Finding Targeted Keyword Phrases Your Competitors MissDaria Goetsch Search Innovation
Finding keyword phrases your competition is missing is easier than you might think. Combinations of two and three word phrases are often overlooked by your competitors when vying for top competitive terms. This missed opportunity may be a benefit to you to overcome your competition in search engine rankings.
Think Like A Searcher - Study Your Target Audience Really look at audience you want to bring to your website. Are there terms you might not ordinarily use, or that your competitors use, that would work for a small portion of visitors? Remember that single words tend to be more competitive. Find two and three word phrases that would work for a searcher looking for your website topic. If your visitors usually search on "vertical widgets", look at "horizontal widgets" as well. Dig deep to find terms that might not be obvious to you. Be sure to focus your terms on actual topic of your website, and terms that people would really search for. Have another person compile a list of keyword phrases used to find your website or product. You'd be surprised at number of variations two minds can come up with instead of one. Think like a searcher - not a website owner.
View Your Competitor's Source Code And Content For Keyword Phrases Viewing your competitor's source code is very easy and a good way to see what keyword phrases (if any) they are using. Using your browser, view source code of their page. The title and meta tags should contain same keywords or variations of keyword phrases if competitor's website is optimized. Look over web page content as well as for keyword phrases worked into text, image alt text, headings and hyperlinks of pages. If their pages are not optimized you may gain an even bigger edge on competition by optimizing your web pages.
Using Keyword Tools To Find Variations Of Keyword Phrases The Overture Suggestion Tool will provide keyword variations. You can find tool at http://www.content.overture.com/d/USm/ays/index.jhtml
Clicking on suggestion tool link will bring up a window that allows you to search for terms and variations of terms. Begin with your list and see how many variations come up with results. You might be surprised at popularity of some of search variations you see. Be sure to add you new keyword phrases to your list.
WordTracker is a keyword tool as well, you can purchase a yearly subscription or even a one day subscription. Learn more about it here: http://www.wordtracker.com/
Search On Keyword Phrases In The Search Engines Using your expanded list of keyword phrases, search for those terms in search engine databases. Note number of search engine results. The more results, typically more competitive term. See differences in number of search results for plural versions as opposed to singular versions of your keywords in each engine. Note descriptions that search engine results bring up - are there any keyword phrases there that might apply to your website? Don't forget ads Google displays in their search results. Study ads that come up with your search terms as well. While you are searching on your keyword phrases, check your competitor's ranking, along with new keyword phrase variations you come up with through Overture Keyword and WordTracker tools.