Using specialized Google searches for SEO and competitive research is a pretty simple, but powerful tool. Many times you can improve your ranking for important search phrases by better understanding the construction of pages that rank well ahead of you. Studying and understanding how a well ranked page is optimized and having access to a list of sites that link to these pages will tell you a great deal about what you may need to do to get similar results.
Google has enabled a long list of search shortcuts that will allow you to do all kinds of things besides simply search for a plumber in your town. By adding what Google calls an operator followed by a colon : you can get some pretty interesting research done very quickly.
The following are my 10 favorite website and SEO shortcuts because they give you a quick look at some of the most competitive search ranking factors.
- site:(get your search results for only one website – this would show pages on Duct Tape Marketing with the word referral) – site:ducttapemarketing.com “referralsâ€
- link:(find page that link back to a page or entire site) – link:www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog
- info: (find info about a page) – info:www.ducttapemarketing.com
- related: (shows pages that Google think are related to a site) – related:www.ducttapemarketing.com
- cache: (shows what a page looked like in previous version) – cache:ducttapemarketing.com
- filetype:(search for specific filetypes only) marketing filetype:ppt
- allintitle: (search keywords in page title) – allintitle:public relations
- allinanchor: (search for link or anchor text) – allinanchor:get more referrals
- inurl:(restrict search to page URLs) inurl:smallbusiness
- allintext: (words specified in body text) allintext:duct tape
- acronym: (secret to staying young) He’s a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd’s deciding about yoga
