Best SEO tool for competitive analysis?

[amyd]

Hi guys,

I having another go at SEO for my website and I feel like I know what needs to be done but always get stuck at the first hurdle - finding the best keywords to target!

So I've tried google adwords keywords tool and have purchased market samurai - I've narrowed a giant list of keywords to around 1000 (market samurai makes filtering out keywords really quick and easy).

So now I need to figure out which of these we should target - some are still quite broad (like mens clothing when we sell mens and womens t shirts in specific). But I need to figure out which of these we can easily get a good ranking on google for - ideally number 1-3.

I'm thinking that there must be a tool that makes this process much quicker and easier? As with market samurai you have to do a competition analysis on each keyword which takes quite a bit of time. I just want to be able to look at the list of keywords and click sort by competition.

So what do you guys use? I've had a play around with keyword country but its very slow.

Thanks!

P.S. Sorry but I first put this post in ecommerce section but realised that I should have put it here instead.

 

[maxh]

Wordtracker keywords tool gives you competition data (IAAT) essentially summing up how many people are optimising for that keyword.

I use their linkbuilder tool for competitive analysis between websites, and benchmarking.

 

[fisicx]

The longer the keyword phrase the easier it is to rank for and the better they are for conversions.

So you need to target (for example): 'pink long sleeved ladies t-shirts'

The keyword tools will only take you so far, after that you need to do a bit of intuitive thinking and then plugging away at on-site changes and link building.

It's not automatic and it's not quick, you can spend months on keyword research and even longer testing and adjusting to build up traffic and conversions.

 

[RedEvo]

Take your pick from these SEO tools.

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[amhsolutions]

seo for Firefox is good enough for what you need

 

[AshleyWhiteBusiness]

Truth is competitive analysis tools can't tell you why your competitor is getting better links, only that they are. To answer that question you have to think outside the Internet technology box and go back to some old fashioned questions about the specifics of your core business versus the competition. Think for a moment about "brick and mortar" establishments. All the marketing gimmicks designed to get more customers in the store will not help if the shelves are poorly stocked with overpriced, low quality products. So perhaps you should focus on the content of your competitor's site.

 

[amyd]

Thanks for the replies everyone!

@maxh - i did use wordtracker a few years ago, but i ended coming out with keywords that the tool was saying were really good to target but google adwords keyword tool said were really poor. So I kind of lost my faith in it..does it use results from a different source i.e. not google? I can't remember. But maybe I'll revisit this tool but $69 a month seems a bit steep. How fast is it loading up the data?

@fisicx - thanks for this, is there a good way to automatically find long tail keywords or is it just a case of coming up with ideas in your head and then putting them in a tool to see if they get any traffic?

@positionseo - thanks for this advice - i just looked it up and will definitely use this! But at this stage I just want to look at my list of keywords and it gives and idea of how competitive they are so I know which ones to target, rather than knowing why a website is ranking. But when I start targeting keywords this will defo come in useful thanks!

 

[paretowasright]

Most of the answers are already in market samurai...you can set the number of keywords for results to find longer tail and an examination of page and title competition will show SOME of the levels of competition per keyword.
The OCI and click through rates will also indicate the money keywords.

There is no way around the SEO competition trawl per narrowed down keyword but the art is making a judgement call on which keywords you can realistically rank well for based on the competition. So many people make the mistake of going after the big keywords and failing rather than targeting the niches.

 

[sess4561]

What you really need to define here is 'true' competition.

Many of the SEO tools that determine ranking difficulty based on numbers.

But ... who's counting!

Let's take 'ladies pink tshirts' ... 171,000,000 results. Wow.. very competitive.

But at a second glance,

How many of the top 10-50 sites show real signs of any serious SEO efforts:

• Keyword in title tags.
• Amount of content on the ranking page.
• Freshness of content.
• Overall content on the site.

Not only that, how many of the top 10-50 sites have inbound links with anchor text showing their target keyword??

The truth is, there is no tool that can figure out all of this information and dig deep, you need to do it yourself and take your time. You might even find some great little niches you didnt know existed.

 

[C.Rebecca]

So what do you guys use? I've had a play around with keyword country but its very slow.

Well yes, it is slow. But then detecting keywords responsible for upto 96% of your competitors' traffic to help you reverse engineer their strategy does take time. I don’t get too hung up about time...The product is up my alley and I'd rather wait than shooting in the dark!

 

[LisaPS]

I would also suggest to use long tail keywords for less competition so that you can rank better in search engines..... there are some tools free or paid which would be helpful as well.

"serp trends", "seo doctor", "serp analytics"

 

[waterr]

I tend to use Long Tail Pro and My Brain to analyze competition. You really don't need a tool to check competition though. Just open up Firefox and Analyze the important factors of the top 20 ranking sites, their backlinks, On page seo, Pagerank, etc.
My $0.02 anyway!

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Wordtracker keywords tool gives you competition data (IAAT) essentially summing up how many people are optimising for that keyword.

I use their linkbuilder tool for competitive analysis between websites, and benchmarking.

I took out a subscription for wordtracker, but cancelled it within hours as it was just way too complicated to use. I was seriously disappointed in the whole system, and believed the help system just wasn't up to the mark.

 

[rashisree]

SEMRush is the best competitor analysis tool.

 

[Remys]

I use both Keyword Elite and Nichefinder. The latter you can do without though I just like it as it flags up potential keywords quickly.

Keyword Elite is worth every penny as it has a number of excellent functions, such as checking backlinks of competition, Adword spying, keyword tool, and a few other things.

 

[garyk]

One thing an SEO expert told me was to also not think about the results in a linear fashion. As in the difference between position 1 and 2 could be tiny or it could be huge. Each gap between each position is not the same but we think like that as its just ordered 1 to x.

Gary

 

[daisyrogers]

Forget about tools analyze your competitors by own with taking help from tools. Google the keywords and find out which competitors and also targeting your keywords. Then Analyze which type of links they have.

 

[harryden01]

There are lot of tool available online where you can track your competitor and also analysis the website...Must try Google keyword tool for the keyword competition...

 

[logicfusion]

The best competitive analysis tool is multiple competitive analysis tools all used together in my opinion.

You would be mad to use just one surely?

SEM Rush, Wordtracker, Google Keywords tool, Majestic, the SERPS themselves etc, etc