In a previous post, we listed eleven (11) onsite search engine optimization tasks focused on optimizing the site structure: file inventory; file structure; site link planning; sitemaps; domain names; directory and file names; breadcrumbs; caching programs; hypertext access (.htaccess) files; restructuring issues; and sub-domain issues.

This post will dive deeper into the second task on that list — the file structure.

With new sites, planning out the file structure is easy. But with existing sites, optimizing the file structure will involve working around the current setup or attempting a major restructuring (see the last sub-section in this site structure optimization stage).

Optimizing the file structure centers on the directory structure and how individual pages are distributed among the root and directories.

While some SEOs recommend no directories or sub-directories, this is simply not practical for most websites. Instead, the ideal file structure will tend to have some or all of these elements:

• Thematic directories. The directories should be organized around themes. Your groups and categories will prove helpful when deciding which directories to create. Thematic directories will help search engines determine the topic for the pages in that grouping.
• Directory home pages. Each directory or grouping will typically have its own “index” or home page. This directory home page will have links to the other pages in that directory.
• Avoid unnecessary sub-directories. You can have directory folders, but try to avoid sub-directories as much as possible… unless you don’t need search engines to index the pages in those sub-directories. Ask yourself if those sub-directories are absolutely necessary.
• Two (2) clicks from home. Strive to make sure that all internal pages are connected to the home page by no more than two clicks. In other words, a visitor (or a search bot) on the home page should be able to find every page you want Google to index within two mouse clicks.

One of the easiest ways to ensure that all public pages are no more than two clicks away from the home page is to add a link to those pages on the sitemap and then place a link on the home page to the sitemap. That will be another post to come in the near future, as part of this onsite optimization section.

But first we’ll discuss site links (not the same thing as sitemaps) in the next post.

Next SEO Manual post:  Onsite Optimization – Site Link Planning

The Web1Media SEO Manual is an advanced search engine optimization (SEO) guide developed by Web1Media and serialized for public use. The SEO tactics, strategies and fundamentals discussed in this SEO guide have been gleamed from our own experiences in the SEO, SEM and online marketing arena. If you would like to cite any portion of this SEO guide for non-profit use, we would be honored and simply request a citation link.

Please don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS feed to receive our upcoming blog posts. More importantly, because SEO is so dynamic, we encourage and invite any comments, corrections or questions you may have in the comment section below.

This blog post is sponsored by Rentini.com

In the previous post, we listed eleven (11) onsite SEO tasks focused on the optimization of the site structure: file inventory; file structure; site link planning; sitemaps; domain names; directory and file names; breadcrumbs; caching programs; hypertext access (.htaccess) files; restructuring issues; and sub-domain issues.

This post will dive deeper into the first task — assembling and analyzing the file inventory.

Strictly speaking, creating the file inventory is not optimization. But it opens the door for the rest of the site optimization, as well as the link-building (especially in assigning keywords to pages). Before you can optimize the site structure, you need to understand what pages, directories and files comprise the site.

When I first started, I actually did this manually… simply because I didn’t know any better. That all changed as soon as I found tools to automate this tedious task.

Fortunately, you won’t have to make the same mistakes I did. There are several spider (web crawling) tools available on the market today. I personally use SEOmoz’s crawl check (which also checks for broken links and page authority measurements) and Screaming Frog. These crawlers will spit out a spreadsheet that will include the following:

• URL of all pages found via “crawlable” links.
• Title tags of all crawled pages
• Description tags of all crawled pages
• Crawl issues that may block web crawlers sent by Google, Bing, etc.
• Number of outbound links
• Number of inbound links
• Page authority measure or PageRank

Note that not all SEO spider tools are alike. The basic SEO spider tries to scan your website’s pages and files as if it were a search engine bot. However, the specific data fields they collect and provide you will vary among the different tools.

