Strategies for discovering competitors and selecting key words
-
Hey Moz community!
What are some tools to use to find out who my competitors are and which keywords they are ranking for?
Next, once I have found out this information, is it best that I try to outrank my competitors for thee same keywords? Or should I be going for key words that are more specific? What strategy should I use when selecting my key words...?
Any help or advice is MUCH appreciated!
Thank you in advance.
-
Thanks for that David, it def helped. Awesome!
-
Hi there,
I would definitely be looking at the Moz Keyword Difficulty tool and other tools like SEMRush http://www.semrush.com/ both are great for gaining competitive insight.
Your second question is well if they are competitors then surely you would be wanting to at the very least have a competitive positioning of your online content with them. I have different competitors for instance for different keywords, I have common grouped competitors and niche competitors, they may be domestic, foreign, a specific vertical and so on.
If you were starting out on employing an SEO strategy then your question actually might be construed as a little back to front, as I would be wanting to analyse my own site's keyword phrase conversions to determine which are the most effective, have the highest CTR etc. and then utilising tools such as the ones mentioned to see who am I competing against with my best converting KWs. Plus you would be able to identify any mismatches of who you deem as your natural competitors against ones that you are not aware of from the analysis you carry out on your own site traffic data.
Hope that helps a little.
David
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
-
Which is the better keyword strategy? Specifying page or seeing what ranks?
I recently began using another third-party tool that requires a list of keywords and the URLs I want those keywords to rank on (for example, "vegetarian recipes" on www.123.com/vegetarian-recipes). Is this a better strategy than using the Moz ranking tool to see which pages on my domain my target keywords are already ranking for? I can see how the former might mean we miss opportunities but the latter doesn't necessarily show how my priority pages are doing for specific keywords.
Moz Pro | | RikkiAyers1 -
My website was at the top of Google search for some years... suddenly I almost can't reach first page! Moz ranks my website better than the competitors... what might be going one? Could anybody help me out? Thanks!
Hello Guys! My website was at the top of Google search for some years... suddenly I almost can't reach first page! Moz ranks my website better than the competitors... what might be going one? Could anybody help me out? Moz rank us grade A... the competitors B or C .. I think we have better back links than they do... Would you need any kind of data or report to help me here? Thanks!
Moz Pro | | wesleyms0 -
Competitor Adwords Keyword Analysis
Hi everyone, My company is exploring moving into a new industry, and I'm struggling a bit with where to start regarding adwords / keywords. I'm wondering if you have any recommendations regarding a tool for analyzing what others in the space are using for keywords in Adwords (preferably including some detail regarding CPC, volume, etc...). There appear to be several options (both free and paid). I'm just looking for what you'd consider a good product (whether paid or otherwise). Thanks in advance and greatly appreciate any insight you may have. Best, Jason
Moz Pro | | ba_seomoz1 -
Competitor Analysis
Hi, Is it possible to use SEOMoz to see the keywords my competitors rank for? Thanks Andrew
Moz Pro | | Studio330 -
How can you measure competitor visitor volumes?
I am trying to understand how I can use SEOMOZ to ascertain the volume of visitors a competitor will achieve either daily, weekly or monthly.
Moz Pro | | edwardlewis0 -
Competitor using Black hat SEO
I think my competitor is using Black Hat SEO. They are a training institute but when I use the PRO tool to check their inbound links, many are links to porn sites. Is this illegal? Can i do something about it?
Moz Pro | | Jigsaw1230 -
Why isn't my Domain Authority much higher than my competitors'?
Looking at the Competitive Link Analysis report shows my domain outperforming my competitors on Domain MozRank, Domain MozTrust, total links, linking root domains, followed linking root domains, and linking c-blocks. But Domain Authority scores are very similar across all four sites with one competitor actually scoring higher than my domain. How should I unpick this result? I'm assuming that there must a problem with my link profile. Is that a valid assumption? Thanks, Tom fc7Ez.png
Moz Pro | | trbaldwin0