Competitive Keyword Analysis, how do YOU do it?

**fr@nc!z** · Oct 22, 2008 22:03

Here's how i create KWs for my website:

1) Using KeywordDiscovery.Com, i gather related keywords for a specific page.

2) After gathering related KWs, using Google Insights, im taking a lok which KWs has a high search volume in my target market area.

3) I list the KWs base from KeywordDiscovery and Google Insights.

**JJMcClure** · Oct 23, 2008 02:22

Originally Posted by fr@nc!z

Here's how i create KWs for my website:

1) Using KeywordDiscovery.Com, i gather related keywords for a specific page.

2) After gathering related KWs, using Google Insights, im taking a lok which KWs has a high search volume in my target market area.

3) I list the KWs base from KeywordDiscovery and Google Insights.

Great, that's the very first task and at the end of it you have your keyword phrase seed list. Then how do you do the Competitive Analysis bit?

**JJMcClure** · Oct 23, 2008 02:28

Originally Posted by Phpwnes

good example but i never mentioned not targeting keywords

but instead of spying on the other hunters just set some good bait and wait for the prey to come

And when you've got your bait do you take it to some woods that are stuffed full of other hunters where you've got next to no chance of catching something because there's so much competition, or would you do a 'Competitive Analysis' and find some woods stuffed with things to catch and no one else is hunting there?

Get it yet?

'If you build it they will come' only works for Kevin Costner.

**GoGlobal** · Oct 23, 2008 03:08

Most Powerful keyword analysis tools is only adwords.google.com.........
and I appreciate wordtracker.com

**dtm32236** · Oct 23, 2008 07:21

Originally Posted by fr@nc!z

Here's how i create KWs for my website:

1) Using KeywordDiscovery.Com, i gather related keywords for a specific page.

2) After gathering related KWs, using Google Insights, im taking a lok which KWs has a high search volume in my target market area.

3) I list the KWs base from KeywordDiscovery and Google Insights.

Yeah, but now you have a list of keywords with high search volume (meaning high competition) - so you still have a really good chance of ranking low for them.

What JJMcClure did here was find good keywords with LOW competition, make sure he ranks high for them...

**cchildress** · Oct 24, 2008 17:59

One really easy way to do it I have found is to use Googles Keyword tool in Google Adsense. You just paste in the the list of Keywords and it will come up with other high volume keywords that are similar to what you are targeting. It will tell you for all of your keywords the approx. search volume as well as the level of competition you will be facing. It can do a lot more too so you might want to sign up for an Adwords account even if you never plan on actually doing any CPC advertising.

**seo-neon** · Nov 17, 2008 00:21

well, aside from using adwords of Google, I'm trying to use some other keyword tools, like for example the KGEN add-ons for Firefox... It's quite good and give you complete report about the keywords your planning to use...

**zero_digit** · Nov 17, 2008 00:45

Originally Posted by seo-neon

well, aside from using adwords of Google, I'm trying to use some other keyword tools, like for example the KGEN add-ons for Firefox... It's quite good and give you complete report about the keywords your planning to use...

does KGEN add-ons work effectively?? does anybody uses this??

**andrew784** · Nov 17, 2008 02:42

another really good source is yahoo answers. It's a great way to see what phrases people use when looking for your particular topic or have questions related to your niche.

**Bayliss Trevor** · Dec 1, 2008 16:55

Hi all what does JJ mean in the first post (point 6) by intitle:"keyword" & inanchor:"keyword" ? I know what an anchor link is and a title but I don´t understand what he means, Thank-you for any help

**JJMcClure** · Dec 2, 2008 03:43

Originally Posted by Bayliss Trevor

Hi all what does JJ mean in the first post (point 6) by intitle:"keyword" & inanchor:"keyword" ? I know what an anchor link is and a title but I don´t understand what he means, Thank-you for any help

Hi Trevor, that's a famous name you've got there.

What that search is doing is returning any pages that have the targeted keyword phrase in both the page Title and in the text of an anchor on the page on the basis that pages fitting those criteria are most likely optimised. You could also do 'intitle:' and 'unurl: instead since any page with the keyword phrase in both the page URL and the page Title will most likely be purposely optimised for that phrase, competition in other words.

Some people just prefer to Google the keyword phrase and look at the pages returning and not do the 'inurl:' type searches to identify who the optimised competition are at all, it really comes down to your own personal take on it.

**Bayliss Trevor** · Dec 2, 2008 07:44

Hi JJ,
Yes and I make wind up radios in my spare time when I´m not doing SEO!
Thanks for the reply I kind of understand, I put the following text in google(where mydomain.com is acutally my domain) and I got some weird spammy results mainly to do with sex:

intitle: mydomain.com

so they are all using my domainname in their title?! Thanks

**JJMcClure** · Dec 2, 2008 08:50

Originally Posted by Bayliss Trevor

Hi JJ,
Yes and I make wind up radios in my spare time when I´m not doing SEO!
Thanks for the reply I kind of understand, I put the following text in google(where mydomain.com is acutally my domain) and I got some weird spammy results mainly to do with sex:

intitle: mydomain.com

so they are all using my domainname in their title?! Thanks

Do it for an actual keyword phrase like this:

intitle:"wind up radios"

That will only return pages that have the keyword phrase in their page Title tag. Then you can do the same for (and in any combination you like) inurl: or inanchor: etc etc

