Who wants to be King of the Mountain?
When you want to work your way up the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), it’s much like the game you probably played as a kid. You can’t attack the king directly, you have to battle past all the other people trying for the throne as well. After a few failed attempts you probably learned that if you study your opponents a bit before attacking you can learn what makes them stronger or weaker in certain ways. That knowledge can help you become King.
Make Your Web Site King
The same tactics that made you King of the playground, can make you King of the SERPs. Strategize for number one, but also know you’ll need to defeat everyone between you and them first.
After you have determined what keyword phrases you want to rank for, use them to hunt down the future subjects of your search engine kingdom (Um, do a Google search for them). Visit the pages of the top 10 – 15 results, starting on the low end. Study the content, learn how they use the keywords. Notice how do they use headlines and where do they put them. Are there bold or italicized words? Study the code behind the page, what meta tags do they use, what do those tags contain. Examine both the site and URL structures, do they contain keywords. Are there on-site links to that page, what anchor text is used? Thoroughly analyze all of these on-site SEO tactics.
Nobody Ever Won a War Alone
You’ll need to study more than just the on-site SEO of your competition, you need to study the off-site SEO as well. Who are their allies, who links to them and what is the anchor text of those links. You can use the google trick of link:www.searchenginejournal.com to find sites that Google follows to a given address, but if you want a more complete listing use Yahoo’s site explorer. Study the pages that provides backlinks, does the content of the link page appear to be contextually relevant, or is it just a list of links. What anchor text used for the link?
Information is your strongest Ally
Researching your competitors sites, is not rocket science, but it will take time and patience. However, done correctly you can learn what they do well – and in some cases, not so well. You will also gain a deeper understanding of your market and what your prospective customers want and are looking for. Knowledge is the weapon you’ll need to be victorious in your quest to overthrow the reining King and start your own royal legacy…Um, I mean – rank higher in the search engines.
The guest post by Jack Leblond.
Interesting read, I also find it helpful to analyze the competition. Sometimes there is alot of competition, you need to find out what you are up against and how to beat it.
Nice tips, Jack!
We recently attended a professional cycling stage race, and the King of the Mountain metaphor applies there as well. Just like SEO, cyclists who want the KOM points have to know their competition’s strengths and weaknesses, know when to attack, and study the landscape.
I especially like, “Knowledge is the weapon you’ll need to be victorious.” Being King doesn’t mean being the strongest but being the smartest.
Thanks for sharing ways to be King of the SERPs!