Be A Pro When Making Keywords Research. Semalt Will Help!
Keyword analysis cannot be limited to your own website. Checking the positioning of industry competition phrases has become of paramount importance.
Competition for search engine positions often resembles a war front where every detail counts: from analyzing the map of the opponent's position to resources in the form of heavy artillery and effective intelligence gathering the most important information about the enemy's division plans. SEO works in a similar way; here, not only own resources are important - link back-up or content strategy - but also precise knowledge of the current state of the competitor's market positioning. The enemy - adhering to the quasi-military terminology - must be well understood. These assumptions include, among other things, verification of the competition's keywords.
For which keywords is the competition ranking?
Checking what keywords another website is ranking for is a process that can be done superficially. This can be done using simple and general methods through specialized tools such as the Dedicated SEO Dashboard, which analyzes the status of foreign or local sites. Such variety allows you to freely adjust the options to your needs or budget. Just understand that: the more advanced the analysis techniques are, the higher the costs that should be taken into account.
The basic positioning phrases can be inspected by checking the links in the search engine by entering the combination "site: HTTPS: // www." in the corresponding field. Of course, after the three magic letters, write down the natural URL. The web will display a list of indexed subpages with the assigned phrases. This is obviously a basic - if not very important - solution, but it gives a general overview. They can be treated as an introduction to the actual analysis.
Source code analysis is also worthwhile because it can be done quickly and efficiently. Contrary to what one might think, the lack of direct access to the site does not prevent insight into the competition's keywords. By examining the code - just press CTRL + U or use the right mouse button and the "Examine" option - you get a list of data that, at first glance, may look like a cross between chaos and magic.
In practice, it is a list of commands that make up a given website. In the "head" section, which is the most important for positioning, we find the priority phrases for the website. To check the most important keywords it only takes a few clicks - in this way, what is apparently hidden can be obtained at the website user level.
For which keywords is the competition ranking used? Analysis tools
Data analysis directly from the browser or detailed code navigation can be considered as very basic solutions - giving a general (very general!) overview of the situation. Only specialized analysis software can open the doors to competitors' secrets. These types of tools cost money, but they represent an investment in the knowledge that any entity for whom Google is the foundation of their business needs today in SEO.
Which online competitive analysis tools are particularly important for home-based businesses? Two options worth considering are the Dedicated SEO Dashboard and Ubersuggest. In both cases, one part is paid, and the other is free. But, the SEO Dedicated Dashboard offers trial periods to see how accurately you can check the online competition.
The SEO Dashboard: how to check which keywords your competitors are ranking for?
The Dedicated SEO Dashboard is, first and foremost, very intuitive. After logging into the user panel, simply select the "Visibility Analysis" section from the left-hand menu. The tool only requires the address of your own or your competitors' website - that's enough to generate basic data.
The Dedicated SEO Dashboard goes straight to the analysis of the rival's data. In addition, it contains a separate tab showing who is the most important online competitor in terms of SEO for a given website and is efficient, among other things, for questions such as:
- What are the common keywords of your website and your competitors?
- What is the number of all keywords included for a given domain?
- Which websites do deserve to be observed in terms of positioning and effectiveness tests?
In the DSD, one should not only pay attention to the number of common words with the competition. An interesting analysis material would be, for example, a comparison of this number - depending on the domain - in the Google ranking to three, ten, or more domains.
Since the Dedicated SEO Dashboard allows you to analyze data from any website, the competitive strategy in the context of SEO is like an open book. Just open it to a specific page and discover the details.
By showing individual competitors, the Dedicated SEO Dashboard allows you to quickly access a report that displays all the current keywords. All you have to do is to filter them to see which phrases the competition is ranking on Яmore effectively. This is a rich source of data analysis in the context of your own website - with words, for example, have much potential but are currently unused.
