Have you ever wondered if your competitors are investing in SEO?  If you knew they were and you’re not, then you may need to start in order to compete long-term.  Or, if your competitors are not yet investing in SEO, then that could be a nice opportunity for your business to gain the upper hand.

There is no ingle way that makes it clear which businesses are, or are not, already investing in SEO. In fact, many businesses don’t even know if their own website is set up properly to rank in Google.

Luckily there are indicators that a business is investing in SEO which are described in the following sections:

Title Tag Review

You’ll know a website is not investing in SEO if you find any of the following:

• The title tags focus on the company name vs relevant keywords
• One duplicated title used across the entire website
• Many duplicated title tags on key pages

Website Structure Review

One of the biggest mistakes we see when conducting SEO audits is when businesses try to rank just one service or product page, instead of individual service or product pages. 

But for SEO, that page is terrible if you’re trying to rank your website when prospects search for individual services.

This is why it’s important to have individual product and service pages if you want to have a shot at ranking when prospects search for those products or services. 

Links Review

Investing in SEO is much more than making edits to your own website. In fact, your own website is only half of the battle in your quest to rank well in Google.  The other half is what’s called “off-page SEO” factors.  

One major off-page SEO factor is the quantity and quality of links from other websites.  The more links from other websites the better because that is a signal to Google that you’re providing high-quality information, products, and services. 

Use a Link Explorer tool to review the number of links and the number of different websites that are linking to a website.  If you find zero or very few links, then chances are good the website you’re reviewing is not investing in SEO.

Local Business Profiles Review

Google considers all your online business profiles.  For example, your business profiles on Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, and all the other major business directories online need to be complete, accurate, and up to date with your business information.

To check if your business profiles are set up correctly, use the free Moz Local tool and If you find a very low score using this tool, then chances are the website you’re reviewing is not investing in SEO.

Blog Review

If a website has a blog section, then it is a good sign that the business is investing in ongoing SEO. 

Every new blog article is another opportunity to rank in Google and another opportunity to get a link from another website.  Your articles are assets so over time you’ll gain more and more links, which helps boost your website’s domain authority.  As your domain authority increases, your rankings will improve as well.