From the course: SEO: Competitive Analysis

Key SEO elements to look at

From the course: SEO: Competitive Analysis

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Key SEO elements to look at

- [Instructor] In this video, we're going to discuss the different elements of SEO and how they affect an organization's web presence. By definition, search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of improving the ranking of webpages in search engine results pages, also known as SERPs. Some of the primary factors that determine where a website ranks in SERPs include the keywords and the keyword density of the pages that are being looked at, the inbound links, links from outside websites leading to your competitors' site, the structure of the website itself, the actual code and page hierarchy, the domain authority, which is essentially the website's reputation, and the social buzz, how much social media chatter are they creating. These factors are taken into account by search engine robots that crawl over webpages, and by means of an algorithm, decide where pages rank in search engines for particular keywords. Throughout this course, we're going to look at all aspects of SEO from a competitive standpoint. If it's driving traffic to your competitors' website, it's important for this course. First of all, we're going to look at some website ranking data to see where your competitors stand in terms of overall traffic and where their websites rank in search engines for keywords related to the industry. This is the data that will help you determine how your own online presence matches up to those of your competitors, and if you're targeting the right keywords in your own SEO strategy. We're also going to take a look at the inbound links that your competitors have received. These are links that lead from an outside website to the website of one of your competitors. This is a really important aspect of SEO because search engine robots will rank a page higher if it has inbound links from another high ranking webpage or a web domain with high authority. For example, an inbound link to a website from a news source, such as the New York Times, will weigh more heavily and be more beneficial for a site than an inbound link from a random blog. Additionally, by looking at the inbound links competitors have, we may be able to uncover some of the sources of their traffic. Based on where these links are coming from, it may be possible to gather some information about your competitors' online goals and techniques. Hopefully, we may also see some sites linking to competitors that may be available for you to reach out to and get a link from as well. We will also take a look at the social media presence your competitors have. This is important because search engines do use social buzz and chatter to help determine rankings. Social media may also drive traffic directly to your competitors' websites as well. By taking a look at your competitors' social traction and posting strategies, you can gain valuable insight for your own social media campaigns. Lastly, we're going to look at the on-site SEO of some competitor websites. On-site SEO is the actual coding of the website and it does contribute to ranking and SERPs. Two of the most important factors of on-site SEO include keyword density and page load time, both of which we'll talk about later on in the course. As you can see, we've got a lot to take a look at, but the potential value that it can add to our organization certainly makes it worth the research.

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