How To Use Keywords To Outrank Your Competitor?

Any successful business understands the importance of having an effective content marketing strategy that will help them outrank the competition. Using keywords the right way is one of the best ways to accomplish that, but if you don’t have a lot of expertise in this area, it can be challenging.

Of course, Google doesn’t publicly state what you’ll need to do to achieve success, which often leads to a lot of trial and error.

According to some of the latest stats, there are 82,670 Google searches performed every second and the majority of clicks go to the results on the first page.

Your best bet for using keywords that will help you outrank your competition is to follow these tips.

Tips To Utilize Keywords To Surpass Your Competitors

1. Know Your Competition

You’re probably familiar with your competition, but if you aren’t sure who you’re competing with, that’s the first step to take, otherwise, it’s going to be hard to outrank them. You’ll want to consider your direct competitors, meaning those who sell the same services or products that you do, as well as your indirect competitors.

Indirect competitors refer to those who sell different services or products, but support goods or a product like that compete with what you’re selling. For example, if you’re a restaurant focused on selling fried chicken, your direct competitors would be serving the same customer base with a menu based on fried chicken. A grocery store selling fried chicken in its prepared food section would be an indirect competitor.

Perceived competitors offer a different type of service or product that can be an alternative to yours. For example, an eatery selling all organic grilled chicken may be a perceived competitor to that more traditional fried chicken restaurant.

2. Determine Which Keywords Your Top Competitors Are Using

Once you have a list of your competitors in all categories you’ll need to figure out which keywords they’re targeting. To do that, tools like Keyword Scout can be extremely useful as they’ll reveal which keywords your competitors rank for, providing all sorts of keywords you may not have considered.

When you’ve created a list of keywords your competitors are targeting, you can put that data to good use.

3. Try Using Keyword Synonyms

One common mistake many people make when using keywords is that they find one or two they want to rank for and then work on optimizing those. The problem with that is those are the most searched or most popular keywords in that particular niche, which means the level of competition is massive.

Just imagine being an actor in Los Angeles and trying to rank for the term ‘actor Los Angeles.’ How many web pages do you think you’ll be competing with? The work you’d try and have to do to land on the first page would be tremendous.

A better strategy to use is trying to rank for similar keywords, those that have the same meaning, such as performer, thespian, or artist. Within the search term, you could try various neighborhoods in L.A. instead of Los Angeles, like Hollywood, Venice, or Beverly Hills.

4. Figure Out Whether Or Not The Keywords Are Right For Your Business

If you aren’t sure if a keyword is the right one for your business, do a Google search to check out the results that are returned. Do they align with your products or services? Be aware that if a query comes back with results from the giants, such as Amazon, it’s probably not worth the effort it would take to try and rank for that term.

5. Create And Update Your Content

Having high-quality content is a must for a site to rank high, as is having the right keywords in that content. Go over all your content with a fine-tooth comb, updating any poor content that exists, and creating new, relevant content that covers topics pertinent to your business, incorporating the keywords you found during your research.