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| The discovery shortcut: Learning from competitors |
The discovery shortcut: Learning from competitors
The place to begin your discovery is again by looking at your competitors’ sites. Try putting into Google search terms related to your business, its products and services. For each of the top five results on each search term, select the “View source” or “View page source” option from your browser menu. Make a note of the keywords placed in the <TITLE>, <META NAME=“Description”>, and <META NAME=“Keywords”> tags.
Alternatively, if looking through HTML code (hypertext markup language, the programming language used to create web pages) leaves you cold, visit one of the keyword analysis tools listed on the forum that accompanies this book (www.seo-expertservices.
co.uk). One good example is the Abakus Topword Keyword Check Tool: www.abakus-internet-marketing.de/tools/topword.html.
Here you can enter the URLs of your competitors and read off the keywords that they use.
List all of the keywords and keyphrases you find on your competitors’ sites, one after another, in Column A of your spreadsheet. Don’t read me wrong here. This kind of metadata (data about data, in this case a categorization of common terms), particularly in isolation, is not the route to high search engine rankings (as you will see later). However,
sites in the top five on Google have generally undertaken SEO campaigns and have already developed a good idea of what the more popular keywords are for their (and your) niche. As such, their metadata is likely to reflect quality keyword analysis, repeated throughout the site in other ways. This effectively represents a shortcut that gets your campaign off to a flying start.
Search engines provide the modern information scientist with a hugely rich data set of search terms commonly used by people to retrieve the web pages they are looking for. I have coined some terms to help describe these that I use in my business.
CUSPs – commonly used search phrases – are phrases that people tend to use when searching for something and, more importantly, narrowing down the search results returned. There are normally two parts to a CUSP, a “stem phrase” and a “qualifying phrase.”
For example, a stem for Brad might be “business cards” and a qualifier “full color.” Additional qualifiers might be “cheap,” “luxury,” “do it yourself,” and a whole host of other terms.
Sometimes qualifiers are strung together, in terms such as “cheap Caribbean cruises.” And often people will use different synonyms or otherwise semantically similar words to describe the same qualifying phrase.
For example, “discounted” and “inexpensive” are synonyms of “cheap.” However, searchers have learnt that phrases like “last minute” and “special offer” might return similar results. As such, searchers are just as likely to search for “last minute cruises” or “special offer cruises” as “cheap cruises.” I use the acronym SEP (semantically equivalent phrase) to describe both simple synonyms and more intuitive variants, and Google is capable of recognizing both.
When undertaking keyword research, I tend to group CUSPs into SEPs and then group SEPs under the stem to which they relate. For example:
G Stem: Business Cards
• SEP: Cheap Business Cards CUSPs: Inexpensive Business Cards, Discounted
Business Cards, Special Offer Business Cards • SEP: Luxury Business Cards
CUSPs: Premium Business Cards, Quality Business Cards, Handmade Business Cards For speed, I often simply list the search phrases under a stem one after another, separated by commas.
Brad searches for “business card printers” – and a small number of other keyphrases – on Google and takes a long look at the top 10 results for each search. He uses the menu option “View source” in Internet Explorer to look at the keywords used in the page metadata.
He is surprised to find some consistent themes. For example, almost all of the top-ranked sites offer a way for users to upload their artwork or even to design it online. It seems he has not been the only person with this idea! He also finds a huge variety of keywords used and comes up with the following list (grouped under stems) to summarize his discovery efforts:
G Business cards: business cards, cheap business cards, free business cards, affordable business cards, discount business cards, business card design, full color business cards, folded cards, business card, business card printing, CD business cards, CD Rom business cards, caricature business cards, premium business cards, luxury business cards, caricature contact cards, business card magnets
G Letterheads and compliment slips: letterheads, letterhead, letter paper, notepaper, personalised stationery, personalized stationery, personalised stationary, personalized stationary, personalised notepaper, personalized notepaper, custom notepaper, customized notepaper, postcard, postcards, compliments slips, personalized compliment slips G Leaflets and flyers: Leaflet, leaflets, flyers, brochures, brochure, brochure design, flyer design, flyer, presentation folders, newsletters, sales data sheets, folders, promotional material G Address stamps and labels: address labels, address label, label, stickers, address stickers, return address labels, custom labels, address stamp, caricature address labels G Printing: business printers, printing, online design, online printing, online print ordering, online printers, online print order, affordable printing, printing company, printing company Idaho, printing company Boise, printing supplies, printers services, cheap printer, cheap printing, online printer, printing online, digital printing, screen printing, offset printing, custom printing, best printing, printing gift certificates, printing coupons, order printing online, low priced printing, short print runs G Other: advertising film, advertising lettering, book printers, greeting cards, invitation cards, wedding cards, tshirt, tshirts, t shirt, t-shirt, stamp, online creation, online graphics, online design, folding paper, book, books, pdf, copyshop, annual report, magnets, folded cards, note cards, press kit You will note that grouping keywords and keyphrases into categories
is a useful exercise, as it begins to lay the foundations for determining your page structure and navigation later
The place to begin your discovery is again by looking at your competitors’ sites. Try putting into Google search terms related to your business, its products and services. For each of the top five results on each search term, select the “View source” or “View page source” option from your browser menu. Make a note of the keywords placed in the <TITLE>, <META NAME=“Description”>, and <META NAME=“Keywords”> tags.
