Who Are Your Competitors?
Filed under: Google SEO, SEO Industry, Search Engine Rankings
In the world of search engines, the answer to this question can become less absolute than you may think. My first perception of a competitor, is a company, voice or form of influence fighting to occupy the same space as another. Initially, it all starts in the mind of the consumer. When they get the inclination to buy something, you want your product to take up as much space as possible as the buying thought process moves its gears towards a final decision. Brand marketers attempt to win this battle by sending an over arching message that they hope will slowly infiltrate the consumer’s thinking, while direct marketers cater to their target’s impulses by making their products accessible at strategic times. Despite the different tactics, both methods are competing for the same space.
Unfortunately, the real world does not exist in a vacuum like a consumer’s thought process when they decide to buy jeans. There are so many different influences occupying the same space, that it can be difficult to pick out who is competing against who. A major casino may say, these are our top 5 competitors because they are the other top casinos in the country. On one level those 5 casinos may be their competitors, but type the keyword “casino” into Google, and only two actual casino websites appear on the first page. Are those 8 other websites not their competitors? They certainly want to be in the top position. They are certainly competing for this space. Not to mention the fact that casinos typically have hotels. So their competitors are not only the casino websites, but the hotel and travel websites as well.
These thoughts stem from an assignment I received at work today. I have been tasked with coming up with a standard format for conducting a competitive analysis for SEO. A step by step process that could be performed by an entry level employee. Usually the account service team gives us a list of the clients competitors (in the eyes of the client) and says we need a competitve analysis. In the SEO world, it strikes me this is the wrong way to go about it. I think you come up with a core list of keywords, see who is currently ranking on those keywords, and pick out specific elements of their websites that have been optimized in comparison to the client’s website. I guess ultimately my question is, what is the best way to communicate to the client the distinction between the rankings of who they think are their competitors, and who Google thinks are their competitors?
I hope some of that made sense. Any thoughts on performing a good SEO competitive analysis would be greatly appreciated.
Big Company Websites Missing the Big SEO Picture
Filed under: Organic Traffic, SEO Industry, Search Engine Rankings, Website Structure
Getting big companies without any internal SEO personel to take a holistic approach to their SEO efforts is difficult. They want to be ranked on top for a host of competitive keywords. They want their web pages to be optimized for those keywords. And they want it all to happen much soon than later. Many of these websites have been around for a while, and have passed through so many hands with different priorities and marketing viewpoints, that architecturally, they are simply in shambles. Marketing executives at these companies can get their heads around the benefits of having the right keywords, but their capacity or desire to understand why they may or may not being ranking well, seems to fall short when it comes to site structure, internal linking, redirects, errors pages, page rank, etc… This, of course, is why us SEOs have a job. We are here to communicate these problems and SEO tactics, however at times it feels like our attempts at explanation falls on deaf ears.
One specific client is hell bent on purchasing and purchasing domains with keywords instead of building content focused pages within their main site. Stopping the use of session IDs in their URLs should be their first priority, and yet every week in our status call they want to discuss what domains they should buy. I see how it is hard to ignore the fact that many of the top ranking sites have keywords in their domain names, but they need to focus on building content on the well trusted domain they already have and making sure the spiders aren’t getting error pages because of their use of session IDs.
There is no doubt that solid keyword research and strategy drives the most effect SEO campaigns, but make sure you are presenting a smooth functioning, well structured website to the users and the spiders before you start expecting high rankings on all your keywords.
Squidoo… Squid-definitely-do!
Creating content specific pages on Squidoo is a great link building strategy for SEO. Squidoo is like a more intellectual, content driven version of Myspace that allows users to create pages on their passions consisting of “modules” of written content. The interface allows you to easily insert RSS feeds, Youtube videos, Flickr photos, products from Amazon and more. Creating useful Squidoo “lenses” on topics related to your website, and inserting strategic deeplinks occasionally is a great way to get quality backlinks.
We recently implemented a Squidoo link building campaign with one of our clients by creating lenses for all there major city markets, that focused on providing helpful information to people living in these cities or planning to move to them. Remember, the key is to provide useful relevant focused content on each lense. Don’t be an overt spammer… just a covert one 
If anyone has had experience using Squidoo for link building please share.
United States Ranks 10th in search for “SEO”
Filed under: Google SEO, International SEO, SEO Industry
According to Google Trends the U.S. ranks 10th in the number of searches on the keyword “SEO.” The list in descending order:
- India
- Czech Republic
- Japan
- Phillippines
- Romania
- Thailand
- Spain
- United Kingdom
- Australia
- United States
What explains this phenomenon?
Will SecondSpace Live Up to the Hype?
Filed under: Organic Traffic, Real Estate SEO, SEO Industry, Search Engine Rankings
The’ve got big names from Microsoft and Amazon running the show.The’ve got the catchy name. Will they eventually come to dominate the second home real estate market as the so adimantly claim?
The answer is yes, and here’s why.
- SecondSpace embraces Web 2.0 user interaction that online real estate consumers are aggressively heading towards.
- The majority of real estate listing websites are behind the times when it comes to interacting effectively with consumers.
- SecondSpace is building out specialized vertical search engines for any and all areas that are necessary for buying, owning, and selling real estate. Specialized search is the feature of the internet.
- Each of SecondSpace’s verticals (now LandWatch and ResortScape) utilizes semantic search.
For these four reasons SecondSpace will eventually dominate the online real estate market for people’s second homes.
