Keyword - Competition between competitors

[choiceenergy]

So, I'm about 2-3 weeks into my subscription and see a renewal coming.  I love the information I'm getting - but I really want to maximize my capabilities with these tools.

Any article/blogs or forum post suggestions that I should read would be awesome,  right now I'm still in that phase where i see lots of cool things -  but have no idea to fully use them to really give me that even bigger boost.

My First Question is - There are some keywords, that I climb and sometimes slip.  But overall a competitor and i flip flop between 15-22 range for it.  What would be a good way for me to really add that extra push to throw me down into the top ten and leave them in the dust?..

Also on the Keyword topic - There are a lot of keywords they probably rank for that I don't, what is the best way to go about identifying keywords they may targeting/have a good presence in that I'm not aware of.

I do have a site that is on multiple newspapers, and .gov sites.  Among other things... This has already proven to be very good for me.  But I'm 99% sure I have a few/lot of leaks, that if they were plugged - We would see a lot of good things come from those results.

[choiceenergy]

I appreciate the input - As for the other question, when i'm in a ranking flip-flop with a big competitor which I am in a few strong keywords - where we both kinda leap frog each other in the 15-22 range - How would i go about adding that extra boost to just leave them in the dust?

Should i be tweaking those pages? or posting some relevant content w/ another variation?

[zeepartner]

A good and quick way to get a feel for you competitor's keywords is checking the meta keywords tag. If you're lucky, they're still using it, thereby sort of disclosing what they want to rank for... Other than that, have a look at their page titles, as most optimized sites usually have their main keywords in there.

[eyepaq]

Hi,

You can also use the campaigns to track movements of your competitor / competitors - it's a really good set of info / feedback you can receive from that side - including rankings for them (usually for the same keywords that you also target).

Seeing movements up and downs for the same keywords for both your website and competitors will give you the right information to act.

As for Open Site Explorer there is no need to talk about it - it's a must for any ongoing campaigns. Tracking both you and competitors in OSE will again, give you the right information to act with no blindfolds.

To discover the keywords however you need a visibility index tool - and with that info you can get back and track those keywords with SeoMoz.

Hope it helps - as a general overview but fi you have more specific questions place them as a reply.

[William.Lau]

Hi Travis,

SEOmoz can be extremely helpful when collaborating with other tools as well, one thing I find extremely useful is Open Site Explorer.

You may use OSE to track where backlinks are coming from for your competitor and perhaps those linking to your competitor will have interest in what you have to offer, because after all you are competitors with similar traits in business.

That is just one of the many things SEOmoz tools can do for you.