I figured I’d send off a quick post to perhaps help with analyzing not only your own inbound link profile, but also your competitors for SEO competition purposes, and analysis.
Know this first…
- PR of competitors urls does NOT matter
- # of backlinks your (future or current) competitors have/has doesn’t matter…
- The # of anchor text links with those keywords in there does matter.
So, when researching a niche,
- go for those high search or high CPC keywords and phrases,
- look to see if you can register an EMD (Exact Match Domain)
- if an EMD is available, take note if there are other EMDS listed page 1 and analyze the backlink profile.
- check Yahoo Site Explorer, or SEO Spyglass first
- then check Backlink Watch to see if those 3k links your competitors has are anchor-text-related for that particular keywords.
Your real competition is a site (or sites) with lots of anchor text-ed backlinks, plain and simple
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{ 32 comments… read them below or add one }
Ahhh…refreshing.
I’ve used similar thinking to outrank urls on sites like about.com and ehow.com (which isn’t hard to do) for terms that popular keyword tools or bad keyword research advice told me to avoid…all with EMD’s.
I tend to view competition on a per-keyword, per-url basis (especially with anchor text in mind). Otherwise I can either pass on some real gems or end up trying to scale Mt. Everest with my backlinking campaigns. As always, I appreciate the common sense advice shared here, Dan. Going back to work now.
Hey Paul, I’ve been doing some micro-niche marketing lately, trying to grab my 1% slice of the pie of billion dollar markets and noticed that there’s tons of surprising gems out there, if you know how to look deeper.
Thanks for popping in…
Daniel,
Good points, what is your view on domain age though ? do you think that matters ?
To them, yes if they got off their butt and started blasting their way to the top for everything.
To you, no, not if they’re not trying valiantly to rank for that term
What if you EMD domain is not available but the comp is weak. Do you suggest putting EMDinfo.com, theEMD.com or another word at the end or beginning?
Thanks I bought Linxboss through you a week ago haven’t seen any moment or links in google yet but I am waiting patiently.
Well, depends on how weak the comp is. If its really weak then try adding one or 2 article for that keyword onto a bigger, more established site is similar niche then link it up big time, add more overall seo weight to the bigger site and rank easier anyways since it’s an established site.
If that’s not an option, then:
1- Get a keyword-loaded domains with 3, instead of 2 keywords in the domain (dog-training + tips + trainers = dogtrainingtipstrainers.com), which definitely won’t be a type-in domain, nor easily flippable, but still keyword/keyphrase loaded
2- Better to add filler words at end of domain instead of beginning (like the following: thekwloadeddomainname.com versus keywordloadeddomainnameonline.com)
Thanks Dan, Great post.
Clarifies a good number of issues for me as I am trying to rank an Adsense site with EMD in an extremely competitive niche.
Cool man, once you test this out and realize that you can beat out some authority sites for allegedly high comp terms, then you’ll start to see some new golden nugget niches
Yup, keywordonline.com and keywordguide.com have been winners for me.
Great advice Dan thanks for sharing
You really have a great knack for taking topics like this & breaking them down to simple steps (nuggets) to follow & chew on. Keep it up bud!
Cheers
JB
Great post Dan,
Great tips for those who are starting their seo campaigns.
The point about the anchor text is so true, if you want proof just google “click here” and guess what shows up, adobe.com. That right there shows the importance of anchor text.
Yea, good point Isaiah, thanks…
Nice post Dan,
Your posts are worth millions.
In my opinion EMD isn’t important for ranking, keywords.com and site.com/keywords.html are just the same – from my experience.
However, EMD works better for CTR.
Thanks,
Vusal
Vusal, that is not true!
From my personal experience, EMD is the most important aspect when focusing on a domain. I have easily outranked authority websites with only a couple of links with my EMDs and that has not been the issues with my other websites (Focusing on the same keywords)
I usually like to run such tests to prove myself right. I would go buy a EMD.com, EMD.org, EMD.net, EMD.info, EMD.blogspot.com, etc.. Have the same amount and quality of links pointed to each, then sit and watch your SERP movement within the first couple of weeks/months.
Joe
Hi,
I too have found that Exact Match Domains work very well.
I don’t usually go for prefixes or sufixes.
I try .com/.org/.net in that order.
If they are taken, I use Hyphens.
If you insert a keyword in Google kw tool
it will come up with the same result with
or without hyphens. Also in the Goo
search engine, same results.
I like that about adding multiple KW’s to
the Domain – but I’d do that last IMHO.
Jim >
Hi,
I’ve looked around, can’t find where else to post this so …
Question:
Would you choose to build 1 or 2 Authority sites,(Built around high comp./high searched kw (and lots of sub-topics – silo style)
or
Build tiny little sites (5 or 6 pages of content), That make $1 a day each, and build 150 of them?
