I can see competitors ranking for certain long-tail keywords but cannot find them on web pages. What am I missing?
-
Hi there. I'm pretty new to SEO and I've been doing a fair bit of training but there is one aspect I have yet to grasp. When I carry out keyword research, I get all these results and I understand the metrics. What I'm not getting is, when a competitor is ranking highly for say "where can I buy fresh turkeys", I assume that that phrase must appear somewhere on the page, but it doesn't. I realise I'm just not thinking about this in the right way. Can anyone offer clarification, please?
Kind regards,
Bruce
-
Bruce,
No, the phrase does not have to appear on the page and lots of factors determine how a page might rank for the phrase without it being on the page, even things like location of searcher and time of year may influence which site ranks for such long tail terms.
A page might say "I buy fresh turkeys where my grandmother lives" and because of other factors on the domain, it might rank for your search. Or maybe, "they have fresh turkeys where I buy my alien abduction books" and something about the domain helps that page rank for your term.
Things get very squirrely way down at the end of the long tail keywords list. As you learn more, you'll probably begin popping your head up a little higher on that list and figuring out how to beat the competitors, rather than trying to go for the least competitive terms. But that's OK, everyone starts there.
-
Hi Don. Thank you so much for your reply and advice.
Kind regards,
Bruce
-
Google's algorithms are smart enough to know what content is on page. If the page mentions fresh turkeys for sale, your search term should return the site without that keyword on page. It is the purpose of that search to expose places where fresh turkeys could be bought. ?
Many long tail keywords are just phrases and sometimes those phrases make no sense for humans to read. So if your force the term on page it may not allow the rest of the content to be completely coherent. This is not good. Content should be written for human consumption first and foremost.
The best advice is to produce content that is thorough, education and as complete as possible. Then those of the cuff phrases, "fresh turkey near me" "who sells fresh turkey" "fresh turkey stores" will populate search results without those phrases being present on page.
Thanks,
Don Silvernail
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
-
Best of the Web Still Prime Backlink Real Estate
Hello, I was doing competitive research and our top competitor has a clean backlink profile that includes the Best Of The Web directory. The top people on this Q&A used to recommend them and DMOZ for the only true good directory links. Is this still true or is Best Of The Web less important now? We only are listed in a small handful of directories, and not anything recent besides DMOZ. Thanks, Bob
Competitive Research | | BobGW2 -
Keyword strategy for wordpress category base blog in competitive industry
Hi friends, We have a client in the movie review blog industry, which we are aware is highly competitive, but we have tons of content (over 10,000 unique posts) and a good team of reviewers for fresh content. I was wondering about any input on keyword variations for our SEO Title of our wordpress main categories, like "Movie Reviews". I was thinking a modification to "Latest Movie Reviews", but the competition is only slightly less, and still seems questionable for attaining eventual rankings. "Best Movie Reviews" is slightly higher than "Latest Movie Reviews" but the competition still seems tough. What would be a good long term strategy with these category pages, any suggestions?
Competitive Research | | JustinMurray0 -
How to break into a serp dominated by large companies? (but low keyword difficulty)
I'm currently doing some keyword research, and on favourable keywords such as: "weekend breaks in lake district" (320 searches per month with 39% keyword difficulty), I see that all of the first page SERPS are from larger companies (last minute, centerparcs etc) How likely will it be that I can get on that first page, assuming I am focusing my page on that particular keyword. Sparse info I know, but I didn't want to spend hours going down a dead end street. Is it simply that these larger companies are in the top 10 because there are no specific pages targeting that keyword, or do I have little chance?
Competitive Research | | Gordon_Hall1 -
Finding competitors best keywords?
How do I learn my competitor's best keywords? I realize I can add more keywords to my campaign but the problem is - I am not sure I am thinking of the right keywords. I don't want to compare with the keywords I am targeting - I want to know what THEY are targeting.
Competitive Research | | dealblogger1 -
Anybody here look at Alexa Rank and or PageRank when doing research?
Any Seo'ers out there still looking at PageRank and or Alexa Rank? Any suggestions on how to look at these stats? I personally believe both are not relevant in todays SEO researches. I'm i very wrong?
Competitive Research | | PrizeWize0 -
How to check Google Keyword rankings?
Hey, So I recently watched the DuckDuckGo commercial about Google's results bubble. My question is how can you get the actual keyword rankings of relevant key phrases without Google taking your locations and search history into account? Would it just be a case of clearing your cache & history from the beginning of time or is there an accurate tool (other than SEOmoz ofc that I can use? Best regards, Dan
Competitive Research | | Sparkstone0 -
Is there a way to do a reverse keyword search?
I want to enter a domain name and see what keywords that domain is ranked at. Is it possible to do this with Moz?
Competitive Research | | scoutzie0 -
PA and PD better than my competitors is a way to rank better?
I got a site that stuck in last position of google's first page. My on-page is grade A for this particulary page, i got links for that page too. But My competitors PA and PD is better than mine, not too much, but it is. If i build more quality backlinks and start increasing my PA and PD probaly i will rank better than my competitors? Thats the factor that i have do cara abour now?
Competitive Research | | Ex20