How to do SEO competitor analysis properly?

Competitor analysis or competition analysis is one of the most essential elements of SEO processes worldwide.It's all about understanding your rivals,discovering their strategies and evaluating their strength in the search engine war.Almost all professional SEO companies have a section (or atleast a team) dedicated for competitor analysis.Why? Because they understand the value which this information provides.It is almost impossible to beat a competing site if you have no idea about the strengths and weaknesses of the site.There are several attributes to be considered while evaluating competition.Some of these attributes are mighty important while some are just minor pieces of information which may come handy at a later stage.
In this article i will discuss some of the techniques and tools i use for competitor analysis.Hopefully the information shared here will help you in your pursuit of better search rankings.

Before we begin the actual procedures, i will recommend you to install a very useful plugin called SEO Quake.The plugin is available for Mozilla Firefox,Google Chrome and Opera.I personally use Firefox because I'm kinda used to it.So go ahead and install SEO Quake on your browser.The plugin is absolutely free and provides plenty of useful information.

Now it's time to start the actual process.

Step 1: List out the keywords you are targeting with your site.

Step 2: Go to Google.com (because it's still the biggest supplier of traffic) and enter the keyword.

Step 3: If you have installed SEO Quake correctly then you will see a section below the search results which mentions various  attributes of the search results.You can find Page Rank,Alexa Rank,SEM Rush rank etc from the SEO Quake section.You can also find the domain age using this tool.Domain age is an important attribute which should not be taken lightly.A page can have better ranking if it is considerably old.

Step 4: Study the various attributes mentioned above to gain a perspective on the competition strength.You can focus on the first page of the search results initially for analysing the strength of the competition.If the competition is too high, do not feel demotivated.There is still hope.

Step 5: Find the page on which your site is listed for the keyword.Check the Page Rank,Alexa Rank and domain authority of the site which is immediately above you.See if that is surpassable.It definitely should be.The competition is usually tight in the first page and this competition will start to weaken
with the succeeding pages.The rankings of the results in these pages normally fluctuate on a weekly (if not daily) basis.

Step 6: Now it's time to check the reason behind the better rankings of your competition.Visit the top ranking pages and see how their page has been laid out.Check the length of the content on their landing pages.Find out how they have used titles and meta description.SEO Quake Toolbar has a button titled
'Diagnosis'.You can click on this button an get information on various On-page attributes of the site.See if you have aptly used these attributes in your own site's landing pages.

Step 7: Once you have made sure that the on page optimization has been done properly, it is time to move on to off page.Basically the competing sites will be ranking higher mainly because of their link profile.It is preferable to make a list of competing sites before you proceed with this step.If you prefer to do without the list, it is also fine. Go to Backlink Watch and enter the URL of your competitor to find out where his inbound links are coming from.Mostly the links would be coming from article directories, blog posts and comment sections.See if you can get links from similar sites.It will be even better if you can get links from where your competitor has been sourcing links.

Your link building strategy should always be about quality link building.Rather than building a list of directories or blogs to publish articles( for links of course),it will be better if you choose the sites which have worked for your competition. 

Step 8: You have almost learned how to properly do competitor analysis.I cannot finish this article before communicating another major point.You should always remember that the key to successful SEO is perseverance.Build links slowly.Try to get links from authentic and high authority site.Don't worry about the numbers,it is much better to stick with quality.I hope you found this article useful.Feel free to drop in your opinions and suggestions as comments.

Find Details About Your Organic Search Engine Traffic Using Google Webmaster Tools

Having a clear idea about the keywords that lead to your site might help you in understanding in a better way the topics in demand on SEs.Rather than reporting on current news that will be irrelevant a few months from now is certainly a bad investment as far as a blogger is concerned.So concentrate on writing timeless content that will keep getting you traffic for a good period of time.And another suggestion,you don't need to bother about getting high PR and competition.If you have a decent PR and you are posting enough there is enough room for you in the industry.It will eventually make you good money.Now let me tell you how to find all the 'queries' for which links to your site show up and get clicked.

First you need to log in to Google webmaster tools.Now add a sitemap to your site if you haven't added yet.This is a great investment as sitemaps results in better crawling of your site.You will have to wait for a week to get your first detailed report of traffic to your site.When your report is ready,Go to the dashboard and click on Statistics and click on Top search queries.On the current page you will be able to see the 'Top 20 queries' that your site show-up on and the 'Top 20 queries' clicked to your site.Now below the table you will see a link 'Download all query stats for this site'.Click on it and you will be able to download a .csv file.Download it and open it on spreadsheet apps like Microsoft excel.You can study in detail about the posts that are really bringing the traffic and this might help in better publishing in days to come.I hope you found this information useful.Keep Blogging and stay with Blogger Whale.

How To Multipy 'Digg Effects' And Crash Your Servers?

For many bloggers getting to the digg frontpage is the ultimate dream.It was the same for me until it happened.But once the digg effect[the sudden rush of traffic,links & comments] is over we are back to the ground.The pleasant dream broken fast is not easily accepted in its way by many smart-devil-minded bloggers.They follow their instinct to 'want more'.And it's a secret that 98% of them fail.But what do those 2% do to continue the dream run.That's the million dollar question.Isn't it?

