Taking Advantage of SEO Competitive Research: Get To Know Your Competitors with KeywordSpy

Each time Google makes revisions on its “Google algorithm, webmasters go gaga trying to figure out and finding new means to cope with the abrupt change fearing that it may bring about tremendous effect on their page rank in the SERPs. This means prolonged working hours and sleepless nights for them trying to figure out the effects as well as remedies for this abrupt change.

So, you think that’s too bad, right? Well, you haven’t clearly seen the entire picture yet. It’s bad enough that you have to constantly keep yourself abreast of the latest features, updates and releases made by Google, and on top of that, you also have to find solutions and techniques so that this sudden change in the Google algorithm won’t greatly affect your page rank. However, it doesn’t end there. After you have figured out how the algorithm works, and optimized your website in order to dance with the tune of the new formula, you still have to consider the fact that you are not alone on your chosen niche. You have competitors who could have found better ways to outsmart the algorithm, thus you also have to find ways to outsmart them. This is the part where competitive research and analysis enters the picture.

Competitive Research and Analysis

Competitive research is the process of examining all aspects that may be affecting a business environment. It mainly asks questions about your competitors, the latest economic trends, government regulations, market structure, etc. However, when it comes to SEO competitive research, the processes involved include studying those websites that are ranking for your targeted keywords in order to have an edge over your competitors. In other words, competitive research is basically the study of your competitors, especially the ones that outranked your position in the SERPs. 

When it comes to competitive research, the more information you have about your competitors in the same niche, the better, as you will be more equipped to proceed on the next process called Competitive Analysis or Competitor Analysis. 

Competitor Analysis’ main goal is to create a delineation of every move and technique a competitor of the same niche may be doing or might do in case of an abrupt change in the Google algorithm or other search engines. This also includes the strategies and possible response or contingency plans a competitor might employ in case another competitor of the same niche made strategic and crucial changes to their site; and the most probable reaction that your competitors will do in cases of environmental shifts and industry changes. Competitor Analysis has been proven to be an effective and efficient approach to analyze and figure out your competitors’ marketing techniques and this will help you to find ways and means to outsmart and step up to them.

Both processes mentioned above are huge parts and two of the most important aspects of organic search engine optimization, which every webmaster should focus on.

Importance of Doing Competitive Research and Analysis

In order to get ahead of your competitors and to totally outsmart them, first, you must understand and figure out why your competitors ranks well and how your site matches up compared to theirs. This will give you a better picture which will help you in setting your goals, which will further help you as to which area you should pay close attention to, for you to have an edge over your competitors.

Determining Your Direct Competitors

Before going gung-ho over analyzing your direct competitors, you also have to consider that not all of your competitors’ techniques will work, thus you should only focus on those competitors’ whose techniques actually worked and are producing great and valuable results in the SERPs. Also, pay close attention to those sites that are ranking well for your keywords, even if they do not belong to the same niche. May be you’re wondering why you have to bother checking sites belonging to other niches --- well, if search engines considered those sites as relevant, thereby giving them high ranking, perhaps it’s  also high time for you to pay attention to those sites, scrutinize and figure out why they are ranking so well. 

In selecting your direct competitors, the major search engines (Google, Yahoo!, and Bing) play an important role. Consider the top 10 ranking sites, having your targeted keywords as gauge, in the major search engines as your most important competitors.

Conducting Competitive Research

The first step would be to know your position in the SERPs for your targeted keywords. Look for those sites that have higher page rank than yours, and try to analyze what they may be doing to get a better position in the SERPs. To do this, you need the right kind of keyword tool because a properly conducted research involves good keyword research tool. There are lots of keyword research tools out there, which may help you, but if you want intensive and up to date data, then you better use KeywordSpy. 

KeywordSpy will not only show you your PPC Competitors, but it will also provide you useful data that will greatly help you with your competitor analysis such as the positioning of your competitors in terms of PPC Keywords and Organic Keywords. Aside from the most effective and profitable keywords being used by your competitors, other information that you can get from KeywordSpy are the following: the Daily Ad Budget of your competitor, Average Ad Position, Average Cost per click, PPC Ad Copies, and PPC  and Organic Keywords.

After searching for your competitor in terms of your targeted keywords, you can now start doing your competitor analysis to look for ways to beat them such as examining your competitor’s link structure, the way your competitor’s website has been optimized,  and the effective keywords that your competitor is using, which is missing in your own campaign. After proper analysis and after you have figured out the key areas in your site that needs improvement and the areas on your competitors’ site that have loopholes, then you can work on this to your advantage.

As you continue to optimize your site, competitive analysis allows you to retain your edge and stay on top of your competitors. However, getting on top of the SERPs is not as easy as staying there. The game goes on as you continuously need to find techniques and develop strategies that will give you an assurance of staying on top.

Site Target Marketing: Getting to Know Your Website's Target Market

Every businessman’s main goal when putting up an online business is to generate sales and to make their website popular. However, marketing isn’t just about letting as many people as possible to know about your business, what’s more important is to let the right people know about your business. How you market and to whom you are marketing are two of the most important questions that every businessman should consider.

