{"id":11752,"date":"2021-06-21T07:00:14","date_gmt":"2021-06-21T05:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za\/?p=11752"},"modified":"2022-09-05T19:25:02","modified_gmt":"2022-09-05T17:25:02","slug":"do-you-know-how-to-use-machine-learning-for-seo-competitor-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za\/seo-blog\/do-you-know-how-to-use-machine-learning-for-seo-competitor-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Do You Know How To Use Machine Learning For SEO Competitor Research?"},"content":{"rendered":"<section class=\"l-section wpb_row height_medium\"><div class=\"l-section-h i-cf\"><div class=\"g-cols vc_row via_grid cols_3-1 laptops-cols_inherit tablets-cols_inherit mobiles-cols_1 valign_top type_default stacking_default\"><div class=\"wpb_column vc_column_container\"><div class=\"vc_column-inner\"><div class=\"w-image align_center\"><div class=\"w-image-h\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"680\" height=\"341\" src=\"https:\/\/digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/shutterstock_1292580877-e1624019358682.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"DSM Digital School of Marketing - SEO\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/shutterstock_1292580877-e1624019358682.jpg 680w, https:\/\/digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/shutterstock_1292580877-e1624019358682-600x301.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><\/div><\/div><div class=\"wpb_text_column\"><div class=\"wpb_wrapper\"><p>With the ever-increasing desire of SEO professionals to learn more about Python, there\u2019s never been a better &#8211; or more exciting time &#8211; to take advantage of machine learning\u2019s (ML) capabilities as well as apply these to SEO. This is particularly true in your competitor research.<\/p>\n<p>The aim of a competitor analysis is to identify your competitors\u2019 strengths as well as weaknesses in comparison to your own in addition to finding a gap in the market.<\/p>\n<p>A competitor analysis is important as:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It will assist you recognise how you are able to enhance your own business strategy.<\/li>\n<li>It will tell you how you are able to out-do your competitors in these areas in order to keep your customer attention.<\/li>\n<li>It will turn out in a competitive edge over others in your sector.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>Why Do We Need Machine Learning in SEO Competitor Research?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Most, if not all, SEO professionals working in competitive markets will analyse the search engine results pages (SERPs) and their business competitors in order to find out what it is their <a href=\"https:\/\/digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za\/blog\/how-to-use-a-company-website-for-building-public-relations\/\">website<\/a> is doing in order to achieve a higher rank.<\/p>\n<p>Back in 2003, we made use of spreadsheets in order to collect data from SERPs, with columns representing the various aspects of the competition such as the number of links to the home page as well as number of pages. In hindsight, the idea was correct however the execution was hopeless owing to the limitations of Excel in doing a statistically robust analysis in the short space of time required.<\/p>\n<p>And if the limits of spreadsheets weren\u2019t sufficient, the landscape has moved on quite a lot since then as we now have:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Mobile SERPs,<\/li>\n<li>Social media,<\/li>\n<li>A much more advanced Google Search experience,<\/li>\n<li>Page Speed,<\/li>\n<li>Personalised search,<\/li>\n<li>Schema, as well as<\/li>\n<li>JavaScript frameworks in addition to other new web technologies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The above is by no means an extensive list of trends but serves to demonstrate the ever-increasing range of factors which can explain the benefit of your higher-ranked competitors in <a href=\"https:\/\/digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za\/blog\/what-does-google-analytics-do\/\">Google<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><div class=\"w-image align_center\"><div class=\"w-image-h\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"545\" src=\"https:\/\/digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/shutterstock_707342419-768x545.jpg\" class=\"attachment-us_768_0 size-us_768_0\" alt=\"Machine Learning Workflow\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/shutterstock_707342419-768x545.jpg 768w, https:\/\/digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/shutterstock_707342419-600x425.jpg 600w, https:\/\/digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/shutterstock_707342419-300x213.jpg 300w, https:\/\/digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/shutterstock_707342419-282x200.jpg 282w, https:\/\/digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/shutterstock_707342419.