Starting keyword research without a direct competitor to analyze
-
I work for a non-profit who has always had the luxury of being a monopoly when it comes to the service we provide. Without getting into the boring details, we have an international audience that needs to get certified through us to continue their educational pursuits in the US. Easy as it gets in terms of SEO.
Now, we have a for-profit venture based on our existing verification services where we offer those same services for international organizations. After a lot of research, we haven't been able to find someone else out there similar enough to be considered a direct competitor - at least to the point where I could look at what they're optimizing for.
My question is this: without a clear-cut competitor to identify and analyze, where should we start for keyword research? We think we know how people would find us, but analytics data for the better part of a year shows all traffic as brand-related. Fortunately, we have many long-standing relationships with international organizations, so obtaining links has come naturally after linking to the new venture from our home page, news, SM, etc. But as far as providing our editorial staff - who, up until now, had never been concerned with keywords - a place to start for keyword research so they can then employ a basic SEO checklist... where would you start?
-
If you go down the adwords route, checkout Google Grants (free advertising for non-profits).
-
Adwords. Create an account and use the Keyword tool, then just start typing in every possible keyword combination you can think of and looking at monthly search volumes for each. It will also suggest some ideas based on what you're feeding it to help you think of more.
Good luck!
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Good day team.. have problem with my website i lost all ranking and lost 10x times traffic in 1 day without reason...
Good day everybody. My website is www.evilrpm.com and ii have drop in rank and traffic in 1 day without reason... still fighting with that issue .. from that moment i starts to get the errors and in search console if i make testing pages .. after test they can show like warning or error page but in console its green.. i was check everything, and i think that problem in server.. because it happened when i write the truth about my experience with Shopify... this is extraordinary organization i feel like they from the starts was don't give me the way to grow... any idea what the problem? thanks for your support!
International SEO | | EvilTIGER0 -
My indexed site URL removed from google search without get any message or Manual Actions??
On Agust 2 or 3.. I'm not sure about the exact date...
International SEO | | newwaves
The main URL of my website https://new-waves.net/ had been completely removed from Google search results! without getting any messages or Manual Actions on search console ?? but I'm still can find some of my site subpages in search results and on Google local maps results when I tried to check it on google
info:new-waves.net >> no results
site:new-waves.net >> only now I can see the main URL in results because I had submitted it again and again to google but it might be deleted again today or tomorrow as that happen before last few days
100% of all ranked keywords >> my site URL new-waves.net had been completely removed from all results! but I'm still can see it on maps on some results My site was ranked number 1 on google search results for "digital marketing qatar" and some other keywords, but the main URL had been removed from 100% of all search results. but you can still see it on the map only. I just tried to submit it again to Google and to index it through google search console tool but still not get any results, Can any one help to know what is the reason?? and how can I solve this issue without losing my previous ranked keywords? Can I submit a direct message to google support or customer service to know the reason or get help on this issue? Thanks & Regards0 -
Geo Targeting & Geo Keywords
Kindly clarify the below scenario. I have set Geo Targeting for my Website to 'India' in Webmaster tools. So Google should give preference for the searches happening from India. Is there any preference given for the Geo keywords? Like 'SEO Services in India' or Web Design Companies India' while searching from USA. Thanks
International SEO | | FlavoursMedia0 -
Suggestion for Baidu Keyword Rank Tracking Software?
Does anyone have a suggestion for the best keyword rank tracking software in Baidu? The keywords would be in Chinese. We currently already have keyword rank tracking software for Google/Bing/Yahoo so we just need to expand to Baidu. I am looking forward to comparing my research with what the Moz community has to say! Thanks!
International SEO | | kchandler0 -
Keyword selection for international company
Hi everyone, I am working on a new project for a telecommunications company with its target audience in various countries around Europe and USA. They only have 1 website in English and don’t have content specific to different countries. Ineed to choose keywords for this project but I am finding it quite challenging as usually my keywords are localised. In this case I cannot restrict keywords to any particular country. At the same time I know that it would be extremely tough to rank for generic keywords. What do you suggest?
International SEO | | ICON_Malta0 -
IP Redirection vs. cloaking: no clear directives from Google
Hi there, Here is our situation:we need to force an IP Redirection for our US users to www.domain.com and at the same time we have different country-specific subfolders with thei own language such as www.domain.com/fr. Our fear is that by forcing an IP redirection for US IP, we will prevent googlebot (which has an US IP) from crawling our country-specific subfolders. I didn't find any clear directives from Google representatives on that matter. In this video Matt Cutts says it's always better to show Googlebot the same content as your users http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFf1gwr6HJw&noredirect=1, but on the other hand in that other video he says "Google basically crawls from one IP address range worldwide because (they) have one index worldwide. (They) don't build different indices, one for each country". This seems a contradiction to me... Thank you for your help !! Matteo
International SEO | | H-FARM0 -
Website optimization - highly competitive keyword in german
Hey guys, this is the website: www.mediavideoconverter.de We need to optimize this website for a bunch of keywords such as: VIDEO CONVERTER in google.de which is highly competitive and some others for ipad, iphone software's. Can someone give me a advise where should I start? I know the design isn't great, unfortunately in this part there is nothing I can do about it. Thanks in advance 😃
International SEO | | augustos0