So, before starting an SEO campaign, the first thing that every online advertiser should do is to set their target market as this is an important, if not the most important, step in business planning.  Before jumping into any marketing strategies, one should first focus on reaching a very specific target as this will increase your chances of success in the online marketing industry.

Let’s put it this way, imagine yourself trying to shoot a basketball on a ring with your eyes blindfolded, hard isn’t it? In fact, it is nearly impossible to shoot that ball if you can’t even see your target; this concept is applicable to every online business as doing one without having a definite goal or target market will keep you from accomplishing your goal, and that is to generate remarkable sales, get high volume of qualified traffic, create online awareness of your brand over your competitors, broaden your market share, etc.

What is a Target Market and SEO Target Marketing?

Target market is a group of individuals, your main audience, or the visitors that you want to visit your website, which will eventually turn into potential buyers that would avail of your products and services. Target market can be identified in two ways, through demographic profile or psycho graphic profile. Most of the time, your target market will have similar characteristics such as age, gender, education, occupation, and or live in the same geographical area.

It is important to identify your target market in detail before launching your business or website as this will help you in creating a competitive and effective online marketing plan; moreover, this will help you pinpoint the most suitable internet marketing techniques in order to fully maximize your return of investment (ROI). So it is safe to say that the main goal of target marketing is to increase your business’ or website’s efficiency while decreasing your advertising costs.

Target Marketing for SEO is very much similar to ordinary target marketing, as they adhere to the same principle and goal, which is to focus on specific segments of the marketplace, and that, is to cater to those who are interested to your products or services.

SEO target marketing refers to the research and strategy of selecting the most effective terms and keywords to drive the best customer types or best visitor types to your website. The only difference it has with ordinary target marketing is that this one does not only focus on the volume of traffic but it is more concerned on getting high volume of qualified traffic.

Importance of SEO Target Marketing

If you think about it, more than 70% of your website visits come from search engines while the remaining 30% may be a website’s existing customers. Majority of website traffic originated from search engines. In this case, although SEO may only be a part of your marketing strategy, it can’t be denied that it is one of the most significant portion of your plan. Here are some of the benefits that you can get by applying Standard SEO and SEO Target Marketing in your online business: 

  Increase qualified web traffic

  It will maximize your ROI

  Greater conversion rates

  Expanded market share

  Greater awareness of your brand over your competitors

Things to Consider in SEO Target Marketing

1. Defining Your Target Audience.  This involves identifying your audience's age groups, genders, income levels, location, interests, and the likes if they are applicable to the business or website that you're putting up.

Some of the things that you need to keep in mind in choosing and identifying a website's target market are:

• The size of the target market.

• The actual state of your target market (whether your target market is growing or shrinking)

• Whether there is a demand, or lack of it, for your online business in your chosen target market. 

• The probability of monetizing your target market. 

• Possible things that might influence your target market.

After you have properly identified your target market, you can now proceed to the different internet marketing strategies that will help you promote your website or online business. 

2. Market Research.  This is done by catering to a specific demographic or market group. There are lots of sources of market research and some of them have already been gathered and compiled, which you can get by going through the internet or visiting your local library for studies and data that have been compiled and gathered for your particular industry. Just keep in mind that you are conducting market research for three specific goals, first, to identify your competitors' target markets and the one that they are currently catering to; second, to identify the markets where your business will be most profitable; and finally, to pinpoint the specific areas or location where market opportunities exist for your online business.

3. Finding the Right Keyword Phrases. Finding the right phrases for your website or online business is extremely important as this will help drive qualified traffic to your site. For instance, if you are running a flower shop in Miami, Florida, then you should focus on targeting your keyword search along that area because it is where your target market will come from. So instead of using the keyword phrase "flower shop" you should use "flower shop in Miami" to get the right kind of visitors that may turn up as potential buyers.

4. Focus on Having the Right Visitors on Your Site. Don't merely focus on gaining a large number of visitors coming in to your site. SEO target marketing is about getting the right visitors (qualified traffic) to your site even if this means having fewer hits.

5. Getting the Right Inbound Links. Some website owners spend countless hours obtaining as many links as they can in order to increase their inbound links. Although inbound links are important to SEO, not all of them are relevant. Thus, it is important that you only focus on obtaining inbound links that are relevant to your site or inbound links that originated from websites that your target market will surely visit.

6. Know your Competitors. Knowing your competitors' next move, such as determining where they are getting their links and determining their target locations, is another aspect that SEO target marketing is dealing with.

There are still other factors that may be considered in SEO target marketing but the above mentioned factors are by far the most important. By just picking a keyword or keyword phrase, incorporating it to your website, and making some slight SEO modifications, you're ready to target potential customers. This is what makes SEO target marketing very powerful - with a little amount of work; you can create online businesses and web pages that are targeting specific words that will later turn the targeted visitors into buyers and revenue.