Photo by Hal Gatewood on Unsplash

Search marketing has grown in popularity as online search continues to evolve from novelty to a standard feature in our everyday lives. Are we surprised?

Almost every business in the country, big or small and regardless of industry, has some kind of web presence, and all of them are competing for only a handful of positions at the top of the search-engine results pages (SERPS).

Bob Milliken

Google and other search engines make it their mission to deliver the highest quality and most relevant content to their users. While this is great news to users, it means businesses have to work a bit harder on SEO so their site pages are selected as the go-to source for the information.

A bit of a problem, but here’s what you can do right now …

… improve your own SEO by studying the keywords your competitors are using.

Yup, by studying your competition’s keywords, you can identify new keywords and keywords that are too competitive, as well as learn about what types of content are working for them. Also, you can find out who is linking to your competition and so determine if you want to engage with those websites (and people) to get them to link to you as well.

You can also research their URL using the same tools you used when conducting research for your own site. Keep in mind that just because a competitor is doing something, it doesn’t mean that you should. Instead, use the information to fill in the gaps, do it a little better, and know where you stand.

While there are many SEO tools available, one of the tools we have found works well for competitor research is Wordstream.com. It’s clear that knowing how your digital marketing ranks against your competition is crucial to your success online, and these guys will help you find the keywords they’re using along with other valuable information you can use to improve your own SEO. I suggest you take your research even further by joining your competitor’s email list, getting to know them on LinkedIn and following them on social media.

https://www.wordstream.com/keywords).

By now you realize that getting to know your competition is just plain smart! Even though they are your competitors, you never know when an opportunity will present itself to either work together or buy them out. Don’t laugh; it happens. It can also happen the other way, if the competitor is just slightly more successful and worried.

I recognize setting up and maintaining a Website is not everyone’s most popular activity. In the time it takes you to get started, we can quick start a review and get you back to the head of the class fast.

Bob Milliken is a master marketer specializing in helping businesses achieve outrageous levels of success. Bob can be reached by phone at 604.270.1730 or by email at bob@rfmholdings.com