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
-
Visibility Score Against Top Search Competitors
Top Search Competitors
Competitive Research | | PhoebeK
The competitors that compete for the same keywords as this domain, ranked by visibility. Other websites that compete with this domain for the same keywords, ranked by visibility. Visibility (What does the visibility rating mean on this report)?
For example: If you have a visibility of 8.33 on this report and your competitor has a rating of 6.21 or 4.64, is your visibility better than theirs?0 -
Why our competitor has bigger DA?
I just compare our website www.simpletranslation.com with one of our competitor www.straker.com.au and their DA is much better than ours even we have more external backlinks. Can somebody explain me why? We worked really hard on new content on our blog and did few guest posts and instead of see some results on increasing of our DA our DA went down in last 2 months and I have no idea why.
Competitive Research | | Lukas-ST0 -
Competitor Traffic
Is there any way to know what a competitors traffic is? My website seems to be continuously falling despite attempts to fix and just curious if it's us or an industry issue? Thanks in advance
Competitive Research | | Professor0 -
Local/Geo-Targeted SEO Keywords
Hey everyone, I work for a local jeweler who only has one store and wants to rank for geo-targeted and local results. We want to rank for "jewelry Minneapolis", "Minnesota engagement rings" and terms like that, since we're not an e-tailer we don't need to rank nationally... just in the MSP metro. I've been trying to find a service that has accurate search volume information for local search. I want to see how many searches are being conducted for various terms so I know where to focus our time and effort to rank for these terms. Does such a service exist? Or something that is more geared toward a strictly local strategy such as ours? Thanks in advance for all of your assistance! Jayme
Competitive Research | | jpretz0 -
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 -
Are there any tools to extract keywords and long tail keywords from a site and report keyword density by URL?
I need a tool that does the following: Find exact matches for keywords in content of sites and report keyword density by URL. Then identify the value generated by a particular keyword.
Competitive Research | | MotionPoint0 -
I'v been trying to rank for this word for a long time
Hi, I have this one page designed to rank for a spesific word i google (sweden). The page has a flawless moz grade A on-page. While my competator ranks for their subdomain, also grade A. I rank 6 he ranks 2 in google. Would I be doing a misstake if i 301 directed it to mu subdomain. In visitor perspective it would be a better landig page aswell. I dont want to lose my rank though. Best practice, anyone?
Competitive Research | | SuperlativB1 -
Can't Grasp Why Pages rank Higher?
The first result "Bankruptcy on IRS" is the search term. Why does the first url rank higher in google. The second one, the IRS.gov page beats them in PA, DA root domains links. The title meta has bankruptcy near the front. unclefed does have the IRS keyword in the title, but an I missing something here? What are the other factors, that are most obvious. Sure one can have bad links, and other negative criteria, but these are pretty decent sites that probably don't engage in much in seo, let alone bad SEO. Sure link text and mix of links can help, but am I missing something here? Actually what I think I really need IS A CHECKLIST OF WHAT TO CHECK IN WHAT ORDER WHEN COMPARING WHY ONE PAGE RANKS BETTER THAN ANOTHER. Appreciate all discussions. Thanks in advance. http://www.unclefed.com/AuthorsRow/Daily/Fwdcsea.html http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=98701,00.html
Competitive Research | | joemas990