How Competitor Analysis Can Help With Your Keyword Research | Lesson 7/8 | SEMrush Academy
Summary
TLDRIn this keyword research lesson, Greg Gifford, VP of Search at Wikimotive, emphasizes the importance of competitor analysis for SEO insights. He suggests using tools like SEMrush to discover which keywords competitors rank for and analyzing their ad copy and backlink profiles to identify valuable keywords and content strategies. Gifford also recommends a manual review of competitors' sites to understand their content quality, optimization techniques, and unique selling propositions, providing actionable insights for keyword research and SEO strategy.
Takeaways
- 🔍 Competitor analysis is a valuable tool in keyword research, providing insights into effective strategies and keyword choices.
- 🛠️ Leveraging competitors' SEO efforts can be particularly helpful when starting with a new client or entering an unfamiliar industry.
- 📈 Competitors' keyword research and content strategy can offer clues about high-value keywords and phrases.
- 🌐 Using tools like SEMrush to analyze competitors' ranking keywords and their difficulty scores can help assess the potential traffic and value.
- 💰 Examining both high and low cost keywords from competitors' ad campaigns can reveal important and potentially high-converting phrases.
- 📝 Analyzing ad copy can provide insights into competitors' messaging strategies and what they believe will attract customers.
- 🔗 Investigating competitors' backlink profiles can highlight important content and concepts that have resonated with their audience.
- 📚 Paying attention to unique links and pages with fewer competitors can identify less competitive but worthy concepts to target.
- 👀 Manually reviewing competitors' sites can reveal content quality, writing style, and optimization techniques that are effective.
- 📋 Checking the raw code of competitors' pages can uncover schema markup, heading usage, and page structure that contributes to their SEO success.
- 🎯 Reviewing title tags, H1 headings, alt text, and meta descriptions can provide insight into competitors' optimization strategies and customer engagement tactics.
Q & A
Who is Greg Gifford and what is his role in the video?
-Greg Gifford is the Vice President of Search at the US-based SEO agency, Wikimotive. In the video, he is teaching a lesson on how competitor analysis can be beneficial for keyword research.
What is the main topic of the seventh lesson in the keyword research course?
-The main topic of the seventh lesson is the use of competitor analysis to aid in keyword research, providing insights into valuable keyword phrases and optimization strategies.
Why is competitor analysis important for SEO?
-Competitor analysis is important for SEO because it allows you to gain insight into what strategies are working for others, especially in unfamiliar verticals or locations, and helps you understand which keyword phrases are most valuable.
What does Greg Gifford suggest doing with a new client in an unfamiliar vertical?
-Greg Gifford suggests leveraging the competitor's work by analyzing their SEO strategies, content, backlinks, and page optimizations to quickly learn about the vertical and identify valuable keywords.
How can competitor research help with local business SEO?
-Competitor research helps with local business SEO by providing insights into what works best in a specific location, allowing you to understand local keyword preferences and optimization tactics.
What tool does Greg Gifford recommend for analyzing competitors' keywords?
-Greg Gifford recommends using SEMrush to pop in a competitor's URL and analyze which keywords they are ranking for, including their keyword difficulty scores and potential traffic.
Why should you check both high-cost and low-cost keywords in competitors' campaigns?
-Checking both high-cost and low-cost keywords in competitors' campaigns provides insight into what phrases are valuable enough for them to pay for, indicating potential profitability and conversion rates, as well as identifying less competitive, yet targeted, long-tail keywords.
What can ad copy analysis reveal about a competitor's marketing strategy?
-Ad copy analysis can reveal the most important aspects of a concept that a competitor believes will entice customers to click through to their site, showing their understanding of customer engagement.
Why is analyzing a competitor's link profiles part of keyword research?
-Analyzing a competitor's link profiles is part of keyword research because it helps identify pages with the most inbound links, indicating important content to their audience and potential areas of opportunity for your own content.
What should you pay special attention to when analyzing a competitor's backlinks?
-You should pay special attention to unique links where a competitor has a page about a concept that's getting inbound links but no one else is, as this indicates a worthy concept with less competition.
How does a manual review of a competitor's site contribute to keyword research?