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/div><\/div><div class=\"w-separator size_medium\"><\/div><div class=\"wpb_text_column\"><div class=\"wpb_wrapper\"><h2><strong>What Role Does Machine Learning Play In The SEO Context?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Luckily, with tools such as Python\/R, we\u2019re no longer subject to the constraints of spreadsheets. Python\/R is able to cope with millions to billions of rows of data. If anything, the constraint is the quality of data which you can feed into your ML model as well as the smart questions you ask of your data.<\/p>\n<p>As an SEO professional, you are able to make the conclusive difference to your SEO campaign by cutting through the noise and utilising machine learning on competitor data in order to discover:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Which ranking factors can best explain the variances in rankings between websites.<\/li>\n<li>What the winning benchmark is.<\/li>\n<li>How much a unit change in the factor is worth in terms of rank.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Like any (data) science endeavour, there are a number of questions to be responded to before we can start coding.<\/p>\n<h2><a href=\"https:\/\/digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za\/contact-us\/\">Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing<\/a><\/h2>\n<p>If you are eager to discover more about SEO then you need to do our SEO and Web Analytics Course. Follow this <a href=\"https:\/\/digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za\/courses\/seo-and-web-analytics-course\/\">link<\/a> to find out more.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za\/courses\/seo-and-web-analytics-course\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-11381 size-shop_single\" src=\"https:\/\/digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/SEO-and-Web-Analytics-600x96.jpg\" alt=\"DSM digital School of Marketing- SEO and Web Analytics\" width=\"600\" height=\"96\" srcset=\"https:\/\/digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/SEO-and-Web-Analytics-600x96.jpg 600w, https:\/\/digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/SEO-and-Web-Analytics-300x48.jpg 300w, https:\/\/digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/SEO-and-Web-Analytics-1024x164.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/SEO-and-Web-Analytics-768x123.jpg 768w, https:\/\/digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/SEO-and-Web-Analytics.jpg 1250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"wpb_column vc_column_container\"><div class=\"vc_column-inner\"><div class=\"w-btn-wrapper align_justify\"><a class=\"w-btn us-btn-style_2\" href=\"#enquiry\"><span class=\"w-btn-label\">Enquire Today<\/span><\/a><\/div><div class=\"w-separator size_medium\"><\/div><h3 class=\"w-text us_custom_6caa4608 has_text_color\"><span class=\"w-text-h\"><span class=\"w-text-value\">Blog Categories<\/span><\/span><\/h3><div class=\"wpb_text_column us_custom_5cd26a65\"><div class=\"wpb_wrapper\"><ul>\n<li class=\"cat-item cat-item-1\"><a href=\"\/blog\/content-marketing\/\">Content Marketing<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"cat-item cat-item-2\"><a href=\"\/blog\/digital-marketing\/\">Digital Marketing<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"cat-item cat-item-2\"><a href=\"\/blog\/cyber-security-blog\/\">Cyber Security<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"cat-item cat-item-2\"><a href=\"\/blog\/graphic-design-blog\/\">Graphic Design<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"cat-item cat-item-3\"><a href=\"\/blog\/public-relations\/\">Public Relations<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"cat-item cat-item-4\"><a href=\"\/blog\/seo\/\">SEO<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"cat-item cat-item-5\"><a href=\"\/blog\/social-media-marketing\/\">Social Media Marketing<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"cat-item cat-item-5\"><a href=\"\/blog\/web-design-blog\/\">Web Design<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div><\/div><div class=\"w-separator size_medium\"><\/div><h3 class=\"w-text us_custom_6caa4608 has_text_color\"><span class=\"w-text-h\"><span class=\"w-text-value\">You might also like<\/span><\/span><\/h3><div class=\"w-html\"><ul><li><a href=\"https:\/\/digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za\/social-media-marketing-blog\/zero-moment-of-truth-benefit-social-media-marketing\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Use the Zero Moment of Truth to Benefit your Social Media Marketing<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/digitalschoolofmarketing.co.za\/digital-marketing-blog\/your-complete-guide-to-ppc-marketing-basic\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Your Complete Guide to PPC Marketing Basics. 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