July 24, 2020 •DJ Team
If you want to compete, you have to know what you’re up against. Choosing keywords for SEO includes knowing what keywords your competitors are targeting and ranking for. This helps you understand what search phrases are driving business, and which phrases can set you apart from others in the market. These insights and tips will help you create a keyword strategy that helps your value stand out.
What is Keyword Analysis in SEO?
Keyword analysis is the process of figuring out which search terms drive traffic to your website. But you might find you are ranking for terms that have nothing to do with your business. Or because competitors outrank you, there might not be enough leads coming to your site. That’s why the process of keyword analysis needs to include a look at competitors—to help you set goals and turn your website into a better lead generation tool.
Some companies want to choose ideal keywords to bid on for search ranking through search engine advertising, while others define an organic search marketing approach through keyword optimized web copy and content marketing. Many implement a hybrid strategy of pay-per-click (PPC) and organic content marketing. But keyword analysis of self and competitors is the foundation of both strategies.
Keyword Analysis in Google: Tips and Tricks
Competitor keyword analysis can start with Google Keyword Planner. Type the name of your industry, product, and/or service into the Keyword Planner search. This will return a list of mainly short-tail keywords that are 2-3 words long each. These related keywords help you understand how customers are searching for your business. You’ll also see the average amount competition is willing to pay to be seen first for each search term.
Here is some advice to help you make the most of these insights:
- As you examine the average bid for each keyword, think about how it stacks up to the monthly traffic. High search volume doesn’t necessarily mean high clicks.
- High-traffic and high-cost keywords are drivers of traffic that you might target long-term through organic strategy, as well as with a PPC spend.
But keyword metrics uncovered through a planner are just the beginning of understanding how your competitors are taking advantage of business to win clients and customers.
Wondering How Competitors Use Keyword Analysis?
There is an easy and free way to get insight into your competition’s SEO strategy. With many tools that analyze a site’s keyword competitiveness, you can search with a competitor’s website instead of your own. This will provide topics and suggestions based on the keywords their site is currently ranked best for.
Doing this research manually for 3-4 competitors may take time, but the insight is invaluable. You’ll get a sense of what keywords are driving traffic to the competition. And, you’ll get a better sense of the depth of the competition’s SEO strategy to judge how far you have to go to move the needle in your direction.
Use Keyword Analysis to Make Content Decisions
The hardest part about SEO keyword analysis is the work is never done. This is especially true if you have competition who are actively engaged in their own SEO strategies and watching your every move, too. It’s important to make the most of tools that automate the more tedious parts of keyword research and leave marketing talent free to apply the strategy and focus on content creation.
We developed DemandJump in part to make real-time competitor SEO analysis available on-demand. Our platform offers a high-level view of competitor keyword ranking alongside the content audiences are looking for and responding to in the moment. We can prove the power of this combination to improve your search ranking with a free account.
