SEO Competition Analysis--in order to be complete, must always be undertaken in two equally important steps. Step One, is the Off-Page Competition Analysis. Step Two, is the On-Page Competition Analysis. This article will cover the first step--in the context of assessing your competitors' websites.

Off-Page Elements
As can be deduced from the term, these are the website qualities that do not directly occur within the site itself. The concept of the words "do not directly occur within" can be a bit baffling, so I will proceed with a bit of elucidation.

Let me do it with the use of a different element. Let me relate these Off-Page qualities to--time. Almost all off-page elements are strengthened through the passage of time--the more time your competitor's pages have been online--the higher they rank. But it should be important to clarify that the passage of time alone is most useful only to the first element (domain age), and will matter less with the others. Backlinks likewise rely on time and are eventually attained as a domain grows older; enhances its presence, creates integrity for itself and attains its backlinks. The more important criterion for backlinks is not time, but the level of authority the websites have.

The Seven Off-Page Elements

DA - Domain Age The age of your competitor's domain. Relies solely on how long their website have been in existence--the older, the better. Did you know that Google and the others search engines "know" exactly how old all website are? This is done thorough the use of "web crawlers"--programs that are constantly in search of new websites to document their contents and give them ratings, and assess page rank.

PR - Page Rank A measure of the overall quantity and quality of your competitor's web page links. Google has its confidential system of PageRank algorithms. Nobody (expect Google) knows exactly what these algorithms measure. But SEO enthusiast constantly guess these to be directly linked to the elements included on this list.

BLP - Page Backlinks Number of links pointing to a web-page from outside of the website. Note that this is one link that points to one web page.

BLD - Domain Backlinks Total number of links pointing to an entire domain (the whole site) from outside of a website. In contrast to the preceding, this is one link that point to the whole site.

BLEG - Government or Educational Backlinks The total number of links pointing to a web-page from Government (.gov) and educational (.edu) sources that are external to the web site itself. Here, the concept of high-authority domains come into play. One BLEG-link from a highly respected.edu site can become the equivalent of 100 BLD-links of low authority.

DMZ - DMOZ Listing Whether your competitor's site is listed in the Open Directory Project's Directory.

YAH - Yahoo! Listing Whether your competitor's site is listed in the Yahoo! Directory.

When done with your SEO Competition analysis, you must objectively look at your chances in making it in the niche you are considering. If your competitors are too strong--because they have gained a major dominance over your niche--your best option will actually be to find another one which is not "ruled over" by competitors.

Competitive Analysis Tools
With a list of your top competitors in hand you can now go back to your original search and start experimenting with some of the Competitive Analysis Software tools you found there. Some popular ones you may want to start with include ReviewMyWeb.com, webtraffic24.com, and websitegrader.com.