They would only require 14 visitors daily @ 15% ctr, with 1 or 2 clicks on Adsense daily (for KW Cost Per Click of $2 – gives me $0.50 to $1 per click).KW = between 800 to 2,000 visitor per month.
I am doing the second method – but curious as to feedback.
Jim >
I do both, and you’re on one of my authority sites now
But it’s not an Adsense site….
For my Adsense portfolio I build small sites, and lots of them, with EMDS and good ads placement. If you’re doing just Adsense, then build lots of sites, since you don’t really know what sites will be winner or losers, and the more sites you have, the more stable your earnings will be
Hi,
I have one other question please:
Considering the back linking tools available…
What do you consider the maximum ratio
of Back Links (w/anchor text) to Traffic
that you would fight for in a niche?
Example: (fictitious),
“Flavored dog bones” KW Cost = $8
#1 in SERPS =
*Competition with in anchor KW is 1500 and 5 .edu back links
*Traffic = 30K monthly
Please tell me how high or low you would go with
this example before saying it is not worth it.
Please give your own example as to a Maximum
situation that you would not consider in a kw.
Also, how long you figure it would take to
be in the top 5 SERPS for that kw.
Hope that is clear.
Jim >
Jim, I tend to focus more on market research as opposed to keyword research, so with that being said if there’s a market out there, and a need and a way to fill it, then I would advise you to just go for it, and not try to be super focused on keywords and CPC and searches and what not, because the kws people use change constantly, the majority of search traffic is 3 words or more, but the market doesn’t tend to change as often.
Hope that makes sense?
Do you offer a course in Market Research?
Daniel:
For an EMD, does
http://theexactmatchdomain.com work?
or
http://myexactmatchdomain.com
or
http://yourexactmatchdomain.com
You get the impression….do any of those things work?
CT
Yes, they do, but with all offpage factors being equal, it’s better to have main KW or any KWs in front or close to front of domain name and put a SUFFIX word at end, as opposed to the PREFIX words like you mentioned in your examples. You can add supporting keywords to try and end up a kw rich, EMD, so I think that’s better than adding THE, YOUR, MY to domainname.com.
If you intend to brand a site, then maybe that would work ok, but only with .coms
Daniel, thanks !
Great post !
if you always have new domains, through which period they can go out on the first page?
What about the Sandbox?
How to fight with her, by what methods?
My sites 1,5-2 months leave with 20 seats in place 100-200-300 keywords
Hi Daniel,
I have a ? for you..lets say I found a keyword that I want to go after..and the #1 ranking is a Pr 7..domain age is 12 yrs..but only has 3 anchor text links pointing to that page for the ranking keyword..what would you do ?
Go for it, that site is only ranking for that term due to the authority of the site it’s attached to, on….
An EMD with 10 solid backlinks would probably outrank it, especially if the on-page SEO is “tight”
However, the site must be fleshed out and have a decent amount of content on it if its going to remain the top ranked site/url
Could you explain this to me please ?
“However, the site must be fleshed out and have a decent amount of content on it if its going to remain the top ranked site/url”
Also would it be possible outrank without an EMD ?..what about mysite.com/thekeyword
Phil my site.com/keyword would have to have same or similar authority as the PR7 site in order to rank well without links. An EMD would rank well but not tops at first unless it became a mini authority site, meaning the site about blue air fresheners on blueairfresheners.org would have 10 articles on it talking about that exact topic.
I’ve outranked some authority sites’ inner urls with one page EMDs with lots of links, but then I always go back and flesh the sites out by adding more content to “protect” the rankings
So if I did use mysite.com/keyword I would need to do back linking..but If I used an EMD I would not have to do back linking or just not as much..is that what you are saying ?
Yes, or you could buy a high PR domain, throw some optimized content on an inner url, get the content indexed and see what happens there, but when you see inner urls on authority sites ranking for certain terms they usually have a PR or 2-5, with main sites having PR of 4-7 or so, and you won’t be able to replicate that right away with a paid-for new domain
I see..so how do you structure your sites ? pages supported by post ?
Hi Phil, it depends on what kind of site you’re building and the structure you like for them
Read this post here, pay attention to the bottom half of it, where it talks about Secondary and Tertiary content levels
Now I know why some pages with 1 or 2 backlinks outrank the ones with tens and hundreds of backlinks, when they are all equally optimized on other factors.
I started out with linkbuilding without consideration to the anchor texts, sometimes I made up a random anchor text. Thanks for this ppost, now I know better.
BTW, your blog is very addictive; I’ve been here over an hour now just sponging your SEO and link building tutorials – rich, relevant contents, and I love it.