Digg is not loved by SEOs just because it brings good number of quality links and satisfactory traffic,but Digg gives the best available exposure on the net for the site and this may also follow frontpages of other user-driven sites.Hardly any story that makes it to the Digg frontpage fails to top the frontpage of Reddit.This cycle may continue with smaller social news sites ending up with a gross traffic ranging from 200k to 400k and sometimes even more.This will certainly crash those wordpress servers but blogspot has shown it's super powers[Thanks to Google].

One interesting fact is that you don't even have to do any work to do to get your story on those sites.The still not copyrighted 'Rule of the Web2.0' principle states that every user driven site has a top user[s] who are thriving to finding stories that will help them rise up to their status and stories submitted by top users has a greater chance of making it to the top thanks to the top user game phenomenon.

Carrying on The dIGG effect
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The usability of this technique entirely depends upon the relevance of your story.If it's a breaking news,forget it.But as i have been able to notice,most digg baits are timeless.So once the Digg Effect is over get over to other platforms.
Secret:Break the boundaries of languages and region and go global.The first part seems to be written by a metaphysicst and the second part by a marketing professor.But it's one of the biggest secrets on the internet.The whole world is connected but not to one another,among themselves.We are a part of the internet which has many worlds in it.Bloggers world,readers world,Leechers world,Commentators-world,Learners-world,Teachers-world,English-world,German-world,Arabic-world,French world,Winners world and finally Loosers world.Reach out for more and you'll come back with more.There are more Diggs around but we don't know them.Here are some of the diggs i discovered.Most of them accidentally and some through my global friends.Go on and start registering and one more thing.Keep Google Translatr open.

1.mister-wong
2.yigg
3.iliketotallyloveit
4.folkd
5.icio.de
6.webnews
7.linklift
8.bagook
9.newstube
10.readster
11.leze
12.alltagz

You can easily track down more of such site a use their regional popularity as your tool.All you need is to go that extra mile and the rewards are all waiting you.

Is your blog stunning+Prepared for the D-day?

• Is your blog stunning?
• Can it convert first time visitors into regulars?
• Is it good enough to be mentioned & linked by authoritatve 'biggie' blogs?

If you answered an yes for all the three quetions then you're here ny mistake.If no was in the answers,read on.

What makes a blog stunning?
It's eye candy template does,its perfect ten formatting does.But more importantly it's smartness & usability is what makes a blog stunning.While a good lookin template can give your blog a charismatic first impression it's not a pre-requisite and you can surely do without it.If you are writing sensible stuff @ your blog,people will start giving importance to your content rather than your design.Formatting...You better should do it or get ready to send somegood bunch of readers away.Spell check,blockqoutes,picture&text alignment well done is really a bonus.These small things can really reveal your degree of seriousness & professionalism.

The aspect i wish to bring your attention on is smartness & usability.The best way to build a loyal readership base is to make your first time visitors understand that you are useful.You must make them feel that there is plenty of profit for them if they stick around.Don't hide your best articles and leave them to be discovered from the archives.If you do so then they are likely to be left undiscovered forever.No one will care to dig deeper unless they realize that your blog is worth digging deeper.Put your best posts right before the reader's eyes.Put them on your sidebar,link from your latest posts to your masterpieces.Let those best works of yours scream for you.



Take a look at how Amit @ Digital Inspiration had done this.He has got a good number of useful posts under his cap and he knows precisely how to make those articles work for him.A simple design of Digital Inspiration will not send readers away because one look at the sidebar and you know the site is bravo.This practises not only emphasises your blog content but also help a blogger multiply the number of page views per visitor hence increase chances of monetization.


The D-day will come......

Why should you make your blog stunning?This is something i have realised from my mistakes.When Blogger Whale got linked by Lifehacker and subsequently topped the del.icio.us popular page it wasn't stunning.And this mistake did cost me huge.I could have converted at least a portion of the 10s of 1000s of unique visitors reached that way into regular visitors.So you better not repeat my mistake because you never know who is going to find you today.

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Viral Linking 2:Add your icon

Looks like the latest buzz in the blogging lounge is viral linking.One after another new viral links are starting.And it's only great.Because at the end of the day only links matter.Here's one more method started by The Thinking Blog.

1.) Upload your non-animated favicon (GIF image of size 16x16 pixels) to ImageShack, of to a similar free image hosting server like Photobucket, or to your own server provided by your hosting service if you have one.

2.) Substitute the Host Icon and one of the "Viral Icons" in the matrix with your ALT text of choice and your blog’s URL. Maximum of 3 specific keywords for the ALT text are best for it to be effective. You can do this by going over to the HTML mode of your blogging platform. Don't be confused! You're doing the same as our first Viral Links system, but this time you're just doing it with image icons. Just follow the code and add the URL that points to your blog, and your image. Real simple!

3.) When you get a ping back from someone that has your icon in one of their "Viral Icons" matrix, practice good karma by copying his/her Host Icon's code (automatically the associated ALT tag will also be copied) and paste it over one of your “Viral Icons” below.

People always ask me "How do I get a ping?" That's just a fancy way of knowing that someone linked you up. To find out who has linked to your blog, it's best to get a Technorati account. Technorati will tell you who has been linking to your blog, and from there you could easily update your Viral Links, and Viral Icons matrix.

4.) Invite your readers to do the same and soon this can grow virally.

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