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How to check the competitors

by gnr991
18 replies
  • SEO
    • |
When I'm checking the competitors for the keyword "wine maker" for example, I supposed to search the key word with " " or without ?

Thank you
#check #competitors
  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    No quotes. Nobody searches with quotes unless it is a line from a movie or a lyric. Something like that.
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    • Profile picture of the author minimo
      Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

      No quotes. Nobody searches with quotes unless it is a line from a movie or a lyric. Something like that.
      It is true that nobody searches using quotes, but I was always taught that using quotes in your research is the only way of seeing who else is competing for that exact same phrase.

      Say you want to SEO your website for the search term: puppy training. Searching for that term without quotes gives you 19m results. That does not however mean that everyone of those is fighting to be ranked for the term puppy training. In fact, in a lot of those cases, the words puppy training written together don't even exist in the title or may only come up once or twice on the page, so if those websites are not SEOing for that specific term, are they really your competitors? They may be targetting keywords like dog training, etc. instead

      The only way to find out who else is optimizing their web page for the term puppy training is to use quotes, and in this case it shows just under 1m results.

      I am not sure where I read this, but I have applied this technique to find niches without much competition and it paid well for me over the past 6-7 years.

      In the end, see what works best for you and stick with that.
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      • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
        Originally Posted by minimo View Post

        It is true that nobody searches using quotes, but I was always taught that using quotes in your research is the only way of seeing who else is competing for that exact same phrase.

        Say you want to SEO your website for the search term: puppy training. Searching for that term without quotes gives you 19m results. That does not however mean that everyone of those is fighting to be ranked for the term puppy training. In fact, in a lot of those cases, the words puppy training written together don't even exist in the title or may only come up once or twice on the page, so if those websites are not SEOing for that specific term, are they really your competitors? They may be targetting keywords like dog training, etc. instead

        The only way to find out who else is optimizing their web page for the term puppy training is to use quotes, and in this case it shows just under 1m results.

        I am not sure where I read this, but I have applied this technique to find niches without much competition and it paid well for me over the past 6-7 years.

        In the end, see what works best for you and stick with that.
        That is the absolute dumbest way to check competition. It tells you absolutely nothing. I can not believe people are still buying into this stupid method that just refuses to die.

        Searching in quotes and seeing how many results there does not mean a thing. Your competitors are the top 3 results on page one of the search results when you search without quotes. Those are the sites you have to beat. The rest of them do not matter at all. If you can beat #3, it makes no difference what site #999,999,997 is doing.

        Searching with or without quotes and looking at the number of results gives you ZERO idea of how hard a keyword is to rank for. There could be only 5,000 results, but if you cannot beat the results on page one, it really doesn't matter, does it?
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  • Profile picture of the author netanel23
    Yep, no quotes. Unless you are looking for an exact phrase searchers won't be using quotes.
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  • Profile picture of the author gnr991
    Ok thanks, I wasn't sure
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  • Profile picture of the author promo87
    Banned
    Originally Posted by gnr991 View Post

    When I'm checking the competitors for the keyword "wine maker" for example, I supposed to search the key word with " " or without ?

    Thank you
    Well, that's a post in which I had first laughed alot and then start putting down the answers there is no need to put the keyword in quotes try searching it directly over the search engine.
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  • Profile picture of the author Tim P
    I use Market Samurai to check my competitors. This software is pretty good. It shows you backlinks, pr, domain age ....etc..of your competitors.
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  • Profile picture of the author rongindamix
    You should use semrush.com and check out your competitors statistics. The website automatically shows the top 4 competitors, daily traffic, PPC costs, along with updates. It's free and I highly recommend using it for competitor research.

    Also, it shows the top keywords that website is ranking for. This makes keyword research so much easier
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  • Profile picture of the author HK Sohel
    Which keyword's U want to check as competitor, firstly U search the keyword, exact search on Google(like "KEYWORD") .Secondly, U check it's Page rank, Alexa rank, Google Index, Social Share, Domain age etc. Then U finally found your competitor.
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  • Profile picture of the author xaviel
    Hey gnr991,

    Another good way to see what's working for your competition is to see which keywords they are consistently bidding on in Google AdWords.

    For example, if you see that they have been consistently bidding on "wine maker tours", you can assume that they are getting a good ROI (Return On Investment).

    There is a few different tools that can tell you what the competition is bidding advertising on. Most tools are not free however. There is SpyFu and KeywordSpy that are good.

    The rational here is: What is the competition consistently bidding on is usually an indicator of decent ROI. Its a good way to start a new SEO or Adwords campaign.
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  • Profile picture of the author suzyspring
    Search for the competitors using keywords and the results which is shown in search results are all your competitors. Then you can compare them with your site using "open site explorer."
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  • Profile picture of the author Rank Watch
    Originally Posted by gnr991 View Post

    When I'm checking the competitors for the keyword "wine maker" for example, I supposed to search the key word with " " or without ?

    Thank you
    Do search without quotes. No point in using quotes
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  • Profile picture of the author EmilyMace
    No quotes has been required.
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  • Profile picture of the author sandhyaochre
    No quotes is required for any keyword searching.
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  • Profile picture of the author sweezeter
    Another trick is using something like SEOQuake, which is a free plugin. With SEOquake you can look up a lot of variables for each listed SERP. Keep in mind though that Google could ban your IP quickly if you do too many lookups at once.
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  • Profile picture of the author alex fernandes
    Originally Posted by gnr991 View Post

    When I'm checking the competitors for the keyword "wine maker" for example, I supposed to search the key word with " " or without ?

    Thank you
    If you search with double quotes, you will get slightly different results. For instance, if you search your keyword without double quotes, Wikipedia page will come on the 1st position but if you search with double quotes, a different website will be displayed on the 1st position.
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