Media Precision

Knowing what your competitors are up to will give you a head start in any walk of life, and SEO is no different. Competitor research gives you a heads-up as to what marketing strategies your closest rivals are using. Competitor research also encourages you to look at the quality of the top ranking sites, to gauge if they are in reach or not.

In this, the 3^rd installation of Ten Steps of SEO we take a look at what advantages can be gained looking at your competitors. We will take a close look at who is linking in to your competitors. We’ll also look at the quality of these links. The reports we produce can usually help you gauge what social media activity they are involved in too. You may taken back by all of this and think maybe it’s a bit over the top, but I guarantee, if they have a half decent online marketing campaign, they will be looking at your site.

Overall quality of the competition.
We will not spend too long on this area but it’s definitely worth spending a little time on. For this exercise we will look at the top 10-12 sites for the main keywords you came up with in Step 2: Keyword Research. There is a very useful plug-in for Firefox called SEO X-ray this, I recommend installing this as it is great for quickly getting a snapshot of a pages SEO. Take a few minutes looking at each of the sites. Look at the number of inbound links to the page, the keyword density, and the age of the domain. SEO X-Ray will display all of this. A final check I would do would be to work out the average PR of the top ten sites. As a rule we shouldn’t be put off by the PR of our competition however if the average PR of the top ten sites is high, then we know that this is going to be a tough nut to crack.

Know your enemy.
The next step is to look at your closest competitors as these are the people you are in immediate & direct competition with. Throughout your SEO you are going to need some of link reporting software. I use Advanced Link manager; however this is not free software. There is lots of free software out there all do pretty much the same thing. Link reporting software not only tells you how many links you have but who is linking back to your site. Once you have your link reporting package, run it on both your site, and your closest competitor’s site. Look at the sites that are linking in to your competitors, check out the links this will give you an idea about what kind of SEO activities they are participating in. Are there lots of links from blogs, article sites? Are the links from authority domains, and what kind of page rank are these? If there seems to be lots of links from social media sites, then we know your competitors are engaging in a lot of social media activity. If they are not then here is an opportunity to get a step ahead. The great thing about this exercise is we now have a list of potential sites/pages to link into your site. After all if they feel that your competitor’s site is important enough to link back to, why shouldn’t they think the same about yours?

Ten Steps of SEO is a series of articles written to give you an insight to the basics of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Many people seem to be under the impression that there is some secret formula to SEO. In reality this is not true. There is no hidden secret, there is no one process that that will get you to the top of the search engine results. Good results are achieved by gradually, over time, using ethical (white hat) methods, to grow your website organically. Follow these Ten Steps of SEO and you will be on the right track to improving your online visibility.

1. Initial Analysis – Online Marketing is just the same as any other marketing campaign. To be able to monitor the progress of your campaign you must first know where you are starting from. It is also a good idea to check that there is actually a market out there in the first place.
2. Keyword Research – This is one of the most important aspects of SEO. My advice would be to spend a long time on this. If you get this bit right the marketing of your site will be a whole lot easier in the long.
3. Competitor Analysis – Knowing what your competitors are up to is essential, it allows you to plan your strategy. Look who is linking in to your competitor’s site and put these sites on a list of possible link partners. By getting these companies to link back to your site, you eliminate advantages gained by your competitors with these links.
4. On-page Optimisation – You may have heard the cliche “Content is King”, well search engines love good quality unique content. Mix in well a written meta title & meta description and you are off to a good start for a well optimised page.
5. Search Engine & Directory Submission – This is an easy way to get lots of initial links back to your site. Register with the search engines and this will encourage them to visit your site and index all of your pages. Some directories have good PR (Page Ranking) which means you will be getting relevant link backs from respected sites.
6. Blogging/Content Updates – Adding good quality content to your site on a regular basis will encourage search engines to keep returning to your site. Visitors to your site will also show the same loyalty. If you release interesting content on a regular basis, people will start to look out for updates and re-visit your site. The easiest way to do this is to set up a blog or news section on your site.
7. Article Marketing – Article marketing is a very effective aspect of SEO. Submitting articles to article sites such as EzineArticles has 2 key benefits. Firstly it allows you to build links back to your website. Secondly, as the articles are free to republish, if your article gets used by anyone, they will need to include the original links from your article.
8. Strategic Link Building – Links are vital to increasing your search engine rankings. However it is not just a case of building as many links as possible. Avoid building links from sites that are not relevant for your niche as these will potentially do more damage than good.
9. Social Media – There are many forms of social media. I amsure you have all heard of sites like Myspace, Facebook, & more recently Twitter. Social Media is great for driving traffic to your site and getting your website in front of your target audience, at the same time as building back links we know to be vital to your search engine positioning.
10. Web Ranking & Link Reporting – Reporting on where you are ranking for keywords, and who is linking back to you will allow you to monitor your online campaign closely. You could also run these reports on your competitors to know how your online marketing campaign

We will go into more detail for each of these points in coming posts so, be sure to keep an eye out for updates. You can subscribe to updates via our RSS feed or alternatively subscribe via email and we will send updates direct to your inbox. And, if you don’t fancy doing this yourself, we are more than happy to step in and help.

Click here to contact Media Precision about helping you improve your websites performance…

Welcome to the Media Precision Blog. Media Precision is a new breed of digital marketing agency specialising in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). We take a fresh approach to SEO and use only ethical (white hat) methods. We would like to be looked upon as an authority within our field. However we understand we need to earn that accolade.

Search engine marketing is vital to any online venture. After all, there is no point having a website if nobody can find it. Equally there is no point driving traffic to your site if this traffic is not relevant, as your site will not convert.

We often hear people saying “What is the secret to SEO?” quite simply there is no secret. There is no quick fix way to get your site to the top of the search engine rankings. The way to get results is to organically grow you site over time. Search engines love organic gradual growth of websites, as it sees this as natural evolution. There are many methods that, when combined, can be used to achieve success in your online marketing campaign.

Over the coming weeks/months we will be posting a number of articles on these methods. We will also look at unethical (black hat) methods, and discuss why these methods should be avoided at all costs. We will also look at what you should look for when choosing an SEO company. Why would we do this you may ask? Well we know our industry is not squeaky clean, however we are, and we want to make sure you make the right choice. Yes we would love to work with you but if we can’t, we would hate for you to make a mistake and get lumbered with a long term contract with a company that may harm your online marketing campaign.

So, please come back and visit our blog. You can even subscribe to updates via our RRS Feed. And it goes without saying if you have any requirements ir even a question about Search Engine Optimisation, Contact Us