Step 2 - Competition Research
Introduction
The top competitors on the search results leave a trail of evidence behind them that tells the
well trained SEO eyes what got them to the top of the results. The hard part for novice SEOs
is to truly understand what goes on behind the scenes that drives the search engines
rankings. The confusion is understandable. We would all like to know how the search engines
work out their ranking scores to place one website ahead of the other, but we can guarantee
you, they will never reveal top secret information to us. Instead, we have to rely on
experience, good analytical skills and tools to figure what really makes a site rise to the top.
This practical hands on guide will show you step-by-step how to reverse engineer your top
competitors' websites. Also, well lay the foundation of an optimization and link building road
map for you to follow that will guarantee your websites success.
How can we define our competition?
There are some handy search commands provided by Google which allow you to assess your
competition fairly accurately.
The format of these commands is very simple:
command:keyword phrase
Finding the Anchor link text used by competitors. In the Keyword Research
lesson we discussed how we can use a simple query with our keyword phrase in
quotation marks to asses the number of other pages competing for that exact
keyword term(s). Now we will take this concept a step further and use Google's
built in search commands, the "allinanchor", and "allintitle" commands.
The Google "allinanchor" command will find all the websites using the specified
keyword phrase in internal or external link text (anchor text). The anchor text is the
visible part of a link.
For example a link to our own site www.trendmx.com would look like this:
SEO Software
The HTML code would be formatted this way.
<a href="http://www.trendmx.com">SEO Software </a>
The keyword "SEO Software" is the anchor text in this case linking to our site
highlighted in blue.
You can include the keyword phrase in the "allinanchor" command with or without
quotation marks. The internal and external link text is an important ranking factor on
all the major search engines and the "allinanchor" command helps us find all those
sites that have a solid internal and external linking strategy. Ranking high with the
"allinanchor" command usually means a high natural search engine ranking as well.
Finding the Title tag used by competitors: The "allintitle" command works
similarly to the "allinanchor" command, but instead it searches the title tag of web
pages for the keyword phrase entered. The title tag is used to describe a web
page's content in 60-90 characters and it's one of the most important on-page
optimization element for you to master. Most of the top ranking competitors have
well optimized title tags and the "allintitle" command helps you find those top
ranking competitors who have the most relevant title tags.
Let's do a search for "allinanchor:second mortgage" with the "allinanchor" special Google
query operator. Google reports over 90 thousand web pages using the keyword term "second
mortgage" in their internal and external link text. Although the number of results returned
may not mean much to you just yet, but the "allinanchor" and "allintitle" Google commands
are the most important to measure your competitors' strength.
How much competition is too much?
You may be surprised by this answer, but it depends on where your website currently ranks
for related keyword phrases. Let us illustrate this point with a real life example. In the world
of competitive cycling it's unimaginable for someone untrained to even finish the Tour De
France 2,000 mile track in 3 weeks, let alone win it.
The same rule applies to achieving high search engine ranking. A website that has been
online for only a week has little chance of competing with websites who are in top positions
for very competitive keyword terms year after year.
Let's use our previous example again, targeting the phrase "second mortgage. A brand new
website would be better off targeting more specific keywords phrases based on the
previously discussed Overture results. Some of these keywords would be "second mortgage
loan, "second mortgage home loan, "second mortgage rate" or "second mortgage lender. We
can also create a location for keyword selection based on a specific geographical area, such
as "second mortgage Dallas, "second mortgage Florida" or "second mortgage Toronto" if you
sell products or services locally.
Assessing the competition on Google
You can use this simple table below to find out how competitive your keywords are. Based on
our experience with keyword optimization for different levels of competitiveness, we have
created a list of very competitive, moderately competitive, and less competitive keyword
terms. The number of search results returned by Google indicates how tough the competition
is for different keyword phrases.
Please use this information only as a guide. In the world of search engine optimization there
are always exceptions to the rules. Keep in mind that when we collected this data it was a
point of time in Google's index, and the number of results returned can change from month
to month.
| Competition |
Search Method |
Number of Search Results |
| Very Competitive |
Exact Search:
"dvd burner"
"second mortgage"
"life insurance quote" |
Over 200,000 Results |
| |
Google Allinanchor:
allinanchor:"dvd burner"
allinanchor:"second mortgage"
allinanchor:"life insurance quote" |
Over 20,000 Results |
| |
Google Allintitle:
allintitle:"dvd burner"
allintitle:"second mortgage"
allintitle:"life insurance quote" |
Over 20,000 Results |
Moderately
Competitive |
Exact Search:
"free conference call"
"debt management uk"
"multiple domain web hosting" |
Between 100,000 to
200,000 |
| |
Google Allinanchor:
allinanchor:"free conference call"
allinanchor:"debt management uk"
allinanchor:"multiple domain web
hosting" |
Between 1,000 to 20,000 |
| |
Google Allintitle:
allintitle:"free conference
allintitle:"debt management uk"
allintitle:"multiple domain web hosting" |
Between 1,000 to 20,000 |
| Less Competitive |
Exact Search:
"buy paintballs"
"swimming pool chemicals"
"glow in the dark paint" |
Between 1,000 to
100,000 |
| |
Google Allinanchor:
allinanchor:"buy paintballs"
allinanchor:"swimming pool chemicals"
allinanchor:"glow in the dark paint" |
Between 1 to 1,000 |
| |
Google Allintitle:
allintitle:"buy paintballs"
allintitle:"swimming pool chemicals"
allintitle:"glow in the dark paint" |
Between 1 to 1,000 |
Keyword effectiveness index (KEI)
For years now, Wordtracker has been displaying the KEI next to the keyword phrases as a
measure of a keyword's competitiveness. According to Wordtracker, "the KEI compares the
Count result (number of times a keyword has appeared in our data) with the number of
competing web pages to pinpoint exactly which keywords are most effective for your
campaign."
