SEO isn’t rocket science but you do need to have an arsenal of tools if you want to outrank your competition.

You want to focus on these key areas when it comes to SEO. If you can beat out competitors in the following areas, you have a 90% chance of outranking them in the search engines.

•    Indexed pages

•    Incoming links

•    Incoming links -with anchor text matching keywords you want to rank

•    Site age

•    Domain PageRank

•    Page optimization

However, there are some forces that may be against you and could negatively affect your ranking. Avoid the following:

•    Duplicate content – this is a big No-No in SEO

•    Website structure - poorly built/coded

•    Internal linking - structure is bad

•    Incoming links - generated from link farms and/or poor quality sites

•    Incoming links – not relevant to the topic associated with your site

•    Lack of content/keyword issues - not enough content around keyword you want to rank

•    Page optimization - don’t have at least ONE page optimized for that particular keyword

Indexed Pages
It’s easy to find out how many pages search engines have indexed by running searches through Google, Yahoo and Bing.  The syntax for each search engine is different – use the following:

•    Google – site:thecoolblog.com

•    Yahoo – linkdomain:www.thecoolblog.com

•    Bing – site:www.thecoolblog.com

Incoming Links
The best tool to use to find incoming links is Yahoo Site Explorer. This tool allows you to find what websites link back to your sites.

Get MORE incoming links than your competitor and make sure they are BETTER links:

•    Higher-authority sites

•    Similar sites/topics related to your site

•    Links with right anchor texts

Incoming Links with Anchor Text Matching the Keyword You Want to Rank
Anchor text is clickable text in a hyperlink.

You can utilize tools to check how many links point back to your site with the right anchor text. It’s important to get as many links as you can with the right anchor text. It’s better to have 100 links if 75% of them have the anchor text: “search engine marketing (SEM)” compared to 1,000 links with only 5% having that anchor text.

•    SEOmoz Backlink Analysis (paid membership)

•    Backlink Analyzer (free software)

Site Age and Domain PageRank
Another great tool to use is SEO for Firefox. This addon allows you to find the site age/date.  This is important when you are trying to find a keyword to rank.

You can also find the PageRank (PR) using the same tool above. It allows you to see where that particular page is ranked in Google (which is helpful when you are figuring out your competition’s rankings).

Page Optimization
It’s difficult to rank for a keyword you don’t have any optimized content for. If you don’t optimize pages for your keywords, it’s going to make it harder for you in the future when it comes to your rankings.

Create a chart for EACH keyword you want to rank. This allows you to analyze your metrics and figure out what you need to do better to outrank your competition: Do you need more links? Is your site younger than your competitor’s? Is your PR lower or higher than your competition?

The chart needs to include the following:

•    Incoming links

•    Indexed pages

•    # of Matching Anchor Texts

•    Site Age

•    PageRank

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