-A manual review of a competitor's site helps you assess the quality of their content, their writing style, content length, media usage, schema markup, and page structure, providing insights into what works for them and why.
What should you check on a competitor's site to understand their optimization strategy?
-You should check the optimization of title tags, H1 headings, alt text on images, and meta descriptions to understand how they are attracting and engaging customers.
What is the final step suggested by Greg Gifford for learners of the keyword research course?
-The final step suggested by Greg Gifford is for learners to take the test on the SEMrush Academy page to become officially SEMrush certified.
Outlines
🔍 Competitor Analysis in Keyword Research
Greg Gifford, VP of Search at Wikimotive, discusses the importance of competitor analysis in keyword research. He highlights that understanding competitors' SEO strategies can provide valuable insights, especially when working with new clients or in unfamiliar verticals. Competitor research helps in identifying effective keyword phrases by observing their content creation, backlink building, and page optimization efforts. Gifford recommends using SEMrush to analyze competitors' ranking keywords and assessing their value based on keyword difficulty and potential traffic. He also suggests examining both high-cost and low-cost keywords used in competitors' ad campaigns for additional insights. Analyzing competitors' ad copy can reveal key messaging strategies. Gifford also emphasizes the importance of analyzing competitors' backlink profiles to identify important content and unique concepts that may have less competition but are worth targeting. He concludes by advising a manual review of competitors' sites to understand their content quality, optimization techniques, and unique selling propositions.
📝 Advanced SEO Techniques and Certification
In the second paragraph, the focus shifts to advanced SEO techniques and the process of obtaining SEMrush certification. The speaker encourages a detailed examination of competitors' websites, including their schema markup, heading structures, and page organization. It's important to review optimization elements such as title tags, H1 headings, alt text for images, and meta descriptions to understand what engages customers. The speaker also promotes the SEMrush Academy and invites learners to take the course test for official certification. The summary wraps up with an invitation for questions and engagement on social media, emphasizing the collaborative learning environment fostered by the SEMrush Academy.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Competitor Analysis
💡SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
💡Keyword Research
💡SEMrush
💡Keyword Difficulty
💡Backlinks
💡Link Profiles
💡Ad Copy
💡Content Optimization
💡Schema Markup
💡Meta Description
Highlights
Competitor analysis is a valuable tool in keyword research, providing insights into what's important for SEO.
Analyzing competitors can be particularly helpful when working with a new client or in an unfamiliar vertical.
Competitor research is crucial for local businesses to understand what works best in a specific location.
Competitors have already conducted keyword research and optimization, which can offer significant insights.
SEMrush can be used to identify keywords competitors are ranking for and assess their value.
Keyword difficulty scores and potential traffic are important metrics to evaluate keyword value.
Examining competitors' Google Ads campaigns can reveal valuable keywords they are willing to pay for.
High CPC terms indicate competitors believe in their value and potential for conversion.
Low cost, long-tail keywords can also be worth targeting due to less competition.
Analyzing ad copy can provide insights into what competitors believe is most important for customer engagement.
Link profile analysis of competitors can identify important content and concepts.
Pages with a high number of inbound links are likely important to competitors' audiences and customers.
Unique links on competitor pages indicate a worthy concept with less competition.
Link overlap among competitors suggests an important concept that should be targeted.
Manual review of competitors' sites is essential to understand content quality and optimization strategies.
Checking the raw code of pages can reveal schema markup and page structure.
Optimization elements such as title tags, H1 headings, and alt text provide insight into competitors' strategies.
Meta descriptions, while not ranking factors, can offer insights into customer engagement strategies.
Encouragement to engage with the SEMrush Academy for further learning and certification.
