Sizing up the SEO Competition
In this week’s video I do a SEO site review for a viewer. The site is ranking pretty well already for a few phrases but not so well for the phrases that will bring the big traffic. In fact he is buying adwords for those ones. When I took a look at his competition in the SERPs it did not seem that strong. No mega link pig sites with giant amounts of regularly updated content. In fact one of the sites above him is very static with little content. So why was that site beating his? Simple – it was the SEO basics.
It’s not Google you’re trying to beat.
Once you have decided on your main phrases have a look at what the no.1 ranking spot is doing. Here are the 4 main things check
1. Backlinks – How many do they have & what is the quality of them like. If they’re getting links from relevant blog posts and forums they’re high quality links. You can check this with Open SIte Explorer
2. Keyword Prominence – Can you see that main keyphrase in their page title? How frequent is it on the ranking page? Is there a link off the front page to other pages in the site that target that keyphrase? Do they use heading tags?
3. How regularly do they update content? If they have a blog that is updated frequently it gives them the opportunity to write more about their target phrases and gets the googlebot coming back on a regular basis.
4. How much content do they have and how old is it. People sometimes think that a really old site is hard to rank above, it’s not. A really old site that is updated regularly and keyword focused, is. Using the search in Google site:yourcompetitor-url.com you will get an idea of the volume of content that your competitor has in the index and the frequency of their updates.
Just do it… better
In many cases, like the one in this week’s video, you may only need to improve one of the above elements to get to no.1 position. You don’t NEED a blog for SEO. If your competitor has one though and they rank above you and are considered a “though leader” in your industry, then maybe it’s time to think about it. For most small businesses this isn’t the case though. It’s simply examining what Google likes about the no.1 ranking page and doing it better. If you find that your main phrase is highly competitive, consider using a geodescriptor. For instance if you only service the Melbourne area, append your phrases with the word Melbourne if you think people would be looking for a local supplier. It will be easier to rank for and is more targeted.
Jim’s been here for a while, you know who he is.
