
• What are the SEO strengths of your competitors?
• What is your current position in relation to the competition? What areas are you behind?
• What is the content that currently drives little or no traffic?
• What SEO tactics failed to deliver in the past?
• Are you able to provide the required SEO skills?
• Are you able to allocate the necessary budget for your SEO goals?

SEO Opportunities

Your strengths and weaknesses will determine your SEO opportunities.

Strengths are areas where you can build. Weaknesses can be explored.

• What kind of content would make a big impact?
• What parts of the site can be optimized to increase results?
• What parts of the website are performing well? Could they be improved to achieve even greater performance?
• What weaknesses can be easily fixed?
• What links have we not yet tapped?
• What changes have been made to search engine results that we can use?

SEO Threats

It is difficult to assess threats, but you should take into account your SEO weaknesses as well as those of your competitors. It is also important to evaluate how the search engine results could affect your business.

• What competitors are stronger where you are weaker?
• Can newer competitors improve their SEO?
• Are you gaining ground on your competitors?
• Search engine results are changing. Could this have an impact on your business? (More ads, new SERP features, etc.)
• Are search engines becoming more competitive?
• Do external factors affect search demand (cost-of-living crisis)?
• Is there a new startup that is aggressively gaining market share?

These questions are designed to help us examine your SEO and answer them honestly. This is in some ways a Socratic activity where you ask questions to find out the truth and then try to come up with thoughtful answers.

Sort your Action Points in Rank Order

After you have completed the process and created a list of tasks, there is one final step that can help focus your efforts. This is to rank your action items.

This can be done in a spreadsheet, but also as a group exercise on a board.

• Each action point should be written on a sticky-note.
• Stick them to a whiteboard.
• Discuss who is responsible for what.
• Order them accordingly.

It can be helpful to your business or SEO team, as you filter all of these actions through the available resources. Even just having these discussions and going through the points is powerful.

You can then create a priority action plan, taking into account not only your SEO SWOT Analysis but also the resources of your team.

Maximizing your SEO results

SEO is a complex and chaotic process today.

You cannot just rely on having a website that is perfectly optimized for SEO.

A SWOT Analysis is a useful tool to examine and prioritize your SEO strategy.

The SEO SWOT Process also allows you to begin discussing and examining your current SEO situation and what you could do better.

These conversations can be very valuable in getting everyone on the same page with your SEO goals.

This allows you to concentrate your efforts on the areas where they can have the greatest impact, and protect yourself against any weaknesses your competitors might use against you.

The first time Search Engine land published the article SWOT Analysis: How to optimize your SEO where it counts.