How are you gleaning your competitive insights? We've got a ton of resources and tools at our disposal, and one of the best ways to learn what's working for your rivals and how you can build your own success on top of those insights is via the top pages report. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand goes over how each data source can provide unique value and which questions you should be asking to get more out of that data.
Video Transcription
Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we're going to chat about how you can use your competitors' top pages, data from a number of reports, from a bunch of different tools about which pages are the most important, or highest ranked, or most linked to URLs on your competitors' websites, in order to boost your SEO efforts. There's a bunch of cool things that you can do with these, beyond the obvious, and I'll walk you through a few of them today.
5 kinds of "Top Pages" reports
So first off, there are really five kinds of top pages reports. These can be further filtered and augmented with data that you could craft or create, and some of these tools add in additional data too, so you could do other things with them. But basically, these five are:
1. Top pages by links
This is essentially what are the most linked to, either by URLs, or by root domains, or highest page authority, those kinds of things. The three tools that have that are Moz, Ahrefs, and Majestic. They're the primary link tools out there on the web.
2. Top pages by social shares
This is looking at Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus, Twitter. Important caveat on this, Moz technically has top pages by social shares, but only from Facebook and Google Plus. Probably we'll be replacing Google Plus with LinkedIn soon. Ahrefs has it, but same story. They don't have Twitter data. BuzzSumo are the only folks who can show you Twitter data, but they only have it if they've already recorded the URL and started tracking it, because Twitter took away the ability to see Twitter share accounts for any particular URL, meaning that in order for BuzzSumo to actually get that data, they have to see that page, put it in their index, and then start collecting the tweet counts on it. So it's not perfect data, but they're certainly the best source as far as social share numbers go. You can also get some data from SharedCount.com, but it's been sort of up and down lately.
3. Top pages by estimated search traffic
So this is essentially where SEMrush shines. Ahrefs also has this. Basically, what they're doing is they're looking at, "Here all the keywords that we've seen this URL or this path or this domain ranking for, and here is the estimated keyword volume." I think both SEMrush and Ahrefs are scraping Google AdWords to collect their keyword volume data. Actually, I think maybe Ahrefs is also doing what Moz does now, where they bolster that with data that they buy from Jumpshot or possibly another clickstream provider. So essentially they're saying, "These pages are the ones we think are getting the most organic search traffic." Super valuable report from both of those guys as well.
4. Top pages by number of ranking keywords
So this is different from estimated search traffic. There could be a page on a domain that only ranks for one keyword, but it gets tons of searches and it ranks number one, so it gets an incredible amount of search traffic. But there could be pages that rank for a ton of different keywords, but they rank number 6 through 10, or they rank number 11 through 50, and they rank for all these different numbers of keywords, but none of them particularly well or none of them all that awesome, and so they don't show up in the top estimated search traffic reports. Again, SEMrush and Ahrefs provide those.
5. Top pages by total traffic
So this would be SimilarWeb and Jumpshot provide these. Alexa does too. I mean Alexa, not Amazon's voice search app, but the old Alexa rankings system. Why did they name them both the same thing? It makes it really confusing. Does it frustrate you? It frustrates me. So you can use SimilarWeb or Jumpshot to see the top pages by total traffic. So that's all sources, that's search traffic, social traffic, direct, email, links, etc., etc.
Problems to solve/questions to answer
These five I'm going to reference as we dive into problems to solve and questions to answer. But before we do that, I'm a little under the weather, so I'm going to blow my nose. I know this is unusual on Whiteboard Friday, but you don't want to see anything gnarly happening on the video. This is the proof that we only do one shot, that I really do one take.
A. What is my competition doing that's bringing them success along various vectors?
This is the most obvious one. This is the one that everybody uses the top pages reports for. So they go, "Okay, what is the most linked to? What has the most social shares?" Fine, so I can see what content has been most successful in any different one along any of those vectors. It's obvious, it's good to use, it can answer some questions, but check out these other ones.
B. Where has my competition created broad content, leaving gaps of specific queries I can fill?
Potentially fill with answer boxes, featured snippets, I could potentially fill by having a more targeted page that answers that query directly better, and so doesn't need as many links to rank, because it's very, very hyper-targeted? You can do that by looking at things that your competition has done really well on number four, top pages by number of ranking keywords, but has not done as well with total organic estimated search traffic. The gap between those two will give you those kinds of content opportunities, hyper-focused content and keyword targeting opportunities, which is killer.
C. What content has done really well, like resonated with social or direct traffic audiences, but then it's done poorly in SEO?
So, for that, I can look at number two, top pages by social shares, or number five, by total traffic, but then look at ones that have performed poorly on number of keywords and estimated search traffic.
D. What content has helped my competitors grow their link profile, but may not be ranking or maybe it used to be ranking, but it's not ranking anymore because they haven't kept the content up to date?
