How To Spot Your ‘SEO Threats’ in Google
By Anna Johnson on January 21st, 2009Here’s a simple, no-cost approach to identifying who is competing with you for the keywords you’re targeting in Google. It’s not necessarily the best or most efficient, but it is free and requires no browser extensions (not that I’m against browser extensions… I love ‘em!)
Basically, when it comes to your search engine optimization (SEO) competitors – those websites that are competing for a high ranking for the same keyword as you – you can simply type the following ‘Google operators’ into the Google search bar.
Replace “keyword” with the keyword or keyword phrase you are targeting:
intitle:”keyword” inanchor:”keyword” intext:”keyword”
The results generated will be all those webpages that include this keyword or keyword phrase in each of the: title of the page, anchor text on the page, and body text of the page.
Why is this meaningful?
Because it gives you a good idea of the number and identity of all the websites that are actively targeting the same keyword(s) as you. Armed with this information, you can then decide whether you really want to target this keyword or key phrase, or focus on deconstructing the SEO efforts of some – e.g. the most highly ranked – of these particular websites.
Of course, not all – or necessarily most – of these sites will constitute the top results you’ll get when you do a more general search on the same keyword(s). But the exercise does give you a good idea of who you are up against in terms of on-page optimization AND who is vying for a higher spot in the more general results.
