How to Use SEMrush traffic analytics tool presented by Full Scale SEO
“Behind every successful marketer is a suite of powerful tools”
These tools save time, money, and energy- Long gone are the days of manually scraping search results for market research. Nowadays, this can be done with just a few clicks, using one of the many SEO tools available in the market.
However, most marketers limit their use of software tools to the basic competitor and keyword research.
That changes today.
In this article, we’ll show you how to use SEMrush’s “Traffic Analytics” tool to uncover new traffic source opportunities, geographical markets, monetization opportunities, and more.
We’ll share the processes we’ve used to:
- Find the most profitable monetization strategies in your niche
- Find neglected geographical markets
- Benchmark and improve user experience performance
- Find new traffic sources
The tips we’ve included are relevant for affiliate websites, e-commerce stores, and local businesses.
How to find new traffic sources
One of the most useful and straightforward applications of the SEMrush Traffic Analytics tool is being able to find new traffic sources.
Diversifying your traffic sources will reduce the risk of losing your traffic overnight and increase your profits.
However, investing in a new channel can consume a lot of resources, without a guaranteed return.
Well, there’s a way to reduce that risk.
By taking your top 5 competitors and running them through SEMrush’s Traffic Analytics tool, you can find out what major sources of traffic you’re missing out on.
Common channels we’ve uncovered through this method include Pinterest, YouTube, Quora, Medium and niche-specific forums and websites.
These don’t work for every niche, but if your competitors have found success, then chances are, you’ll be able to find success too.
Here’s another sneaky tip for product owners: Run your competitors through this tool to find out if they have recruited any affiliates that sending significant traffic, then reach out to the affiliate websites and offer a better deal.
If done properly, these two tips can easily double your traffic and revenue without much effort.
How to find profitable monetization channels
SEMrush allows you to find what websites any given domain sends traffic to.
If you’re an affiliate, looking at some of your competitors’ outwards traffic can be a good way to finding out what affiliate programs are converting the best.
Simply plug in any given competitor and navigate to the “Destination Sites” tab.
Identify the sites running affiliate programs and voilà- you just got a list of new monetization channels.
The same can be done with ad networks. By checking the destination sites, you’ll be able to find which ads / sponsored links users within your niche are clicking the most.
This is not a perfect measure of monetization, as this will depend on the quality of the affiliate offer or ad, but it’s a pretty good proxy.
How to benchmark user experience performance
One of the main differentiators of the SEMrush Traffic Analytics tool is its ability to benchmark user experience metrics such as Bounce Rate, Pages / Visit, and Average Visit Duration.
And the best part?
You can even filter the traffic by device. We all know the importance of providing a good experience for smartphone users but implementing it can be hard.
Here’s one quick hack:
Grab the domains of 5 of your top competitors
Run them through the Traffic Analytics tool
Under the drop-drown “Devices” menu, choose “Mobile”
Select the site with the highest average visit duration, pages/visit, and lowest bounce rate.
Navigate to their website on mobile
Take inspiration on the website for your own mobile website redesign. How are their menus? Their CTAs? Font size? Color Schemes?
We’ve had some great results using this approach as it not only increases conversions on existing traffic but also increases traffic from google, as google loves good user experience
metrics.
How to find neglected markets
Our final tip is simple, yet effective.
Most businesses focus on producing content in English to the American market.
But there is a whole host of markets that have low competition and a strong supply of talented marketers, for which content is easy to produce and rank.
Once again, we can take inspiration from what’s working for our competitors and emulate it.
By making a list of your top 5 competitors and running them through the SEMrush Traffic Analytics tool, you’ll be able to identify if they are targeting any other countries.
If you find significant traffic from any other country, have a look at the “Destination Sites” tab and figure out how they are monetizing it or where they are directing this traffic.
Local businesses can also make use of this tool to filter irrelevant traffic when conducting competitor analysis.
Using this approach, you could well uncover an opportunity to add a few thousand dollars of revenue per month with little extra effort.
Final Thoughts
This unprecedented access to over 200 million clickstream data points has opened the pandora gate of competitor research.
By using some of the above-listed hacks, you’ll be able to uncover the secrets of your competitors that were previously private.
But remember, always keep your strategy unique to your positioning. There are no two equal businesses and even though something worked for a competitor in your niche, it might not work for you.
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