"How-To" SEO

This post is a Re-Mix of a post I wrote in 2006, Formerly called: “How to Scope Out a Competitor’s Website and Learn From It.”

It’s always fun and interesting to check out what your competitors are up to. When you type in a search for your keywords, who comes up? Are your competitors ahead of you or below you? Why? Do you know what kind of traffic they get? Do you know how many links are coming into their site?

Competitive Research

In search engine marketing, competitive research and analysis is everything.  Since search engines are all about ranking, the websites you see in the search engine rankings above and below you are your competitors.  So it’s very helpful to know how to research those competitors to discover how and why they rank the way they do.

10 Free Tools For Researching Your Competitor’s Website

#1.  SpyFu.com

SpyFu is one of my favorites as it can show you how much money a competing website may be spending on pay per click advertisements.  And is also useful to show you which organic keywords may be bringing in the most traffic.  Tool Use Rating: Easy

#2.  SEODigger.com

SEO Digger is a free tool that will show you what keyword phrases different websites rank for.  The ranking database is updated every 2 weeks and is usually very accurate.  This can be a great resource if you’re trying to find out what phrases a competing website ranks for.  They can also be sorted by order of Wordtracker popularity which shows how many times those phrases are searched.  Tool Use Rating: Easy

#3. SEOmoz Tools

If you are already familiar with SEOmoz, you know that they provide a host of tools that can help with SEO.  Many of which can be helpful for competitive website analysis including: SEO Toolbox, Trifecta, Term Target, and their new tool called Linkscape.  Note on Linkscape: this tools is definitely for more advanced users, but can be very valuable to search for link data on almost any website.  Tool Use Rating: Ranging from Easy - Difficult

#4. WebsiteGrader.com

The Website Grader is an extremely user friendly site that will give a quick review of any website and show helpful data like: domain age, domain renewal information, meta data, backlinks, onpage factors, traffic, and alot more.  The really helpful thing is that it gives easy to understand explanations if it happens to find any erros on the website.  This is a great tool for discovering basic strengths and weaknesses with any competing website.  Tool Use Rating: Easy

#5. NicheWatch.com

Niche Watch takes a little different approach in that it doesn’t start with a competing website, but with keyword phrases.  You type in a phrase, and it will show you data on the top 20 competitors including backlinks, links to the page, Page Rank, and alot more.  This is a great resource to see info on offsite factors for each website and it can often times give you great insight as to why a site is ranking the way it is.  Tool Use Rating: Moderate

#6. SEO For Firefox

SEO for Firefox is one of the more famous tools of the bunch.  Aaron the creator claims that over 50,000 people are using it.  If you don’t already have Firefox, you may want to consider downloading it just for the purpose of using this great add-on.  When turned on, this tool will show extra data under each Google result after you complete a search.  The data includes useful things like: backlinks, page links, .edu links, pages, domain age, Dmoz, Yahoo Dir, and alot more.  Basically it lets you see why competitors are ranking in the results, and based on the data, it’s usually very easy to see why sites are being ranked the way they are.  Tool Use Rating: Moderate

#7.  Compete.com

Looking for exact traffic numbers for a competitors website?  Too bad, that is priviledged information.  But the next best thing can be found at a site like Compete.com.  They compile data on millions of websites to provide you with fairly accurate traffic analytics, and basic search analytics; like which terms are used the most often to bring search traffic.  It’s about as good as you can get unfortunately.  If you want to compare data try Quantcast and Alexa.  Tool Use Rating: Easy - Moderate

#8. LinkDiagnosis.com

Link Diagnosis is a newer tool that I’ve only been using for a few months.  But I have been extremely impressed so far.  It basically will look at the backlinks of any website and examine the anchor text, Page Rank, quality of link, and number of outbound links on the page and displays it in an easy to read and export format.  It is really sweet for being able to tell how strong incoming links are to any giving website complete with data on NoFollow links.  Tool Use Rating: Moderate - Difficult

#9. SearchRascal.com

Search Rascal is purely a ranking analysis tool that allows you to see who is ranking for any given keyword.  The unique thing about it is that it tracks past ranking and will show whether or not websites have moved up or down in ranking in the last day, week, or month.  It is very handy.  Note: only works for more competitive phrases.  Tool Use Rating: Easy

