Competitive Research and Other SEO Tools
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This is the fourth and final part of a series covering search engine optimization tools. In this article we cover competitive research tools, pay per click tools, professional software and several other tools.
Competitive Research Tools
Please keep in mind that most tools are geared to the US, so there may be limited data for .ca, .co.uk or other country domains.
Take the data provided by those tools with a grain of salt. Search engines don't share their data with anyone, so these tools scrape the Internet with their own spiders and buy data sets from Internet service providers.
SEMRUSH - This is a tool from the creators of SEO Digger and SEO Quake. With this tool you can see which keywords send referrals to a specific domain, the approximate daily/monthly cost of those keywords on AdWords, the potential competitors for keywords on organic search and AdWords, the average search volume of the keyword, keyword traffic percentage in relation to the overall traffic of the website, number of results for the keyword and more.
I found their AdWords price estimates to be somewhat inaccurate. On the bright side, this tool gives a really good overview of the competitive landscape for a keyword of your choice. Search with your phrase and SEMRUSH will produce the first 10 competitors on organic search results, common keywords for those competitors and sites that bid on those keywords on AdWords (plus other keywords they bid on). Their data comes from the Google keyword tool and Google search results. Tool cost is $15 - $40 per 1,000 - 10,000 results.
Trellian Competitive Intelligence - From the creators of Keyword Discovery, this tool set consists of six different apps: Link Intelligence, Search Term Intelligence, Campaign Intelligence, Benchmarking, Keyword Rankings and Affiliate Partners. I have not tried these tools, but Trellian is known for quality products. Cost: US$249.95 ($150 once-off setup plus $99.95 per month per domain) OR $995 per year per domain.
Spyfu - Enter a domain name (your own or a competitor's) and it will produce daily budget estimates, estimated total clicks per day, average cost per click, average clicks per day, average ad position, organic keywords for which the site ranks (this is a good statistic), paid keywords (also useful), top organic competitors and top ad competitors.
Perhaps the most valuable of all statistics is the number of organic keywords for which the site ranks. Instantly you can see how powerful the domain is and some of the keywords you should be targeting. When it comes to price estimates, take them with a grain of salt, since none of the search engines actually share this information, and tools like Spyfu have to come up with their own systems.
KeyCompete - This tool is very simple. Enter your keyword and it will produce domains that rank for that keyword. Enter a domain name and it will show all the keywords for which it ranks. Free results are limited to five, and each report is $10. Answering the question "where do you get data?" KeyCompete says: "KeyCompete is powered by proprietary technology that constantly extracts data from search engines and other sources like Alexa and Wikipedia." They deploy their scrapers and gather the results.
SEO Digger - Enter a domain name and SEO Digger will produce keywords and search positions for which the domain ranks on Google's search results. I find it very useful since you can see the keywords for which a domain ranks in an instant. It's sorted by default from the number one position to 20 (and lower), so you can see if the domain ranks for any of the competitive words.
Compete - We covered Compete in the previous article, but they are worth mentioning again.
Hitwise -This is by far the most expensive competitive research tool you'll ever get your hands on. Prepare to pay something like $10,000 - $50,000 for this tool. When it comes to features, though, there's no match. If you would like to find out, watch their video presentation or read a review here on seochat.com by Terri Wells.
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