How to Conduct Competitive Research - Beginning Your Research: Where do You Rank?
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So what’s involved in competitive research? The first step in competitive research is to figure out where you are in the SERPs for certain core keywords. This sounds difficult, and if approached manually, it is almost impossible to track. So you need the right kinds of tools to help you here. One tool that’s available commercially is Internet Business Pro, or IBP for short, from Alexa. You simply enter your keywords and website, and it can find your site within the top 500 for particular keywords, if there.
There are other Internet tools available for similar results, and even websites that can check within the top 500 to 1000 results, as long as you obtain a Google API key, which is free from Google and allows you to make up to 1000 searches per day. (If you have multiple email addresses, you could obtain multiple API keys). One website with a tool which is useful for checking positioning in Google, Yahoo, and MSN is Googlerankings.com. It’s free, and you don’t need to sign up for any type of account. You will need a Google API key, though.
You should be aware, however, that depending upon which data center you check in Google and where you are located, you could easily get conflicting reports. The search engine will route queries to the nearest data center from your location, and each data center has a different set of information. In a recent interview with Matt Cutts, he stated, “In fact, even at different data centers we have different binaries, different algorithms, different types of data always being tested.” If you would like to see where you rank in a different part of the world, consider using an IP proxy while searching.
Further, if you have signed up and are signed into a Google account, it will also affect your returned results. Aaron Wall from SEOBook.com corroborates this point. “If you are logged into a Google Account they will bias your search results based on websites you have visited, especially those you have clicked through to from search results.
“If you visit a site or page frequently they will improve the positioning of that page in your personalized search results. If you visit a page occasionally just rank checking, and then sometimes clicking onto your result then clicking back nearly immediately Google will demote those pages in the SERPs.”
Once you’ve located your ranking, find the sites that rank in the top ten positions for those keywords. Now I know I said that it was a step by step process, and of course it is; you will still want to be aware of what the best of the best are doing. The next few steps will help you understand why and how they are achieving top results, and will allow you to follow their lead so that you can do the same.
Next: Keyword Choices, Inbound Links >>
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