Moz Competitive Analysis Tools
The Story
My Role
UX Designer
UX Research Assistant
Year
2020
Moz provides inbound marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Software as a Service (SaaS). Despite boasting a wide array of tools, Moz did not have one dedicated to the process of competitive analysis. This was a significant gap in services for users that could negatively impact sign-ups and retention of users.
What is competitive analysis?
Conducting a competitive analysis is a necessary and laborious task for many businesses that has four main components:
Discover competitors
Figuring out who your competition is can take hours of manual research without the aid of an SEO tool
Keywords
Search for keywords manually or with an SEO tool to see where your competitors rank well or poorly
Content
Quality content will both contain relevant keywords while providing value to website visitors
Backlinks
Quality links to and from business websites can boost search engine rankings
The Problem
Users of all skill levels have three main problems:
They have difficulty identifying true online competitors
They struggle to identify keywords that competitors rank highly for
Users want ideas for content that incorporates desired keywords
Moz did not have a tool to help users identify their competitors, but provided a basic keyword research tool that often contained branded keywords from larger companies like State Farm and Amazon.
Ahrefs and Semrush, two major competitors, did have tools more directly related to competitive research. Our hypothesis was that developing a competitive analysis tool would provide the value users were seeking.
A screenshot of the Domain Overview tool provided by Semrush.
The Goal
We had two main objectives for this project
Increase retention of Moz Pro
Increase monthly feature usage
User Research
We conducted two rounds of research and tested a functional prototype.
The research revealed that the idea of a competitive analysis tool was very appealing to users and that the current market of tools is lacking.
My favorite quote from our research sessions:
F***ing brilliant!
The Solution
I designed two tools:
True Competitor - users could enter a website URL and receive up to 25 competitors for that site
Competitor Gap Analysis - users could either import up to three URLs from True Competitor or enter up to three of their own and receive a list of valuable keywords as well as direct links to content that utilized those keywords
Outcome
My team and I succeeded in making a competitive analysis tool that passed initial beta testing with flying colors. The competitive analysis tools have become an integral part of Moz Pro, and are featured widely across promotional materials. It is even included in their online SEO certification course, Moz Academy.