Next SEO Manual post:  Onsite Optimization – File Structure

The Web1Media SEO Manual is an advanced search engine optimization (SEO) guide developed by Web1Media and serialized for public use. The SEO tactics, strategies and fundamentals discussed in this SEO guide have been gleamed from our own experiences in the SEO, SEM and online marketing arena. If you would like to cite any portion of this SEO guide for non-profit use, we would be honored and simply request a citation link.

Please don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS feed to receive our upcoming blog posts. More importantly, because SEO is so dynamic, we encourage and invite any comments, corrections or questions you may have in the comment section below.

The driving principle behind optimizing the site structure is to make the website faster and more efficient – for both search bots and humans alike.

The site structure must aid human visitors quickly find the pages and files they’re looking for on the site. Similarly, the optimized site structure will help web crawlers sent by Google, Microsoft and other search engines to quickly index all the pages that need to be indexed.

With those objectives in mind, the list below summarize the tasks involved in optimizing the site structure. We’ll go into more detail about these site structure SEO tasks in the posts that follow.

1. File inventory – catalog all of the pages and related files in the current website.
2. File structure – determine the site’s thematic directory structure and propose improvements that will help establish themed directories and ensure all public files are routinely indexed.
3. Site link planning – incorporate preferred site link pages into file structure to take advantage of Google’s new format favoring branded sites.
4. Sitemaps – create both HTML (visible) and XML sitemaps to mold indexing, as well as image, geo/KML, video and news sitemaps, when applicable. Then submit the sitemaps to major search engines.
5. Domain name – with new websites, try to find a domain name that contains your primary keyword target.
6. Directory & file names – as you plan new pages (or redirects), try to insert target keywords into the file names and directories.
7. Breadcrumbs – a simple method for providing a navigation trail for visitors, which also adds additional links, especially when CSS-based.
8. Caching program – install a caching program to speed up page uploads, especially with dynamic CMS websites.
9. Hypertext access file – optimize the .htaccess file to make the site faster.
10. Restructuring – before restructuring an existing website and its existing (and indexed) files, make sure you have a detailed plan that conserves all search rankings and authority.
11. Sub-domains – though not as effective for SEO as in the past, they can still serve a purpose.

Again, the posts that follow will go into more detail about and provide examples for these specific website structure optimization tasks.

Keep in mind that the site structure must consider both the search engine bots AND the human visitors to the site. The navigation structure, in particular, must strive to help visitors quickly find the information or files they’re seeking

Next SEO Manual post:  Onsite Optimization – File Inventory

The Web1Media SEO Manual is an advanced search engine optimization (SEO) guide developed by Web1Media and serialized for public use. The SEO strategies, tactics and principles discussed in this SEO guide have been gleamed from our own experiences in the SEO, SEM and online marketing arena. If you would like to cite any portion of this SEO guide for non-profit use, we would be honored and simply request a citation link.

Please don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS feed to receive our upcoming blog posts. More importantly, because SEO is so dynamic, we encourage and invite any comments, corrections or questions you may have in the comment section below.

The purpose of onsite optimization is to improve the current or proposed site structure and elements, so as to allow more efficient indexing by search engine bots. Secondarily, onsite SEO will facilitate the content generation and offsite optimization campaigns.

The various onsite SEO factors can be grouped into four categories:

• Site structure
• Technical setup
• Content
• Internal linkbuilding

The various tasks involved in these four onsite optimization categories will be listed and then further described in the sections that follow.

Before diving into these tasks, however, there are a few preparation steps that SEOs need to perform.

When optimizing an existing site, I often start by running the Raven Tools website quality and website design analyzers. These reports provide a quick review of the site’s current strengths and weaknesses.

Whether you do it manually or use Raven Tools or some other software, your analysis will continue throughout the SEO process, especially during the keyword research and onsite optimization stages. But in addition to reviewing the automated reports, it’s advisable to physically review the site so as to get an understanding of its SEO condition.

