MisterSteve
Newbie
- Mar 28, 2016
- 3
- 3
Although keyword tools are great, I picked up a trick way back when that still works pretty well.
Search the KW you are targeting and just look at the first five pages or so of results. Are any of these results Amazon or some such, with insanely high authority that you can't beat? Ignore them. Chances are good that, even though they likely have a strong SEO effort both on and off page, they aren't necessarily relying on those keywords to stay on top and you should sort them out from the rest.
What you are looking for are IM guys like yourself, who are ranking with all the same tricks you see on BHW on a regular basis, meaning they are small time dudes that are using every dirty trick in the book to stand toe-to-toe with the big boys. Whatever they are doing, copy it, starting with the keywords they have targeted. Dig into each webpage (view source) until you are intimately familiar with all of them and can identify exactly how they got the results that they did. I know you are looking for keywords here, but obviously you will want to find out what type of other efforts they are making as well. As far as backlinks go, I would definitely try to ascertain the ratio of links as far as keyword rich anchor text goes. Find out what they are saying in the link itself and what the SEO effort is on the page that they are linking from. With a strong SERP result, you can expect them to have a strong pyramid and a lot of their backlinks you might not be able to find, so extreme due diligence is required (that's why I recommend the first five pages of results, instead of just the top five results or whatever).
I know it seems like a huge effort, and it actually really is a lot of work, but you only have to do it once and then you will be the master of that KW for sure and you will probably learn a lot about your competitors' other SEO efforts as well. Basically, steal their ideas.
Search the KW you are targeting and just look at the first five pages or so of results. Are any of these results Amazon or some such, with insanely high authority that you can't beat? Ignore them. Chances are good that, even though they likely have a strong SEO effort both on and off page, they aren't necessarily relying on those keywords to stay on top and you should sort them out from the rest.
What you are looking for are IM guys like yourself, who are ranking with all the same tricks you see on BHW on a regular basis, meaning they are small time dudes that are using every dirty trick in the book to stand toe-to-toe with the big boys. Whatever they are doing, copy it, starting with the keywords they have targeted. Dig into each webpage (view source) until you are intimately familiar with all of them and can identify exactly how they got the results that they did. I know you are looking for keywords here, but obviously you will want to find out what type of other efforts they are making as well. As far as backlinks go, I would definitely try to ascertain the ratio of links as far as keyword rich anchor text goes. Find out what they are saying in the link itself and what the SEO effort is on the page that they are linking from. With a strong SERP result, you can expect them to have a strong pyramid and a lot of their backlinks you might not be able to find, so extreme due diligence is required (that's why I recommend the first five pages of results, instead of just the top five results or whatever).
I know it seems like a huge effort, and it actually really is a lot of work, but you only have to do it once and then you will be the master of that KW for sure and you will probably learn a lot about your competitors' other SEO efforts as well. Basically, steal their ideas.
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