4 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
4 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

Which top 10 results are my competitors?

by truelifeajf
3 replies
Hi all,

This is a question about whether the top 10 ORGANIC Google results for a broad match is your competition, or whether it's the top 10 for a phrase match, or an exact match.

I'm a newbie here but not a newbie to the world of SEO. I hope to be able answer just as many questions as I ask

There's been a couple of great threads about this but the discussion gets distracted with related concepts.

QUESTION:

If a customer comes to me and says, "hey, who's my competition for wedding present?" and I want to use Google to get the top 10 organic results, do I use a broad, phrase, or exact match?

It seems many people think an exact match is the way to go but I think they're more referring to Adwords results / competition.

No one types in "wedding present" (with inverted commas" when doing a search in Google, so surely to see who ranks organically I'd want to simply type in wedding present (no inverted commas, aka broad match).

I understand all the concepts about how Google results cary whether you're logged in, etc, etc so I don't want to get distracted by that. And I know there's a bunch of tools to use.

I just want to know specifically what people think the actual top 10 organic competitors are when doing a manual search in Google?
#competitors #results #top
  • Profile picture of the author DarioMontesdeOca
    You may have answered your own question here. Your top 10 competitors are the 10 websites you see when you type in your keyword and click "search".

    For finding how many searches a keyword is getting per month, the best option is exact match.
    Signature

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[7326522].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author truelifeajf
      Well I happen to agree with myself (funny that!).

      But why do pretty much all online SEO tools (Raven, SEO Moz, SEM Rush, etc) give top 10 results for only broad, or often only exact matches on a keyword?

      I'm second-guessing myself because surely these tools have thought about which results would be best to give, but to me it's completely obvious the top 10 results (paid and organic) should be based on broad - just like a user would search for on Google.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[7326534].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author DarioMontesdeOca
    Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe it's time to reinvent the wheel... many of those services are used by thousands of marketers, so there must be a reason for it.
    Signature

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[7326586].message }}

Trending Topics