Transcripts
[Music]
hey i'm greg gifford the vice president
of search of us-based seo agency
wikimotive in this lesson the seventh in
the keyword research course we're going
to be talking about how competitor
analysis can help with your keyword
research back in lesson four i briefly
mentioned that looking at what your
competitors are doing can help you gain
insight into what's important your
competitors have their own people
working on seo or they're using an
agency and especially if they're
outranking you checking their work and
interpreting their strategy can be a
massive help
researching competitors is incredibly
helpful when you're working with a new
client in a vertical that you're not
familiar with you know you're gonna have
lots of research to do to learn about
that vertical so why not piggyback on
the efforts of those who've gone before
you competitor research is also a key
tactic when you're working with a local
business in a new area you might be
familiar with the vertical but if you
don't know the local area competitor
research helps you get up to speed on
what works best in that location your
competitor has already gone through
keyword research they've already built
content they've already been building
backlinks and they've already been
tweaking the optimization of various
pages on their site to boost performance
obviously you don't want to simply copy
their work but digging into what they've
done and what they're currently doing
can provide incredible insight into the
keyword phrases that are the most
valuable this is one of my favorite ways
to use sem rush pop in their url and see
which keywords they're ranking for
really dig into the list look at the
keyword difficulty scores potential
traffic anything you can use to assess
the value of the keywords that they're
showing up for remember they've been
working on their visibility for a while
now so if they've put effort into a
particular phrase it's a good sign that
that phrase will bring traffic even if
you're not running google ads you should
check the keywords your competitors are
using for their campaigns this provides
even more insight into what's important
since you know they're paying to show up
for those phrases i like to check out
both ends of the spectrum both the high
cost and low cost terms look at the big
money terms the phrases with the highest
cpc
these are the phrases that cost
significantly more yet the competitor
still thinks it's worth competing and
paying for clicks on that phrase that's
a pretty good sign that it's a valuable
keyword that will convert customers but
i also like to look at the little guys
the really inexpensive phrases that
they're still paying at a target usually
they're longer tail keywords with less
competition but again
they're paying to show up for these
phrases unless they're just really bad
at google ads or they really like
throwing money away you know that these
phrases are also worth targeting i also
like to check out the ad copy for the
ads that they're running since they've
got to compress a compelling message
into just a few lines you can see what
they've decided is the most important
for each concept and how they think
customers will be enticed into clicking
through to their site
if you've watched the backlink
management course i talked all about the
importance of analyzing your
competitor's link profiles if you
haven't seen it yet make sure you check
it out when you're done with this one
once again i'm suggesting that you
analyze your competitor's backlinks but
instead of doing it as part of your link
research and link building campaign i'm
suggesting you do it as part of your
keyword research when you pull your
competitors link profiles check the
pages that have the most links pointed
to them if they've got a few pages of
content with a significantly higher
number of inbound links you know that
content is important to their audience
and their customers sort the list by the
number of inbound links per page drop
out the home page and then use the
remaining pages as a guide don't ignore
a page if it only has a link or two it
might be an important concept that your
competitor did a poor job of targeting
pay special attention to the competitors
that have unique links where they have a
page about a concept that's getting
inbound links but no one else is getting
links related to that concept that's a
sign it's a worthy concept but since
there's less competition it will be
easier for you to build better content
and potentially outrank them you should
also pay attention to link overlap if
several competitors have links to pages
about the same concept then it's even
more apparent that it's an important
concept that you should be targeting on
your site finally you need to do a
manual review of each competitor's site
the link research you just finished gave
you a list of key pages to check out but
really you should take a look at all of
the high level pages on each site how's
the quality of their content are they
writing for more expert readers or at a
lower reading level is it long form
content or short blurbs how many words
are there on the page are they including
several images or just one or no image
at all do they have a video on the page
read through the pages and analyze the
content figure out what's working for
them and why it's working don't forget
to check the raw code of the page it's
helpful to see if they've got schema
markup what sort of headings they're
using and how they've structured their
page finally go through the site again
and look at the important optimization
elements how are they optimizing their
title tags and their h1 headings check
out the alt text on their images and see
what they're doing there view the source
code and check out the meta description
it doesn't matter for ranking but the
way they describe the page can provide
insight into what they think their
customers will engage with so that's it
for lesson seven of the keyword research
course we hope you learned something
awesome if you've got any questions feel
free to tweet them to me directly at
greg gifford or to the awesome team of
search pros over at the sem rush academy
at
sem rush academy don't forget to check
out the next lesson and when you think
you're ready head over to the sem rush
academy page and take the test for this
course so you can get officially sem
rush certified
[Music]
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