The Wordtracker KEI algorithm is simple and works like this:
"Let P denote the popularity of the keyword and C the competitiveness.
The formula that we have chosen is KEI = (P^2/C), i.e. KEI is the square of the popularity of
the keyword and divided by its competitiveness."
Source Wordtracker KEI help
We can simplify this by saying, dividing the demand (popularity) by the number of exact
search results (competitiveness) we arrive at the keyword's effectiveness. A KEI value of 40
or higher considered very good and indicates a less competitive keyword phrase.
A word of caution about KEI
Although the KEI may be a considered a good guide for a keyword's competitiveness by
many SEO professionals, we tend not to use this statistic as it comes with many inherent
flaws. For one, it does not take into consideration, link popularity, PageRank, and a number
of other "off-page" factors which contribute to high search engine ranking. Relying strictly on
the KEI alone could greatly under or overestimate the competitiveness of a keyword. A much
better and more accurate competition assessment tool is the Google "allinanchor, and
"allintitle" commands.
Other methods to find your online competitors
Our competition research would not be complete without using some very powerful
competition spying tools.
Here is the list of competitor spying tools we have been using regularly:
-Find related sites using Google's related command. The search engines know
better than anyone what the most closely related websites are in a specific keyword
genre. Type the "related" command into Google like this:
related:www.yoursite.com. This command will return a list of pages that Google
thinks are related to your site. Now try the command with a competitor's site, as
you can see there are endless possibilities to find as many related sites as possible.
-Use Google's "define" search command. If you want Google to tell you which
sites are considered an "authority" on specific keyword phrases, simply enter this
command: define:keyword. Google will show you all the websites that are
considered valuable resources on those subject matters. Try to enter some of your
own keywords to see which sites come up in the search results. You may notice by
clicking through some of the results that most of the pages are glossary of term
type of pages. This is something to keep in mind for later when building content for
your website. Adding a glossary page containing your industry specific keyword
terms and their definitions is a great idea.
-Spyfu is a free research tool for discovering the keywords and ads your competitors
are using on Google. You can enter a keyword phrase or a competitor's domain to
gain access to their target keywords, current organic ranking, related keyword
phrases, and other Adwords advertisers bidding on the same keywords. You have to
keep in mind the Spyfu tool is very experimental; nonetheless, a great way to get
some estimate of the total number of clicks your competitors are receiving and their
average ad position.
-Google Alerts will send you email alerts based on your keywords. Every time there
is some new development related to your specified keyword phrases on Google
search, blog, news, or groups, it will send you an email alert. The keywords you
specify can include your own website URL or your competitors web address. This is
a great way to find out what's being said about you and your competitors.
On-page and off-page competition analysis
In our introduction, we briefly discussed how the search ranking factors are broken into "on"
and "off" page factors. Now we'll apply this information in our competition research when we
put their websites under our microscope. In essence we can create a check list of what they
are doing right or wrong as we dissect each on-page ranking factor.
In Step 6 we'll complete our off-page analysis of our competitors and uncover some of the
most important link popularity factors as well.
On page ranking factor checklist
| |
On-Page Factors (20%-30%
Ranking Score) |
How to find out? |
| 1 |
Are there optimized, unique Title tags
on every page with no more than 90
characters in the Title? |
Use the Keyword Analyzer tool and
retrieve the internal links.
Check individual pages for Title tag
optimization by running the Keyword
Analyzer. |
| 2 |
Does the Body text contain at least
250 words per page? |
Check individual pages for Body tag
optimization by running the Keyword
Analyzer. |
| 3 |
Are headings used H1/H2/H3
effectively? |
Check individual pages for Heading tag
optimization by running the Keyword
Analyzer. |
| 4 |
Are the internal links text based or
Flash or Image based and do they
contain the target keywords?
Note:Image based links are the worst
type of internal links you can use
since the search engines can't read
the text inside them. |
Check individual pages for Image tag
optimization by running the Keyword
Analyzer and also check the source
code for Image and Flash based
navigation. |
| 5 |
Are the keywords inserted in the file
names, folder or the domain name? |
Use the Keyword Analyzer tool to
retrieve the internal links.
