If you have realized the benefits of search engine optimization then by now you should also have come to the realization that SEO isn’t rocket science (oh don’t you just hate hearing people say that) but it’s also no walk in the park. It can be a very timely process that doesn’t come with any guarantees and is different for every website. Before you get all stressed out about it, fear not, help is on the way.
Class Is In!
For a crash course in SEO one avenue that can prove quite helpful is to analyze the competition and see what SEO strategies they are employing. Google can easily provide a list of your competition. Simply google your main keywords and see which sites are listed on pages 1 and 2. I personally like to refer to sites on Page 2 as I feel I can learn a lot more from their efforts at times but I will always check out all 20 and see what their strengths and weaknesses seem to be.
View the html source of their homepage and pay attention to things like their title tag, keywords and description. Internet Explorer users go to Page -> View Source. Firefox users go to View -> Page Source or CTRL U.
Take note of the links they have on their page whether external or internal and what the link text says and if there are link titles and where on the page the links are located. Keep in mind that CSS allows information on a page to be displayed in a different area than where the code for it is.
Another thing you will want to check out is their Backlinks in Google. To do this you click on the small arrow beside the PageRank monitor on your Google Toolbar and choose Backlinks.
Optionally, you can simply google “link:http://www.thedomain.com/”. This shows you a list of sites that currently link to the website. Pay attention to the PageRank and Topic of the site as well as the number of pages that the link is located on and where.
Wrapping Up!
Those are just a few things you can do to gain valuable SEO information from your competition. It pays to see and learn what works.
Good Luck!
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