Competitor Keyword Rankings
-
Is there a way within SEOMoz to uncover the keywords your competitors rank for and their respective SERPs?
Thx
-
Hi David,
I was wondering if you have come across a tool for this? Or what the tool is that Broadbeach recommended? (I can't see his post??)
Thanks
-
Keri, you are of course absolutely correct. One way it can be useful is that it allows organizing your competitor's keywords into related groups
Looking at my own eCommerce analytics identifying those which have proven conversions and matching them with the keyword groups. At this point do the competitor linking research to identify those high value to go after.
Not only is it a great way to understand the keyword landscape (clusters) better but can show keyword phrase variations you can use in creating content.
Never was my intend to blindly use my competitor's keywords and blindly copy their linking / keyword profile.
-
Keep in mind a site can rank for a ton of keywords that no one ever searches for. Our business ranks first in Google (above Wikipedia!) for the string [Fast Gun, Treaty, and Big Gun styles of RC model warship combat] but I can tell you nobody has ever come into my site with that exact query.
-
Hi David,
If you are willing to spend money, then the above is a very good way to go about finding what keywords your competitors are ranking for. Just to clarify, the tool I listed above is free (choose the demo option), the only thing what differentiates the free and paid version, is that the paid version allows you to bring up fancy (and customizable) ranking reports, and it allows you the save the keywords you entered so you can re-check it easier next time. What I just do is save the keywords in an excel file and just copy/paste it each time into the tool. Ranking reports can easily be made yourself anyway and the "hassle" of copy/pasting keywords into the tool for me isn't worth buying the pro version..
Fingers crossed that SEOMoz will have it one day!
Regards
-
I will checkout the tool Broadbeach recommended and see if that suits me.
The only thing is that I am not interested in learning what any particular website is hoping to rank for based on keyword meta research, etc....but what they actually do rank for.
If the suggested "free" tool provides me with that answer I will be a happy camper. Thanks for your input 406Lucy.
-
@David Corner - Based on that input, Broadbeach addressed your question much better than I.
Also, it looks (to me) that there are some close similarities between the described functionality of SEMRush and the free link assistant tracker tool Broadbeach recommends in his answer .
-
Thanks for your input as this is addressing more the reason behind my question.
Even though the "Anchor Text" tab can give insight into what a particular website is aiming to rank for, it does not tell you what they actually rank for. Same holds true for checking their meta keywords.
I think the best and most efficient option is to use SEMRush to get the (excel) list of my competitor 's ranking keywords and their SERP's. It would be a great feature for SEOMoz to have (realize not everything is possible -:).
- Competitor keyword and SERPs
- Get their demand and competitiveness (Google KW tool)
- Filter for low/medium competitiveness and minimum demand
- Use resulting keywords as starting point for linking strategy (process described by 406lucy)
-
406lucy, thx for your answer.
I understand the process you describe which assumes you already have your keywords through traditional keyword research.
For some reason the starting point (including when talking to SEO companies) seems always that keywords obtained through researching demand vs. competition is appropriate starting point.
For what I am trying to accomplish it is important to have the ranking keywords of my competitors with some further pruning is the starting point for the process you described above.
Was hoping to avoid the extra cost of SEMRush or SpyFu in order to obtain the list I am looking for.
Reason why is that knowing my competitor's keywords and their respective SERPs in conjunction with keywords obtained through regular demand / competition research, allows for much more specific targeting.
-
Good day David,
The above information is great. What I could add though is if you add competitors into Open Site Explorer, there is an "Anchor Text" tab you can click, which often shows what keywords they are trying to rank for. It could also be possible that the website might have a meta keywords (even though they were outdated years ago). To access these, go to their website and check their source (ctrl+u), then look for the meta keywords line.
Once you have a general list of keywords that you think they are trying to rank for, instead of manually checking yourself with Google, I use the following software (http://www.link-assistant.com/rank-tracker/). Even with their free version, you can enter any URL, followed by a list of keywords you would like to see the rankings of.
Good Luck
-
The Keyword Difficulty & SERP analyis tool, available with in the pro dashboard [ http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/keyword-difficulty ] allows you to input a keyword or keyphrase - it then returns the top-ranking 10 competitors, who usually fall on the first SERP for the keyword of interest.
By running the report for a number of your keywords, you'll be able to identify which competitors have the best strategies in place, helping narrow your focus on which competitors to target.
Next, you may want to input these competitors into the Open Site Explorer (also in the Pro Tools section) to get insight into their link-building strategies, as well as visiting their websites directly to review their content strategies.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Why my website's Alexa rank is dropping
My website Alexa rank has dramatically dropped in the past 3 months: Website: www.sastasundar.com End of July, 2012: 5217 Global, 265 Local(India) But Now: ** 29260** Global, 2274 Local(India) Definitely something big has affected my global ranking and I'm not able to figure it out. Please help.
Competitive Research | | foreseegame0 -
My (properly optimised) webpage outscores page#1 ranked competitors on page/domain authority ... but I'm only on page#2\. Huh?