Check individual pages for
Filename/URL optimization by running
the Keyword Analyzer. |
| 6 |
Are related keywords found in the
Body text to increase the lexical
correlation between keywords? |
Check individual pages for Body tag
optimization by running the Keyword
Analyzer and pay careful attention to
the 1, 2 and 3 word phrase list. |
| 7 |
Are the keyword repetition,
proximity, and prominence
appropriate in the Title and Body text? |
Check individual pages for Body and
Title tag optimization by running the
Keyword Analyzer. The closer to the beginning the keywords appear the
better optimized the page is. |
| 8 |
Are there ALT tag attributes in
images and links? |
Check individual pages for the ALT
image tag optimization by running the
Keyword Analyzer. |
| 9 |
Is the page size and code to text
ratio appropriate? |
Use the Keyword Analyzer tool to
retrieve the internal links and compare
the HTML page size to the number of
words found in the body. Large page
size and low word count indicates too
many HTML tags without the use of
CSS which can help to reduce HTML
code clutter and size. |
| 10 |
Are the website pages search engine
friendly with no frames in the body or
session IDs in the URLs? |
Check individual pages for Frames and
the URL by running the Keyword
Analyzer. |
| 11 |
Did the search engines index all the
pages? |
Run the Links Plus+ tool, and use the
Check Indexed pages function to
compare the number of retrieved
pages. |
| 12 |
Do the website main pages show
recent updates? |
Use the Keyword Analyzer tool to
retrieve the internal links that show
the last modified date. The more
recent the modified dates are the
fresher the website appears to the
engines. |
| 13 |
How many outgoing links can be
found, and how closely related are
they to the site? |
Navigate to the site's resource or link
page in your browser and check the
outgoing links. Too many links on a
single page may be considered a link
farm by the engines. |
| 14 |
Is there a site map on the site? |
Check the site manually for the
presence of a site map. Cataloging a
website's most important pages is a
great way to help the search engines
to crawl your website. |
| 15 |
What is the top level domain of the site
(.edu/.org/.com/.ca/.co.uk.etc)? |
Check the URL, .edu domains have an
advantage over .com and other TLDs.
Country level domains can compete
better for geographically related
keyword terms. |
"On-page" analysis example
Now we are ready to put into practice our "on-page factors checklist" For a better illustration
of the on "page" analysis steps, we are going to use an on-line car parts website
http://www.thepartsbin.com as an example.
1. Open the Keyword Analyzer
Enter the website address into the URL text box as shown on the screen shot below.
The Keyword Analyzer Configuration Screen in SEO Studio
Click on the Get Links button to retrieve the internal links from the main page and pay
careful attention to the website Title and URLs in the links display windows. You can see this
site does a fantastic job at inserting keyword into both the page URLs and the Title tags,
which are both very important elements from an on-page optimization perspective. Also
note, every page has a unique Title tag. Don't make the mistake of putting the same Title tag
on every page.
The Keyword Analyzer displaying the links and their page titles from the
Thepartsbin.com site.
2. Analyzing the competition's individual pages
After running the Keyword Analyzer using http://www.thepartsbin.com you will see the
following result for the keyword "import car parts. The keyword highlighting tool really helps
to put the spot light on keyword placement and repetition within each HTML element.
Although the Title tag on thepartsbin.com site is too long, Google cuts the Title tag at
approximately 60 characters and Yahoo! at 90, they have managed to place the most
important keywords at the beginning of the Title.
The Keyword Analyzer analysis results of HTML page elements from the home page
of Thepartsbin.com.
3. Analyzing your competitors' pages to build your keyword list
If you are looking for proven keywords, look no further. Your top ranking competitors pages
are loaded with keywords you probably never even thought of. SEO Studio can extract the
most frequently used keywords from any web page easily and accurately. It goes beyond just
extracting META keywords. It can harvest keywords from any HTML tag that can be found in
the HTML source code of the web page.
You can see in the illustration below thepartsbin.com website's keywords in plain view for
any SEO Studio user to copy and paste or to extract to a file. You can do the same with your
own competitors' pages and watch how fast you can make your own keyword list grow.
The Keyword Analyzer extracted all the 1 2, and 3 word phrases from the Thepartsbin.com site.
Conclusion
Your competitors have spent a considerable amount of time and effort coming up with their
keyword selection and the optimization of their sites. You can take advantage of their efforts
to expand or refine your own keyword list and learn about their on-page optimization
techniques. The search engines and other online tools give us a great deal of insight into our
competitor's online campaigns. Before jumping head first into the optimization of our sites,
we should thoroughly understand what our competitors are doing online. At the same time,
you should not overestimate your competitors ability to find the best suited keywords. You
should practice due diligence and verify your competitors' keyword selection with the
methods we have outlined in the Keyword Research lesson.