#10. Google & Yahoo

Believe it or not, Google and Yahoo are a couple of the best tools you have available for competitive analysis.  You just have to know how to use them… Google consistently has the best search results, so make sure you use it the most when trying to search for actual competitors.  If someone is ranking above you in Google, chances are they deserve to be there.  Yahoo is great for searching incoming links to your website.  In fact, almost all the tools above use Yahoo’s data to search for links.  To get an overall picture of how many links are coming in, visit Yahoo Site Explorer, type in your domain name with or without the www, and click on “inlinks”.  This will give you a full picture of your incoming links.  Tool Use Rating: Easy

I hope these 10 free tools will come in handy as you try to learn more about your competition.  Make sure to keep track of your findings, and if you have any questions about how to use any of them, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Keyword cannibalization is an important topic with any website.  It typically becomes a problem when over zealous website owners and designers decide they want to choose 1 primary search term that they want to rank for.

Definition of Keyword Cannibalization:

“The act of placing the same keywords or phrases on multiple pages of a website in titles and content in order improve ranking in the search engines… leading to confusion with search engines on which page to rank in the results.”

This is extremely important to the general health of websites.  I see people so often trying to rank well for certain keyword phrases using this technique.  But unfortunately, their efforts are misguided.  Placing the same keyword in every title, every page, and every piece of content you create is a very bad idea.  The common misguided notion goes something like this:

“Well… I really want to rank well for the keyword “Las Vegas Real Estate”, so I’m going to place that phrase in every title and every piece of content I create.  After all, Google loves keywords, and the more I use it, the better chance I’ll have of ranking.”

Let’s explore why this doesn’t work:

Google ranks each page of a website independently of each other

You may have a home page, and 10 articles that all include the same keyword phrase in the title and body… but guess what?  Only one (possibly 2) of those pages are ever going to rank in the search engines for that specific keyword phrase.

Using the same keyword doesn’t help gain extra relevance

Creating multiple pages with the exact same keyword phrase in the title and content does not force the search engine spider to interpret the site as being more relevant for that same keyword phrase.  All it does is force the spider to choose which page is the best.  One page will rank, and the others won’t show up at all.

The quality of your content will suffer

If you are using the keyword “Las Vegas Real Estate” in every title of every article, what are you readers going to think?  Need I say more???

You are severely limiting your search engine traffic potential

Many of you probably understand the concept of the long tail by now.  It works.  Don’t get me wrong, “Las Vegas Real Estate” is a great keyword.  But do you really want to put all your eggs in one basket when there are literally thousands of variations of that phrase that could do just as good or better?  Why waste your time trying to get every page of your site ranking for the same term when there are so many others out there waiting to be ranked for?  Think about it.

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Meta tag titles are typically the biggest problem with keyword cannibalization.  Not only on the home page, but on sub pages and article pages as well.  Each page needs to have it’s own unique title.  This will give you the most likelihood of ranking for many different keywords and give you the most traffic potential.

Probably the most common place for keyword cannibalization is in blogs.  People will create blog post titles that are often very similar to each other, and this becomes a problem because most blogs are set up by default to make the article title the meta tag title.  Thus creating the keyword cannibalization effect with multiple articles.

Tips on Avoiding Cannibalization

1. Write unique Meta tag titles for your home page and sub pages.  Use specific words that describe that page.  If you can’t think of anything besides “Las Vegas Real Estate”… seek professional help.  Or try this keyword suggestion tool.
2. If you have a blog, make sure your article titles are unique to what you are writing about.  Using variations of a keyword are fine: “Las Vegas Condos”, “Las Vegas Real Estate Agent”, but don’t over do it.  Try to appeal to your readers first, and to the search engines second!
3. Choose which pages are the best candidates for certain keywords, and send internal links with the anchor text of those keywords to that page.
4. Start broad on your links, and build out.  Your home page and top level pages probably have the most potential for ranking with more competitive broader terms.  Make sure you target those tougher terms on your top level pages (shallow pages), and work on the more specific long tail keywords with articles, and blog posts (deep pages).