I'm puzzled. I've optimised a particular page for a particular search term, and the SEOMoz tool gives me an A for on-page optimisation. So no problem there. I can understand why my webpage/site is being outranked by pages from (for example) the Guardian and Oxford University, but there are several sites that Google is ranking on page #1 though their page and domain scores are well below ours. Specifically: my page/domain authority scores are 46/52, compared with 22/46 for the competitor that Google is ranking #5 - yet we only rank a lowly #12. And it's not as though the particular page in question isn't an obvious and appropriate part of our site. We work with new writers and the page in question offers a selection of creative writing courses. It's not like we're a writing-related site that suddenly has a page advertising fake rolexes. It's not a timing issue either, as most of our links have been in place for a couple of years at least. So I'm puzzled. And concerned. This page of ours was a reliable revenue generator for us and it's dying out there on the page#2 wilderness. If anyone can help, I'd be massively grateful. I don't know if this is helpful, but the page in question is http://www.writersworkshop.co.uk/Creative-Writing-Courses.html and the search term is ... well, heck, you take a wild guess. We're a British firm, so the only search engine that really matters to us is google.co.uk
Competitive Research | | harrybingham0 -
Help ranking for a keyword
Ok well I'm serious about may business and everything I do the problem is that I just can't seem this ranking for a keyword thing I do rank on the 1st plage for every keyword but in this business it's all about the top 3 my page is a pr 2,I can't rank for this keyword it's low competitive the site has a pr 0 and has one back link to it on open site explorer. They rank first. i want to say my site is the best out there I have a seo company working on it and I have spent around 5k on it since we launched it in 2010. I just can't rank for "chesterfield lawn care" or chesterfield lawn service. My webite is www.greensidelawncare.com I have watch the. Videoson here but it just does not answer my question I need to know how to do the right seo. I have a ridiculous amount of content on the site everything I do it to help the customer. It just need to know what to do I have started to blog but what do I need to do to really help my seo? I mean is it blogging should i blog about stuff and use keywords should I blog and not use keywords maybe 50/50? Do I go out and blog about pages on my site or pages that are ranking of google? I heard that links are not as important as they used to be I do try to update my Facebook and twitter pages but its hard to anyone to RT or comment or like my stuff its lawn care it's not that interesting I try to make it as interesting as i can. keywords that I rank for are st Charles lawn care, st Charles lawn service,St. Peters lawn care, st. Peters lawn service, o'Fallon lawn care. Creve coeur lawn care. If you have any suggestions on how to make my site better please let me know. Www.greensidelawncare.com thank you to all that can help me
Competitive Research | | gslc0 -
Slight keyword variation domain name
I have recently changed a clients domain name from a long (23 characters) to a shorter domain name that has a keyword plus a single character variation. For example and without revealing the clients real domain name, let say they are in housing. Ithe first letter in the company name is "p" so i created the doamin name as www.phousing.com It has only been two days since i submitted the new domain name and did a 301 redirect to the new page. When i do a google search i get back the result: housing.com and "did you mean housing.com Will this domain name cause me problems? Any input is greatly appreciated!
Competitive Research | | WebbyNabler0 -
Ecommerce seo - competitors are using spammy links to rank HELP
After setting up SEO Moz and whilst waiting for it to crawl my site i have checked out my competitors who are ranking for the keywords i am going after. It appears from what i can see in OSE that they are ranking with back links from spammy looking sites and lots of exact match anchor text. I have tried to match a few links with what they have currently without getting myself into anything too spammy but i really don't want to follow how they have done it exactly. The niche i am in is pretty boring but the rewards are great but i am finding creating content and distributing it correctly difficult which is why i need some help. My site is roughly 9 months old and the product descriptions are hand written trying to give as much info as possible with a hint of personality so no cookie cutter back of the box descriptions. i have matched a few of the links from competitors which weren't too spammy and as relevant as i could get to my niche, i have also created articles for some article directories - all of which isn't really getting me very far and i am running out of ideas on how to create new content & the types of new content to help me get back links naturally. If any of you friendly guys could offer me some assistance in setting up a basic seo campaign which would help me target my keywords i would be very much in your debt
Competitive Research | | GarethEJones0 -
Your favorite/most comprehensive guide to keyword research?
what's your favorite guide to keyword research? in lieu of having a favorite, what is the most comprehensive guide you've come across?
Competitive Research | | Mozzin0 -
Question about Keywords & Ranking
I hope this isn't too basic of a question, but I am confused about something. If you use the Keyword Research tool and type in "Stained Concrete Flooring", the 3rd result (stainedconcrete.org) has the lowest numbers of any of the sites in the top 8-10... Is it because they have a large amount of traffic? or is there some other factor that I am missing?
Competitive Research | | Timvroom0 -
Keyword Trouble
Having the worse time trying to figure out what keywords to use on my website. Run a E commerce site and we sell HID lighting and aftermarket Lighting or High Intensity discharge lighting. Now when thinking about why people would come to our site...the obvious reason would be to buy HID kits. BUT here is the problem, Every keyword that i throw into the seoMoz keyword difficulty tool or any other tool whether its Google or whatever comes back as super high competition for that word. Now i find low comp words but they don't really relate to my site and could kill my bounce rate percentage. Not sure what i could do or if anyone has any tips that can point me in the right directions. It sounds like i am going to have to muscle my way through this one. Any help please guys.
Competitive Research | | Horrific_ending0