An even more interesting maneuver that can be implemented with this tool is the quick - and in-depth - analysis of competitors' keywords, which is its unique strength. The tool will show a list of active phrases for the rival, but at the same time - not for the tested base website. After using the "View competitor words" tab, the Dedicated SEO Dashboard will show the phrases in which the difference is particularly noticeable - noted on the competitor's website, but ignored in the base one.
Ubersuggest: how to check the keywords for which your competitors are ranking?
The free Ubersuggest tool will also be useful in the initial phase of analyzing the key phrase creation policy. This free SEO tool doesn't give you detailed data and ant be defined even as a basic solution.
It's more of an intermediate solution between a quick word check, for example, in the code and the use of specialized tools. Ubersuggest doesn't take much time: you just have to enter one - or more - address (es) of competing sites. On this basis, it will generate a list of keywords for a given domain. It also provides additional data, from the number of potential searches to its own analysis of the level of SEO competition.
The data that will be provided by this tool can be treated as something curios that can be taken into consideration, but in no way should it be treated as an advanced knowledge base. Nevertheless, Ubersuggest deserves your attention to check the keywords for which your competitors are ranking. All you have to do is enter the website address.
Your competition's website is a potential source of keywords!
When analyzing keywords using tools, it is not always possible to capture all the nuances. Therefore, one part of this analysis should be to examine competitor websites in terms of positioned words - because what you can see in the results is not always visible in the tools.
Wallpaper for colored walls is not so easy to find as the planner shows a result of "0" for the number of searches. Would you be interested in such a product? Probably not! However, many people are interested in such a solution and run, for example, for the purchase of a purple wall.
You should search for such solutions directly on the competitors' websites in the top menu, footer, and blog section.
Analysis of the competition's keywords through solutions in the search engine
It is worth analyzing the words because of what is displayed in the Google search engine and how. Just because someone ranks for a keyword does not mean that the website has to be in position #1. Sometimes all the website has to do is be #3 or #5, and it will still get 90% or more of the traffic.
Direct response
Direct response, known as zero scores, allows you to appear just below the ads and fills almost the entire screen on a desktop computer and one and a half screens on a mobile device. This captures all organic traffic - and we'll write again here that it doesn't necessarily convert (depends on the industry, solution, landing page, etc.).
Accordion - extended fragments
Recently, Google has been paying more and more attention to extended snippets. A good example is an accordion with questions and answers.
We would like to tell you right away that the above accordion has links in sliding blocks - this is very important: thanks to this, there is a great chance for a click from the user. Without these links, the potential customer will expand the excerpt, read it, and... move on. This type of solution is described on the Google website:
Since someone implemented extended snippets to the phrase "the best hotel in New York", this means that for all combinations of this type of phrase, such an accordion will appear.
What to do to analyze the keywords of your competitors, follow these steps:
Prepare tools to work with keywords. In this article, we listed some tools for the job.
- Review a list of potential competitors inside and outside the industry. Note that not all of your business competitors are competitors in terms of organic performance and vice versa.
- Check the list of your own words and those of your competitors. Then, compare the two lists and give all words the appropriate weights and priorities. Put some in the top menu, some in the bottom menu, and cover the rest with descriptions and a blog.
- Track the search results - you can learn a lot of information about the potential benefits.
- Analyze links - analyzing backlinks to your website and your competitors' websites allows you to find interesting places and mimic the actions of the competition.
- Check content - quality content is extremely important and gives you a huge advantage, especially in niche industries.
- Update the word list - every once in a while, for example, once a quarter, start the whole analysis from scratch and include the data from Google Search Console. You never know what's interesting, yet you can find and grow your business in organic results and increase sales.
Why analyze your competitors' keywords?
Competing for rankings and attracting organic traffic from Google, checking your rivals' keywords is one of the cornerstones of your SEO activity. It's not just about analyzing data. Researching rival keywords allows you to:
- understand how rivals operate in the search engine field and what opportunities this may offer;
- check which competitor keywords may also be of interest to you;
- discover new phrases that will generate traffic in the future;
- see what tricks they use to push themselves in the search results;
- see if they are implementing new and interesting solutions.