~ Secret Tip ~

If you are really struggling with how to title pages, and can’t think of any more good keyword phrases to use, try using a good keyword research tool.  Google Keyword Suggestions, SEO Book’s Keyword Research Tool, or even Wordtracker or Nichebot.  Start by searching for a broad term, and use the results to find the most relevant, and the most popular keywords for your page.  You may just find that the keyword you wanted to use in the first place doesn’t get as many searches as you thought… and that there was a related phrase you should have been using all along.  Hint: I do this every time I write a new article…

So go get to work!  Remove all those duplicate Meta tag titles.  Do some keyword research.  I think you’ll find that with a little work, you’ll see a much bigger return on your investment with broader search traffic.

The opportunities for Internet business branding on search engines has really come as a revelation to me in the last couple of years.  It’s such a simple concept, but one that many SEO practitioners and companies don’t understand.  This concept of branding has brought me so much enlightenment in the area of search engine marketing, and helped me to understand my overall purpose as an internet marketer.

Here are a couple of brief definitions of branding just for reference:

“in marketing, the sum total of a company’s value, including products, services, people, advertising, positioning, and culture”

“in marketing, the use of logos, symbols, or product design to promote consumer awareness of goods and services”

We all know the classic branding examples: Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Etc…

But what about branding online? To some extent, we see the same branding efforts online from many of the big companies.  This usually comes in the form of banners, text ads, video sponsorships, etc.  That’s all fine and good.  I don’t question the supreme wisdom of Madison Avenue in this regard.  But what are companies doing to brand on the search engines?

This is obviously an important question as search engines command such a huge amount of traffic and eyeballs.  It would seem like such an obvious place to build brand awareness through higher visibility in search results.  But sadly, so many marketers skip this step and go straight towards the “SEO drug” that so many people are hooked on these days: higher ranking.

I’m full aware of the temptation of purely going after higher rankings, it looks good, it boosts your ego, it’s impressive to show to clients… but it doesn’t always translate into more success in the long run.  SEO is so much more than simply achieving higher rankings.  And I want to point out some of the reasons why that is the case.

Search Engine Branding With Meta Tags

This is talked about quite often in the SEO space, but it is hugely important, and I want to spend some time covering it.  Meta titles and descriptions are very important here.  When you include company names and even tag lines in your Meta tags, you are maximizing your branding potential because that is what people see on the search engines.

Here’s an example for a “Car Insurance” search on Google:

What’s wrong with this picture? Everyone on the page has branded properly in their meta titles and descriptions except for autoinsuranceremedy.com  Have you ever heard of them?  I haven’t.  But I have heard of all the other companies on the page.  Coincidence?… or just poor branding?

Let’s take another example for a local real estate search:

Imagine this as a scenario:  a first time home buyer is considering a purchase 6 months down the road.  They have no idea what to do, and they have been researching for properties in their price range, good real estate agents, and information about the local area.  They happen to use Google on a regular basis, and are doing multiple real estate related searches.  This is where branding can make all the difference in the world. Take a look at the above results.  Who is branding and who isn’t…   Just because a title says La Jolla Real Estate, (which was the search term) doesn’t mean people are going to click it… and even if they do are they ever going to remember who you are?  Of course, you may get lucky, and they might like your site and bookmark it for later.  But the more likely scenario is that they will go right back to Google the next time, and the sites that displayed their brands in the results through meta tags will gain the mind/brand share.

Meta tags play a huge role in this online branding process because that is what people see in the SERP’s (Search Engine Results Pages).

So what did we learn here? Place your name, company name, or site name in your titles and descriptions.  Here are a couple of examples of good use:

You can see that placement tends to be different based on preference.  I personally prefer to have the brand in the front of the title tags on my top level pages and money pages.  And move it to the back on deeper level pages like articles, and product pages.  The point is that you are building brand awareness with every search result that you appear in by placing the brand in the titles and descriptions.

Not Convinced Yet? Ok, here are a couple studies that prove my point:

A report by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Nielsen NetRatings suggest that “27 percent (of survey respondents) were more likely to name a specific brand if it was in the top spot of the search results page.” (Sponsored Listings Effectiveness Study, July, 2004).

