Understanding Who And What You're Competing For In SEO And PPC Rankings

Search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising have to be done right to get to the top listings on the search pages, and a lot of that will depend on what kind of keywords you use in your content, how organized and interactive your blog or website is, and its mobile-friendly ranking as well. But to make sure your website is hitting the top listings you also have to pay attention to what your competitors are doing because they are always looking to get one step ahead of you. The tricky part is that sometimes you may not even realize who your competitors are. What you should know is that SEO and PPC competitors each have different objectives.

Common Competitors In SEO Rankings

You have to remember that search engines don't just care about ranking companies selling products and services, they care about all published content related to a subject. So it won't just be competitors selling similar services to yours, you'll have to look out for news publications, blog hosts, directory listings and other content pages that post about information related to your business. Websites that produce lists are often highly ranked because of how informative they are. What you may need to do to surpass these competitors is to produce lists and informative blogs of your own on your website because these are noticed by search engines, and website visitors often like to look at these lists.

Competing with other websites in SEO rankings also is affected by your reputation. Online reviews are very important and it's often why various review directories show up high in search rankings. It's helpful to make sure your company is in good standing with all current and former customers so that they'll leave great reviews that search engines will take notice of. Another feature of your website that can go hand-in-hand with your reputation is how many links are pointing to it and doing so legitimately. Backlinking is a good tactic, but it should not look like spam in any way.

Common Competitors In PPC Rankings

PPC advertising is a little different because in this case you're fighting for the top spots in paid search advertising boxes and it's going to cost you to do so. Different search engine PPC services have different ways that they rank you, but probably the biggest one outside of bidding is having a great quality score. Your competitors could be simply outbidding you for their listings, but you may need to check on how your listing appears on the pages. You could also have competitors who aren't competing in the same field but might need to use the same keywords for their PPC listing.

The best solution to overtaking competitors in the PPC arena is to have a versatile optimization strategy and make sure you're getting the most output for your investment. Using analytics software and performance checkers can help make sure you're using the right keywords because ultimately you want keywords that drive in sales when they're clicked. Building good PPC campaigns can be done even on a limited budget, but you have to remember to track your competitors even more often because they can overtake you instantly.