As you do so, here are a few things to consider:

• Unique pages. Having more pages is a good thing – if they’re all unique. Duplicate pages (including those with only a few words or phrases changed) are worthless and need to be rewritten or replaced.
• Directory structure. How deep does the sub-directory structure go? Directories and subdirectories are nice for organizing your files. But sub-directories (especially sub-sub- and sub-sub-sub-directories) can be counterproductive and can hinder the Google search bot. If you must have sub-directories, make sure you have strong sitemaps with deep links directly to key pages in those sub-directories.
• Page groupings. Google tries to understand what pages and groups of pages are about by looking at the common themes they share. To assist in this, try to group your pages into file directories with the same theme. For example, one folder many contain all your articles on auto loans (as opposed to mortgage loans).

Next SEO Manual post:  Onsite Optimization – Site Structure

The Web1Media SEO Manual is an advanced search engine optimization (SEO) guide developed by Web1Media and serialized for public use. The SEO principles, strategies and tactics discussed in this SEO guide have been gleamed from our own experiences in the SEO, SEM and online marketing arena. If you would like to cite any portion of this SEO guide for non-profit use, we would be honored and simply request a citation link.

Please don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS feed to receive our upcoming blog posts. More importantly, because SEO is so dynamic, we encourage and invite any comments, corrections or questions you may have in the comment section below.

Now that you have your keyword priorities, it’s time to assign them to specific pages.

On those pages, your assigned keyword target will be placed in key positions, such as the title tag, description meta tag, headline, first paragraph, sub-headers and closing paragraphs. You’ll also use that assigned keyword to guide your SEO link-building for each page.

Here’s an effective method for assigning keywords to specific pages:

1. List current URLs. Using Excel, make a list of the current content pages on your site. Put the URL for these pages in column A. [Okay, this can be quite time-consuming if your site have hundreds of pages. That's why many SEO providers use the SEO Web Crawler tool in SEOmoz.]
2. Label keyword columns. Label column B as the “Primary Keyword” assignment column. Then label column C as the “Secondary Keyword” column. Here you can indicate related keywords that can also be used in those pages.
3. Current rankings. Run a keyword search to see which of the current pages already rank for certain keywords. Whenever possible, assign those keywords to that page.
4. Existing pages. Go through the pages and assign as many of the keywords as possible to the pages you already have.
5. New pages. You will probably have more keywords than you have pages (especially with brand new sites). Now create proposed page URLs and assign keywords to them. This will become the priority content list for your copywriter.

Note that this keyword research step may overlap with the “File Inventory” step in the next chapter. The file inventory will provide a spreadsheet listing all the current pages and files in the website.

You may want to exclude your home page from this list. As mentioned earlier, you want your top priority keywords to be present on your home page and key organic landing pages (or at least as many as possible). Consequently, your home page may have several (3-20) keywords assigned to it.

Next SEO Manual post:  Onsite Optimization Protocol

The Web1Media SEO Manual is an advanced search engine optimization (SEO) guide developed by Web1Media and serialized for public use. The SEO principles, strategies and tactics discussed in this SEO guide have been gleamed from our own experiences in the SEO, SEM and online marketing arena. If you would like to cite any portion of this SEO guide for non-profit use, we would be honored and simply request a citation link.

Please don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS feed to receive our upcoming blog posts. More importantly, because SEO is so dynamic, we encourage and invite any comments, corrections or questions you may have in the comment section below.

With hundreds, if not thousands, of available keywords in your target list, you now need to decide which keywords will get top priority as you begin your site optimization and link-building. The previous step will make this very simple.

Before you dive into this stage, keep in mind two results you’re trying to generate:

• Top Priority keywords. These top 5-25 keywords are ones that will receive the bulk of your keyword focus. You’ll want as many of these top priority keywords on your home page, as possible, as well as on key organic landing pages.
• Content guides. The categories you created will help you develop themed content silos. Now, you’ll take it a little further to prioritize which of those silos need content first.