Alternatively, if looking through HTML code (hypertext markup language, the programming language used to create web pages) leaves you cold, visit one of the keyword analysis tools listed on the forum that accompanies this book (www.seo-expertservices.
co.uk). One good example is the Abakus Topword Keyword Check Tool: www.abakus-internet-marketing.de/tools/topword.html.
Here you can enter the URLs of your competitors and read off the keywords that they use.
List all of the keywords and keyphrases you find on your competitors’ sites, one after another, in Column A of your spreadsheet. Don’t read me wrong here. This kind of metadata (data about data, in this case a categorization of common terms), particularly in isolation, is not the route to high search engine rankings (as you will see later). However,
sites in the top five on Google have generally undertaken SEO campaigns and have already developed a good idea of what the more popular keywords are for their (and your) niche. As such, their metadata is likely to reflect quality keyword analysis, repeated throughout the site in other ways. This effectively represents a shortcut that gets your campaign off to a flying start.
Search engines provide the modern information scientist with a hugely rich data set of search terms commonly used by people to retrieve the web pages they are looking for. I have coined some terms to help describe these that I use in my business.
CUSPs – commonly used search phrases – are phrases that people tend to use when searching for something and, more importantly, narrowing down the search results returned. There are normally two parts to a CUSP, a “stem phrase” and a “qualifying phrase.”
For example, a stem for Brad might be “business cards” and a qualifier “full color.” Additional qualifiers might be “cheap,” “luxury,” “do it yourself,” and a whole host of other terms.
Sometimes qualifiers are strung together, in terms such as “cheap Caribbean cruises.” And often people will use different synonyms or otherwise semantically similar words to describe the same qualifying phrase.
For example, “discounted” and “inexpensive” are synonyms of “cheap.” However, searchers have learnt that phrases like “last minute” and “special offer” might return similar results. As such, searchers are just as likely to search for “last minute cruises” or “special offer cruises” as “cheap cruises.” I use the acronym SEP (semantically equivalent phrase) to describe both simple synonyms and more intuitive variants, and Google is capable of recognizing both.
When undertaking keyword research, I tend to group CUSPs into SEPs and then group SEPs under the stem to which they relate. For example:
G Stem: Business Cards
• SEP: Cheap Business Cards CUSPs: Inexpensive Business Cards, Discounted
Business Cards, Special Offer Business Cards • SEP: Luxury Business Cards
CUSPs: Premium Business Cards, Quality Business Cards, Handmade Business Cards For speed, I often simply list the search phrases under a stem one after another, separated by commas.
Brad searches for “business card printers” – and a small number of other keyphrases – on Google and takes a long look at the top 10 results for each search. He uses the menu option “View source” in Internet Explorer to look at the keywords used in the page metadata.
He is surprised to find some consistent themes. For example, almost all of the top-ranked sites offer a way for users to upload their artwork or even to design it online. It seems he has not been the only person with this idea! He also finds a huge variety of keywords used and comes up with the following list (grouped under stems) to summarize his discovery efforts:
G Business cards: business cards, cheap business cards, free business cards, affordable business cards, discount business cards, business card design, full color business cards, folded cards, business card, business card printing, CD business cards, CD Rom business cards, caricature business cards, premium business cards, luxury business cards, caricature contact cards, business card magnets
G Letterheads and compliment slips: letterheads, letterhead, letter paper, notepaper, personalised stationery, personalized stationery, personalised stationary, personalized stationary, personalised notepaper, personalized notepaper, custom notepaper, customized notepaper, postcard, postcards, compliments slips, personalized compliment slips G Leaflets and flyers: Leaflet, leaflets, flyers, brochures, brochure, brochure design, flyer design, flyer, presentation folders, newsletters, sales data sheets, folders, promotional material G Address stamps and labels: address labels, address label, label, stickers, address stickers, return address labels, custom labels, address stamp, caricature address labels G Printing: business printers, printing, online design, online printing, online print ordering, online printers, online print order, affordable printing, printing company, printing company Idaho, printing company Boise, printing supplies, printers services, cheap printer, cheap printing, online printer, printing online, digital printing, screen printing, offset printing, custom printing, best printing, printing gift certificates, printing coupons, order printing online, low priced printing, short print runs G Other: advertising film, advertising lettering, book printers, greeting cards, invitation cards, wedding cards, tshirt, tshirts, t shirt, t-shirt, stamp, online creation, online graphics, online design, folding paper, book, books, pdf, copyshop, annual report, magnets, folded cards, note cards, press kit You will note that grouping keywords and keyphrases into categories
is a useful exercise, as it begins to lay the foundations for determining your page structure and navigation later