Maybe people were looking for stuff around 2017, and they created this content way back in 2015, and even though they got a bunch of links to it, it's just not ranking that well anymore. These are huge opportunities, and so you can look for number one being very high, high number of links, but lower number of ranking keywords and estimated search traffic.
E. What content is low on links, but high on getting search traffic and getting lots of keywords ranking for it?
Which means that there's a strong opportunity that if you can out link build them, you can probably overtake them. Because if it's weak on number of links, but it's strong on estimated search traffic and number of ranking keywords, there's probably a golden opportunity.
So you can see how by mixing and matching these things and by comparing top pages data from multiple sources against one another, you can get some really cool, powerful, advanced SEO opportunities in your content and keyword targeting.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this, how you've done it in the past, and we'll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.
As usual, great content and a new opportunity to learn about practical SEO. Thank you Rand. Many of these tools are a must for any seo toolbox.
I see frequently we start a new project or start working for a new client and make a great competitors research, but then we spend months without checking it. How often do you recommend to make a great competitors research this way?
Regards.
Great explanation Rand!
BTW I use Ahrefs to see Top pages of my competitors. Inside I can see which pages are getting more traffic and which keywords sends more traffic to them and search volume along with the rank position.
This method gives me lots of ideas to create a content and help me to take better decision.
Hello Rand, Awesome Whitboard Friday.
I think Alexa was the name of Bezzo´s first love, but we will never know it for sure.
Greetings.
"I'm sorry, I didn't not understand" replied Alexa immediately after the verbal callout of "Alexa" in this video. :-)
Competitive research is important, usually with any new project we pick out the top 10 best competitors and benchmark your business against them. Look at all areas they were doing well in top links by pages, top content by word count, top visibility by pages, top social shares by page.
Solid breakdown on competitor SEO research, I find this takes some of the guesswork out of SEO and is as important as keyword research for businesses to utilize to have a successful and long-term SEO strategy.
Also, side note, our company is trying to decide between Ahrefs & SEMrush, and Majestic for competitor backlink research (as a cross-reference for Open Site Explorer), we are kind of leaning towards SEMrush, but feel Ahrefs almost always displays the most backlinks... any recommendations?
Very interesting WBF on how to get hold of your competitions top pages, analyze them and build on it. Another way is the skyscraper technique, where you get hold of a list of popular content in your field and then have similar content far superior to what exists and make it very detailed covering all the content gaps.
Very good video. I wrote a blog article about this in german.
Have three more "top pages" in the article:
top commented content (can be found with Screaming Frog and custom fields)top content in social media accounts (like the best video or picture)top internally linked content page (which thinks the competition is best)
see: http://www.juliancordes.de/201704/die-besten-seite...
Ahrefs is awesome tool when it comes to competitors analysis. It is very simple and helpful. You just need to have a pro-version.
I had some hospitality industry clients for local SEO projects and you can't believe it made my way much easy for keyword research.
Thanks Rand for this insightful information
How do you find the top pages by social shares using Moz? I can't find it
Really , Nice to see your SEO course on UDEMY , I enroll it and Started learning from it.
The points are focused on content itself. One can also analyse the internal inbound links of well ranking documents, and compare with own not so well ranking documents about the same topic. This is also a matter of implementation of informational content into ecommerce websites. I suggest to check the product detail pages of outdoor brand mammuth. They changed their concept last year by 100% and still work on it.
I used to check my competitor backlinks on a regular basis to keep update myself. But never got any specific way to take benefits through this. This wonderful post taught me a lot then earlier I knew.
Ahref's is looking like a good tool set to have by the strong representation it has on that list!
Any feedback from fellow Moz'ers? Are you using it on its own or do you still supplement it with other toolsets like Moz and or Semrush?
The real value article, as always. Waiting for more :)
Hi Rand,
I really like the idea of comparing multiple reports this way to get an action list of tactics.
When looking at the link metrics do you place more value in linking root domains or links?
I've always felt that the most benefit can be gained by acquiring a variety of linking domains vs. links.
Thanks,
Chris
Hi Chris
you can fake number of links to easily (like sidewide sidebar links). Therefore it doesnt make sense to have a look at this imho.
Rand the man coming through with another fantastic WBF. I knew that some of the tools were around and not all of them. For me this is the perfect opportunity when a client needs to have their opportunities and competition evaluated. Seeing how much traffic is going to a site that is not your own or the positive traction of their social shares can really put into perspective on what needs to be done. Problem C is the one that sticks out the most as a competitor is going to have similar keywords and depending on how well they are doing with them your strategy can be better to overcome.
Thanks for this and all the past ones as well keep on rocking it.
Excellent Whiteboard Friday.
I really like using BuzzSumo to find the key influencers to promote my clients' content, SEMrush and Ahrefs to find competitors' keywords, backlinks, ad text and SimilarWeb to compare website traffic statistics & analytics.
These are very good tools and gives me an edge in my SEO projects.