Sample Procedure

So how exactly do you do all of this? Here’s one method frequently used by SEO specialists to prioritize the final keyword list:

1. Prioritize groups. On a piece of paper or document, start by making a quick priority list using just the group or category names (brand, buyers, affordable, etc.) you created in the previous stage. Remember your overarching goal of sales, lead-generation or branding as you make this priority list. Most online marketers and ecommerce website owners will want to focus on the “buying” keywords, as they are more likely to convert into leads and sales. If you’re running a branding campaign, you will probably want to focus on high-volume research and shopping keywords.
2. Create a priority column. Insert a new column in your spread sheet and label it “Priority.” This column will be used numerically prioritize the keyword targets.
3. Pre-sort by traffic volume. Run Excel’s sort tool to arrange the keywords according to keyword volume, with the highest traffic volume at the top.
4. Sort by group priorities. Next, use Excel’s sort tool to sort by your group priorities. Remember that Excel’s sort tool allows you to add and sort by multiple levels. If you have a “Buying Keywords” column, then you’ll probably want to make sure that it is the primary search level — especially if you’re conducting a lead-generation campaign. The end result will have the keyword with the highest traffic in the highest-priority group at #1, followed by the rest of the keywords in that group.
5. Fill in priority column. Type in the number “1” in the top data cell of the “Priority” column, then complete the series throughout the entire column. Your keywords should now have preliminary numbering according to priorities. The emphasis here, however, is on preliminary.
6. Manual adjustment. Now go through the list to see if there are other keywords in lower-ranking groups that you feel should be near the top for priority. Just renumber those individual keywords, resort and make overall corrections.

An Important Note About Competition

Some beginning online marketers and SEOs recommend using the Adwords “competition” rating as part of your prioritization formula… and go with lower competition keywords. We strongly believe that you should exercise caution before heeding that advice.

The problem with that approach is that it’s based on mistaken assumptions (and often a great deal of ignorance):

• Competition rating is based on Adwords PPC bidding. As more advertisers bid on a specific keyword, that keyword gets a higher competition rating. But that’s PPC, not organic, competition. The competition level doesn’t measure how hard it is to rank for those keywords, though there may be some correlation.
• High competition is good. Advertisers are bidding for these keywords for a reason: they make money. These keywords with high competition levels tend to be the ones that are most likely to convert into leads and sales.
• Low competition is weak for a reason. Similarly, there is a reason why some words have big traffic volumes but low competition levels. They tend to be too general and not as effective for generating sales and leads.

Take a tip from top PPC advertisers, who have real money on the line. They put their focus on keywords that will deliver, and they accept the fact that there will be competition for those keywords.

Next SEO Manual post:  Keyword Research – Keyword Assignments

The Web1Media SEO Manual is an advanced search engine optimization (SEO) guide developed by Web1Media and serialized for public use. The SEO principles, strategies and tactics discussed in this SEO guide have been gleamed from our own experiences in the SEO, SEM and online marketing arena. If you would like to cite any portion of this SEO guide for non-profit use, we would be honored and simply request a citation link.

Please don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS feed to receive our upcoming blog posts. More importantly, because SEO is so dynamic, we encourage and invite any comments, corrections or questions you may have in the comment section below.

At this point, you’ll have hundreds, if not thousands, of keywords in your full list. Now, you need to put keywords into categories. Again, an Excel spreadsheet is highly recommended for this exercise.

Note that if you plan to use these keywords for a PPC campaign, the Google Adwords Editor and Market Samurai (as well as other 3rd party PPC management programs) have a keyword grouping tool. Unfortunately, they don’t analyze for buyer intent, which is what most commercial websites need when grouping large keyword lists.