And again, a report by the Dieringer Resource Group, which surveyed 3,000 respondents regarding their online purchasing habits, found that 60% of the respondents’ brand opinions were changed or enhanced as a result of online research (American Interactive Consumer Survey, June, 2004).

The problem that I’ve found with many SEO consultants is that they don’t come from a marketing background, but from a technical background.  Thus, they can fall into the trap of trying purely to acheive that higher ranking, but not pay as much attention to effective search marketing in terms of results.

I admit that I am still learning how to be a good marketer first, and an SEO second… but understanding how to brand in the search engines has definitely opened my eyes to see a deeper purpose in my SEO efforts.

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If you have ever done any searches for SEO related terms, you have probably seen seobook.com at one time or another. It is a great website with volumes of information on search engine marketing and optimization. One of things Aaron has spent so much time on, and one of the most popular features of the site are his SEO tools. If you’ve never been introduced to these tools, you’re missing out…

Here is a brief rundown.

http://tools.seobook.com

First, visit the above address to check out some of what he has to offer. Currently, the best tools are the Keyword Suggestion Tool, SEO For Firefox, and Rank Checker.

Keyword Suggestion Tool

There is no other place on the internet that pools the data like Aaron’s tool does. And that is why I like it so much. Sure, I have a wordtracker and keyword discovery account, and they are helpful in their own ways, but I always use this tool first when doing preliminary searches. Make sure to check it out!

SEO Firefox

This 2nd tool called SEO for Firefox is one of my favorite tools of all time. It is super easy to use, and provides great data.

As you can see from the example, it integrates data directly into your results. Most notably, it shows how many links are coming in to the page, and some other valuable data like domain age, PR, DMOZ links, and more. If you use Firefox as your primary browser, I highly suggest this tool.

Rank Checker

This last tool is the latest invention from seobook. It’s another Firefox add-on that checks the ranking for certain URLs and keeps track of historical data. I haven’t had alot of experience with it yet as it didn’t work at all on one of my computers (Google ranking always refused to show up), but overall it’s worked great. For whatever reason, I have never found a great ranking tool that gives historical data, and is easy to use. There are many out there, and this tool comes pretty close, but I remain on my quest to find that perfect rank checking tool.

So, I hope you’re able to check out some of these great tools. You don’t have to be an expert to get your feet wet in SEO, and some of these tools from http://tools.seobook.com can definitely help. Have Fun!

• Article PR’s List of Article Submission Sites & Article Distribution Lists
• Online SEO Tools - The Ultimate Collection | From Search Engine Journal
• 21 Ways to Make Your Blog or Website Sticky | From ProBlogger
• Top Directory List by Inbound Link Quality | By SEO Company
• FastPitch.com - Networking/Marketing Service
• The Ultimate RSS Toolset 100+ Resources | From OEdb
• Twitter Backlink Tip | From David Naylor
• Best SEO Firefox Extensions & Tools | From Search Engine People
• Trifecta - SEOMoz’s New Analysis Tool | From SEOMOZ

Enjoy…

We’ve all seen how big reviews can impact a sales decision. Sites like Amazon changed the way we make product purchasing decisions online forever. With big local business search sites like Yelp and Insider Pages picking up speed in the local search world, online business reviews have become a huge part of online marketing for any business.

There have been many articles written that try to debunk the review model, usually citing the large number of fraudulent reviews.  But whatever your view on the effectiveness of local business reviews, the fact of the matter is that reviews are becoming MORE important, not less as time goes on.

We are now seeing many sites giving special algorithmic boosts based upon number and quality of reviews.  Even Google seems to rank sites higher in the local results that have more reviews than others.

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So what does this mean for your local business?  It means that reviews on sites like Yelp and Google, and a host of others will not only help someone make a buying decision, but also help you rank better on many sites.  I’ve seen a simple well devised review campaign launch a local business to the top of the results with a relatively small number of reviews.

Take a look at this map from the Local SEO Guide that shows the number of online reviews for restaurants around the country:

There are alot of great opportunities out there.  One of of the things Searching Solutions does for many local businesses is to work directly with managers and business owners to come up with creative ways to increase the number of reviews a business receives.

If your local ranking is suffering in the search engines, call us!  We can help…

Searching Solutions

Justin | 720.670.0742

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SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday-Give It Up from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.