Advanced Google search operators

**Bayliss Trevor** · Dec 2, 2008 10:54

That is great thank-you JJ that makes sense now!
I am doing your instructions point by point, I got my list of keywords by going through my site and speaking to people. Now I have wordtracker and I put the most relevant of those words into wordtracker and it has given me a list of about 800(!) words that I am going through to check if I missed out any key phrases(it seems to be a lot bettter than google adwords as somewhere to get ideas about search terms). My mate´s site offers specialist activity holidays in lodges in a few countries so I am optimizing for each country and each activity. If I carry on with your points I will find that I may have '4-5 activity keywords' and then 14 countries as well. Is that a good way of doing it? Thank you again

**JJMcClure** · Dec 2, 2008 11:21

Originally Posted by Bayliss Trevor

That is great thank-you JJ that makes sense now!
I am doing your instructions point by point, I got my list of keywords by going through my site and speaking to people. Now I have wordtracker and I put the most relevant of those words into wordtracker and it has given me a list of about 800(!) words that I am going through to check if I missed out any key phrases(it seems to be a lot bettter than google adwords as somewhere to get ideas about search terms). My mate´s site offers specialist activity holidays in lodges in a few countries so I am optimizing for each country and each activity. If I carry on with your points I will find that I may have '4-5 activity keywords' and then 14 countries as well. Is that a good way of doing it? Thank you again

You're welcome.

I actually do it for slightly more phrases these days, I'll look for as many as 10 or more keyword phrases, some from the keyword analysis some from the server logs that a site is already ranking for, and then try to rank for multiple keyword phrases and concentrate on how that traffic is behaving on site rather than focussing on getting a number one spot with a couple of keywords.

It's not about position so much any more, try and rank for multiple keywords and don't have all your eggs in one basket. This is what I'm hearing from Google and it makes sense.

**Bayliss Trevor** · Dec 2, 2008 11:59

Cheers JJ, so the idea is to optimize the whole site with those (bigger number now!)generic keywords and then add other specific keywords for specific pages?
The way I was going to do it is have a page for each country. On that page I have a list of the lodges. On the lodge pages I will have a static part of the title which is domainname the generic keywords and then the dynamic bit: the country, the lodge some page specific keywords-then drop those keywords throughout the page.
I will then make the url SEO friendly.
That shoulld work I hope-what do you think! Cheers

**David Coveney** · Dec 3, 2008 07:39

I have written a competitor analysis article that tells you how to spy on your competition and to see what keywords they are optimising for and which ones they are bidding on.

**ddzc** · Dec 11, 2008 17:06

Hello.

If a site has many subpages linked from the homepage..shouldn't the homepage have keywords related to those subpages? Say a homepage has 15-20 subjects, would it be okay to use that many keywords instead of 4-5 keywords as suggested in this thread?

Thanks

**fr@nc!z** · Dec 12, 2008 02:15

I found a NEW way on choosing a GOOD KEYWORDS, Im depending now on KEI. Its much scientific approach on getting a GOOD and COMPETITIVE website KWs. Here is the link on how you will compute for KEI:

http://www.1stsearchranking.net/keywords.htm

**JJMcClure** · Dec 12, 2008 04:08

Originally Posted by fr@nc!z

I found a NEW way on choosing a GOOD KEYWORDS, Im depending now on KEI. Its much scientific approach on getting a GOOD and COMPETITIVE website KWs. Here is the link on how you will compute for KEI:

KEI is an old concept, originally nvernted by Wordtracker I think and I use a version of it in my analysis as I'm sure you noticed when you read my first post.

The thing to remember though is that KEI shouldn't be used as anything other than a rough guide to how competitive or not a keyword is and it's for this reason .....

Do a search for a keyword phrase using intitle:, inanchor:, inurl: or any combination thereof etc etc and look at the pages that return, then do a search for the same phrase without using any modifiers, how many of the pages that ranked well for the first search also rank well for the second? Not many is the answer because those factors are not the only ones that Google considers when it ranks pages.

In other words, don't depend too much on KEI, just use it as a rough guide to your optimised competition but still look at the pages that return for the search without using any operators as the ones you need to beat.

**Bayliss Trevor** · Dec 12, 2008 14:18

Thanks JJ that is great stuff makes it all clear. As far as checkingthe backlinks yahoo seems to be not that good as far as I can gather. Is there any other way of checking backlinks? Thanks

**dtm32236** · Dec 12, 2008 14:21

Originally Posted by Bayliss Trevor

As far as checking the backlinks yahoo seems to be not that good as far as I can gather. Is there any other way of checking backlinks? Thanks

Yahoo Site Explorer actually gives pretty accurate results.

That and Google Webmaster tools are your best bets, as far as I'm concerned.

**JJMcClure** · Dec 13, 2008 03:28

Originally Posted by Bayliss Trevor

Thanks JJ that is great stuff makes it all clear. As far as checkingthe backlinks yahoo seems to be not that good as far as I can gather. Is there any other way of checking backlinks? Thanks

I'm with dtm, as far as I know Site Explorer returns every link it finds so I use it as an indicator of how well linked to a page/site is. For proper analysis of the links themselves I use http://www.bestrank.com/tools/ because it has a tool that shows the link text. Very very useful.

This is a good article about Site Explorer