Consequently, you’ll need to do your keyword research manually. Start by creating a backup copy of your keyword spreadsheet and then adding columns for the following categories:

• Geography. If you’re targeting specific regions, states or metropolitan areas, you can indicate that group in this field. For example, you can mark all the keywords with “California,” “CA,” “Cal” or “Los Angeles” with something like “California” in this column. Later, when you need the keywords for your California-focused pages, you can sort by this column and get quickly get the keywords.
• Brand. Many consumers shop by recognized brand names. You can get in front of these buyers (even if you’re a competing brand) by showing up on search engine results when branded keywords are used. In this column indicate the uniform brand name used.
• Buyers. You can call this column “hot,” “top target” or any other label you want to use. The bottom line is that these are keywords used by consumers who are in the buying or action mode – making them top prospects if you’re looking to generate leads or sales. Now just as you can use state grouping names in the geography column, you can use specific sub-groups in this column to create specific groupings of keywords. Here are a few I like to use:
• Affordable. These are keywords that indicate that the consumer is searching on price. They usually use modifiers such as “cheap,” “low cost,” “inexpensive” and “affordable.”
• Comparison. These are keywords that indicate that the consumer is searching for ratings and reviews of products or companies. They usually use modifiers such as “best,” “top,” “review” and “compare.”
• Apply/Buy. These are keywords that indicate that the consumer is looking to buy or apply now. In fact, they tend to include modifiers such as “apply,” “purchase” and “buy.”
• Need. An increasingly common search… “I need to buy ______”
• Speed. These are keywords that indicate that the consumer is looking for something fast. They typically use modifiers such as “fast,” “quick,” “same day” and “immediate.”
• Convenience. These are keywords that indicate that the consumer is looking for a convenient way to shop or buy. The most common keywords used are “easy,” “ez” and “hassle free.”

So is this all necessary? For serious SEOs, thorough keyword analysis is very important. Even if you don’t think it’s necessary, it may prove a very useful exercise… especially when it comes time to set keyword priorities.

Next SEO Manual post:  Keyword Research – Keyword Priorities

The Web1Media SEO Manual is an advanced search engine optimization (SEO) guide developed by Web1Media and serialized for public use. The SEO principles, strategies and tactics discussed in this SEO guide have been gleamed from our own experiences in the SEO, SEM and online marketing arena. If you would like to cite any portion of this SEO guide for non-profit use, we would be honored and simply request a citation link.

Please don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS feed to receive our upcoming blog posts. More importantly, because SEO is so dynamic, we encourage and invite any comments, corrections or questions you may have in the comment section below.

After compiling a huge preliminary list of keywords, it’s now time to clean it up and then get more reliable traffic numbers. Here’s what you’ll need to do during this stage:

1. De-dupe. Excel spreadsheets make it easy to remove duplicate keywords. Just select the “Data” tab and then click on the “Remove Duplicates” function. When the option window opens, select only the column containing your keywords.
2. Filter for relevancy. Next, sort the keyword list alphabetically and save a back-up copy. Then, go through the whole list and remove keywords that are obviously not relevant. When in doubt, keep the keywords.

Yes, this will be a long and tedious process. But it’s necessary.

On the bright side, if you invest the time in learning Excel, you can use some of its built-in feature to help you automate parts of the process. [For example, you can create a search column that indicates whether a certain word or phrase (that you know is used in non-relevant keywords) is present in any of the keyword phrases. It’s then easy to delete groups of non-relevant keywords.]

Phrase Match

This step is optional, but it’s useful for getting more accurate search traffic numbers – and making smarter decisions when prioritizing keywords.

Once you have cleaned up your keyword list, I recommend running them again through the Google Keyword tool. But this time set it to “phrase” match, select the “only show ideas closely related to my search terms” box and run up to 99 keywords at a time.

Then download and consolidate the results. Phrase match traffic estimates are limited to searches that actually contain those keywords. [Broad match traffic numbers can be too broad and give an overly large estimate of potential traffic volume.] Although phrase match search volumes are still estimates, they’re more accurate.

