30 Nov 2009 |
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You can get great visibility without keyword research and competitive analysis, but trust me, it becomes a whole lot easier!! So, there are a number of keyword research and competitive analysis tools that could help you, but here I am going to focus on SEM Rush - a tool that tries to visualise the market place beyond a keyword-by-keyword basis. What is SEM Rush?SEM Rush is a huge database of keywords and websites that rank against those keywords. It tracks how websites are competing for those terms in organic search results and paid search results. What I am mostly talking about here is the use of SEM Rush for organic search results following a review of SEM Rush geared-up for webmasters interested in SEO. 1. Mine KeywordsMining keywords is usually the first port of call for any keyword research. SEM Rush provides a huge stock of actual keywords.
Better still, you can export these keywords as csv or excel files. A good tip then is to sort alphabetically and try to make sense of these by clustering them by similar keywords / topics. Interestingly, SEM Rush, like many keyword research tools doesnt provide keywords for pornography or many pharmaceuticals keywords, so if you are working in these sectors you might have to look elsewhere. 2. Foreign Language Keyword ResearchImportantly for those webmasters that operate across markets, SEM Rush could provide an excellent option for mining keywords. SEM Rush helps with:
The keyword analysis looks to be pretty expansive for foreign keyword research tools, so might be worth checking out by clicking on the RU, DE, FR or US tabs by the search box if you are operating in these markets. It is rare to find genuine search volume data for so many terms like this, so it is worth giving it a go if you work across a large number of languages. 3. Analysing Competitors TrafficBy typing in the domain to the search box of one of your competitors, you can see where your competitor is getting a load of their traffic. SEM Rush can therefore see where your competitors are competing most effectively, and where you can take advantage of these opportunities by mining this information. This is what the results look like for Amazon:
There are other tools that provide traffic volume data such as Compete.com and Alexa.com but SEM Rush goes deeper to helping to look at the upstream 4. Keyword Traffic VolumeSEM Rush scrapes search volume from Googles keyword research tool. This isnt hugely clever, but when combined with the other data it starts to stack-up as a helpful way of gauging how that keyword search volume is distributed, whether you should be operating in that sector, or whether there are more keywords you need to be targeting that could add value in the way of traffic volume from search engines. This is an example for Money Supermarket:
Mine and mine and manually mine the dataWith all keyword research tools, its a good idea to dig deep - especially for those terms with the most search volume and intent, as these are likely to attract the most competition. The competitiveness of these keywords should be manually checked as well as running competitive analysis tools! About Guest Poster Ben McKayBen McKay is a Manchester SEO consultant, writing about managing SEO on his blog, Just Me and My, along with writing for corporate website design company, Greensplash.Say hello to Ben on Twitter. Have any thoughts on on keyword research tools? Any favourites? Please share!Comments (5)
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Semrush is an awesome tool. |
