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Is your competition beating you with
SEO?
You have optimized your website for
winning keywords, are mid-way with your link building campaign, and have been
going absolutely crazy creating fresh SEO friendly content that pleases the
users and search engines.
You are obviously very serious about
your online business, and yet you cannot seem to cross the Rank # 12, Page 2
barrier of Google search listing for your primary keywords.
A series of questions arise from the
imaginary situation above:
1. Why is my ranking for the particular
keyword not going up?
2. Am I missing out on any SEO
strategies?
3. Maybe I am not building enough links?
How much will be enough?
4. Do I have to improve my content
quality?
5. The search engine has changed their
algorithm (again)
6. Others are using illegal SEO
techniques
Now while one could go over the
questions in your head, read up on latest search engine algorithms, contact a
SEO expert, or blindly start buying links out of desperation, there is an easier
way to find your answers.
Simply ask why are the other 10 websites
ranking before your website?
Now that does not mean that the above
questions 1 to 6 are not relevant, but simply put, one of the easiest ways to
boost your search rankings is to study the top 5 to ten websites for your
keyword and then apply what working for them into your own strategies. Now I am not asking you to copy the
competition or have a strategy that just involves beating the competition at the
ranking game. It never works. What is needed is a better balance between your
company's SEO strategies and of those of your competitors. Like in any business strategy, you have
to know your competitors, study what strategies they are using, and then apply
the best of those strategies to your own game plan. In the same way, in defining the SEO
path ahead for your website you must analyze your competition. What are they
doing to rank in the top 10 that you are not doing? After all those websites are
listed on the top for a reason, and they are applying SEO strategies that the
search engine in particular seems to like. Now while finding the answers to those
questions in the real business world may be difficult, in the online world all
you have to do is to right-click and view the source of the page.
The below simple steps will open up a
world of information to you.
1. Does the domain name contain the
keyword? If the link is a sub domain then does the sub domain contain the
keyword?
2. In what Meta tags, title, etc has the
competition placed their keywords?
3. Does the link name contain the
keyword?
4. How many keywords are listed in the
keyword tag i.e. is the page focused around one or two keywords, or is it a
jumble of keywords listed out.
5. Is the title and description
captivating enough? How has the keyword/s been placed in the title and
description and at what position?
6. Is the page graphic intensive? Is the
site using a lot flash or active server pages? Search engines cannot understand
graphics, only the text it can read on the page. Make sure there is a good
balance between the graphics and content.
7. How long is the body text? Writing
400 to 600 words is normally fine.
8. Has the keyword (keyword weight) been
used appropriately in the body content? Ideally the first 25 words of content
should be keyword rich, and the keyword should appear after every 100 words in
remaining content.
9. Is the content interesting to you as
the reader? Does the content follow a theme? Is the content relevant to what
keyword the page has been optimized for?
10. What is the page rank of the page
(You can check page rank of any website by downloading the Google Toolbar at
http://toolbar.google.com
11. Which is the first place in the
source code the keyword appears?
12. Has the keyword been used
appropriately in headline tags and link text?
13. Does the site use java script,
tables, frames, dynamic content, CMS etc?
14. Is the page focused around a theme?
15. How many inbound links are there to
the page? You can check the link popularity of the page on www.marketleap.com?
Visit the sites that have given the link. What is their page rank? What is the
link text that describes the link to the website? Has the keyword been used in
the link text?
16. How many pages does the site have?
17. Does the site have a good site map
that lists all the content pages, videos on the site that search engine spiders
can crawly easily?
18. Are there any 404 errors on the
website?
19. What is the domain name extension
e.g. .com,. net, .edu, .co.in
20. How long has that domain name been
in existence? Search engines rank those sites better that have been around for a
while, or those that plan to be around for a while?
21. How many directories has that
page/website been submitted to?
22. Has the site used any spamming or
illegal SEO techniques like keyword stuffing, cloaking, hidden text, duplicate
content and other such spam techniques?
Please note that sometimes you will find
no reasons why the competitors' website is ranked above yours. And that's ok. I
have experienced many cases of certain sites which go against the search engines
guidelines (set by search engines themselves), and yet they rank above
meticulously optimized pages.
Search engines are constantly trying to
remove badly optimized or spam pages which offer little or no value to the
users. Our intent here is not to focus on the missing pieces/loopholes of search
engines algorithms or isolated instances of sites that don't deserve it and yet
are ranking high, but to work within the framework and guidelines for the long
haul.
By mapping out the answers
to the above questions (preferable on a spread sheet), you will find the overall
patterns of what is working for those sites and why, and then figure out ways to
modify your SEO strategies to improve your rankings. |