Google Traffic Estimator

If you plan to use these keywords in a PPC campaign, I also recommend that you run them through the Google Traffic Estimator tool in Google Adwords. This will give you Google’s estimate on how many visitors you can get when bidding for those keywords.

Even if you don’t intend to launch a PPC campaign, this may still be a worthwhile exercise. By choosing a high bid and budget, you can see Google’s estimate for #1 average ad placement. That can also give you an indication of how many visitors you could get if and when your site starts ranking #1 organically for those keywords.

Market Samurai

The Market Samurai program offers a useful keyword prioritization tool to consider. Upload the collected keywords into the premium version and use the filtering tools to receive suggestions for top keyword targets. Click here to download a free version.

Next SEO Manual post:  Keyword Research – Keyword Categorization

The Web1Media SEO Manual is an advanced search engine optimization (SEO) guide developed by Web1Media and serialized for public use. The SEO principles, strategies and tactics discussed in this SEO guide have been gleamed from our own experiences in the SEO, SEM and online marketing arena. If you would like to cite any portion of this SEO guide for non-profit use, we would be honored and simply request a citation link.

Please don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS feed to receive our upcoming blog posts. More importantly, because SEO is so dynamic, we encourage and invite any comments, corrections or questions you may have in the comment section below.

The main purpose of this stage of the keyword research process is to build up a big (initial) keyword database… as big as possible.

How many keywords should be in your list? National insurance company websites offering multiple lines and carriers may have 10,000 to 25,000 keywords once all is said and done.

Again, the objective for this stage is to build as big of a list as possible!

You’ll eventually start cutting back during the clean-up, categorization and prioritization stages. But for now, it’s recommended that you work on finding as many relevant keywords (with search traffic) as you can.

Besides building a thorough list, this exercise will help you understand the search market for your target website. Seeing the many ways that your audience shops and searches will help you develop a better understanding of your target audience.

You will need to access keyword tools to begin your keyword research in earnest.

Alternative keyword research tools

In addition to the Google Keyword Tool, there are several free and paid 3rd party keyword tools available. Unfortunately, they’re not consistently reliable and don’t have the volume Google offers.

The granddaddy of keyword tools is Overture, but it was discontinued by Yahoo in 2008. Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery give decent keyword suggestions, but they sample less than 1% of the web and purchase their data from servers and 3rd party search engines. Bing also has a downloadable Excel add-on that can search Bing keyword data.

I do recommend running your top keywords through the free versions of these programs to see if they spit out any new keyword ideas. You can then add these new keywords to your growing list. But don’t bother with the search numbers as their accuracy is unreliable due to their low sampling data.

Google Keyword Tool (in Adwords)

The main keyword research tool all experienced SEOs use for the bulk of their research is the Google Keyword Tool (found in Adwords.Google.com). Nobody can beat their sample size, and they’ve taken steps to bring their volume estimates closer to reality. [The knock on Google keyword data in the past was that they included too many non-human and automated searches in their volume data.]

It is important to note that their search volume numbers are just estimates. They lack precision, and seasonal trends will greatly affect monthly, weekly and daily volumes.

The Google keyword tool also has some quirks that will affect your results. For example, if you type in more than two keyword phrases, the number of keyword suggestions it generates will be much smaller. And if you type in 100 keyword phrases into the Google keyword tool, chances are that you’ll get the search estimates for those 100 keywords – but few other suggestions. But if you only type in one or two keyword phrases, the Google keyword tool will suggest up to 800 (for popular keyword topics).