If only instead of Alexa they had named it Rand!
As always, the real value here is going beyond one view, coming at it from multiple angles.
Actually this kind of competitors' research helps you to put things in perspective as well. Sometimes a client comes to you and say bring my website on first page. He/She only sees the money the other people are making but not the efforts they put. So these top 5s list can help you to show client how much efforts and investment needed to compete.
Thanks, Rand. I can see that these tools like the Moz bar can be used during a campaign but they can also be used to quickly show potential clients where they stand relative to there competitors, and what you can do to get them ranked. As the owner of a small SEO service, I meet a lot of new customers on the go and have to make a quick sale. These tools are helpful, and a lot of times I am relieved to see that I am not that far from the top. Also thanks for introducing some new tools I haven't used but plan to take a look at.
Keep them coming, every week I enjoy and learn a lot from your Whiteboard Friday.
Rand this is an awesome article. But don't you think having "not-up-to-date" links can be harmful? For example imagine a page that we wanna create links to with the anchor "SEO strategies 2017" and then in the future like 2019, these links are going to be harmful or at least less-helpful? I'm asking this because you correctly talked about content freshness.
I am new to the web, but seeing articles like this already know that I have been successful in registering. Thanks for the info. I have several websites that, I do not understand why, are stuck and with these recommendations I hope I can get them back to work as before.
Greetings
Hi
Nice article " how to get hold of your competitions top pages ......." . I hope it help others who are interest about it
Great insight here. Always looking for new growth hacks and once again Moz seems to be a go to resource.
Many thanks, it's all very interesting because for years the tools have changed, seo too, and these classifications help newbies like me!
Hi Rand, I think that the report "Top pages by link" is to be found in SEMrush as well. I've been using Majestic and SEMrush for a while and SEMrush has actually pretty much everything what Majestic does. The only thing I haven't found in SEMrush is the "Neighbourhood checker" which checks the IP's. But in SEMrush it's doable manually by exporting data into Excel file.
Looking forward to dig deep into Moz tools as well.
Sometimes I focus so much on what I'm working on and I forget to check out the competitors.This post was helpful!
Hi Rand!
As always a pleasure to see you here and to read and learn SEO thanks to your contributions.
Very good tools each and every one of them, we should opt for the ones that interest us most, I use Semrush for my projects when I mate to spy on my competitors. I think if we want to appear above the competition, it is imperative that we spy on it.
A greeting!
Thanks for the awesome video cant wait to implement this tactics for my own site. Though I am thinking about creating skyscraper content by using the top pages by link option from ahrefs.com. What do you think about the Idea ??
A great article that makes you reflect on the importance of having good tools to plot SEO strategies.
Thanks, Rand - these are great ways to find relatively high ROI/low input cost content. Sort of an "end run" to break things loose in niche markets where there's a relatively small set of keywords and questions the audience is asking.
Hello, nice blog. But i want to know, How to maintain keyword ranking?
Thanks, Rand - these are great ways to find relatively high ROI/low input cost content. Sort of an "end run" to break things loose in niche markets where there's a relatively small set of keywords and questions the audience is asking.
Hi Rand,
Hope you feel better quick!
Quick question regarding point D:
When you were explaining this point I started thinking about my own website. Some of our most linked to content is from 2014 and 2015, but they are outdated and need to be updated with information relevant to 2017.
In a case like this, is it better to create a new page with more current information and then 301 redirect the old page with lots of links, to the new page? Or would you recommend I update the old page to be current with 2017 and just leave the old page to hopefully then pick it's rankings back up? I always fear leaving links behind or seeing them get devalued in some way when creating a 301 redirect from an older popular page to a newer updated page.
Thanks
Hi Paul,
update the old page. Make it evergreen content. Do it frequently.
One of the best examples about this is apple. The iphone landingpage is always the same URL, not matter which is the current version of the iphone.
Agree with Julian,
I have this situation come up regularly and by updating existing content, organic traffic spikes.
Obviously some situations will call for 301s, but if you can keep the URL, do so.
Hi Rand! I think evaluating your competitor`s content can help put things in the right direction nonetheless. Creating consistent engaging content and using high ranked keywords is necessary for organic traffic. That`s a pretty sweet evaluation for the most important things in SEO and content strategy. Looking to your competition for better counsel can help in grasping their secret sauce for success. I really like point B, filling the gaps can provide a hyper-focused content. That is something most of the people do, making a better content out of a good content. Thanks for sharing. Your insights are always helpful.
Competitor top pages information is just skeleton ideas about work, we think to more then about our project in terms of end users.
Wow that'amazing blog about SEO. My gut feel is that, as a newish site with low DA I would want to focus on the gap marketing techniques.
Wow, I am just getting into SEO marketing and this post is filled with so many useful nuggets. My gut feel is that, as a newish site with low DA I would want to focus on the gap marketing techniques. How much does your current DA/PA affect which of these techinques you would use?