You will also need to have your Excel spreadsheets handy. With that in mind, here’s a recommended method for using the Google keyword tool to build the biggest initial keyword list possible:

• Broad match search. Start your keyword search in the Google Keyword Tool with the match type set to “broad match.” This will open the flood gates for maximum keyword suggestions.
• Bulk searches. If you already have a big starting list, put them all into the Google Keyword tool. New suggestions will usually come at the end of the generated list. Add those new keywords (if relevant) to your list.
• Top volume keywords. As Google generates suggestions, pick out the relevant keywords with the highest volumes and run them through the Google Keyword tool two (2) at a time. Google will then generate up to 800 keyword suggestions. Download these keywords into your spreadsheet. If you see other high-volume keywords (on these new suggestions) that seem relevant, then run them two at a time through the Google Keyword tool to get even more.
• Top competition keywords. Next pick out the relevant keywords that have the highest competition levels (more on this later) and run them through the Google Keyword tool two at a time. High PPC competition levels mean that advertisers are bidding actively on these keywords. These advertisers are bidding on these keywords because they know that they convert well. Again, download these keyword suggestions into your spreadsheet.
• Buyer keywords. Pick out the top “buying” keywords and run them through the Google Keyword tool two or three at a time. This should generate similar high-conversion keywords you can add to your list. [For example, “cheap birthday gifts” will generate keywords like “low-cost gifts” and other suggestions that have traffic volume.]
• Geography keywords. If there are specific regions, states or metropolitan areas you want to target, run your top keywords through the Google Keyword tool, but use geographic modifiers in its different forms. For example, “dallas mortgage loans,” “mortgage loan dallas tx” and “affordable texas mortgage loans” keywords for a mortgage loan list.

You may want to place your geography keywords in a separate spreadsheet to ease with the subsequent categorization.

This exercise will produce a great deal of duplicate keywords and even more non-relevant keywords. That’s okay. You’ll filter them out in the next step of this keyword research process.

This powerful tool provides a great deal of keyword data. But in addition to the new keyword suggestions, the most important data provided are the competition levels and the estimated traffic volume. Note that “local search volume” refers to the country, so the local volume refers to traffic across the U.S. (if you set U.S. in the geographic settings).

Next SEO Manual post:  Keyword Research – Keyword Cleanup

The Web1Media SEO Manual is an advanced search engine optimization (SEO) guide developed by Web1Media and serialized for public use. The SEO strategies, tactics and principles discussed in this SEO guide have been gleamed from our own experiences in the SEO, SEM and online marketing arena. If you would like to cite any portion of this SEO guide for non-profit use, we would be honored and simply request a citation link.

Please don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS feed to receive our upcoming blog posts. More importantly, because SEO is so dynamic, we encourage and invite any comments, corrections or questions you may have in the comment section below.

To determine the top search competitors for your target website, just run the top product keywords you’ve compiled so far to see who consistently ranks on the first pages of Google and Bing’s SERPs.

In addition, you can use the Raven Tools SEMrush feature, as well as top competition tracking services such as SpyFu.com and Compete.com, to find organic competitors (who are going after the same keywords as you).

After identifying the website’s main online competitors, use the following tools to determine what keywords your search engine competitors are targeting:

• SEMrush. This tool can tell us what keywords a website is currently ranking for on search engines. The basic version is available for free in Raven Tools.
• Website analyzer. This Raven Tool function determines the main keywords promoted by the site’s existing content.
• SpyFu or Compete. Both of these tools identify the keywords that competitors are bidding on in the Bing and Adwords PPC market. They are expensive, but they provide useful data. Note that there are other competition analysis tools, but these two are the most popular.

Add the relevant keywords from your competition analysis to your keyword list and continue to build your initial working database.

Next SEO Manual post:  Keyword Research – Keyword Aggregation

The Web1Media SEO Manual is an advanced search engine optimization (SEO) guide developed by Web1Media and serialized for public use. The SEO fundamentals, strategies and tactics discussed in this SEO guide have been gleamed from our own experiences in the SEO, SEM and online marketing arena. If you would like to cite any portion of this SEO guide for non-profit use, we would be honored and simply request a citation link.

Please don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS feed to receive our upcoming blog posts. More importantly, because SEO is so dynamic, we encourage and invite any comments, corrections or questions you may have in the comment section below.