With Google posting constant updates (1 per month for the last 3 months at the time of writing), keyword research becomes more channeled. There are a few things we need to look for on websites ranking on the first page:
- Low DA/PA (Domain authority/Page Authority) on pages that are ranking on the 1st page for any keyword we want to target. That can be done by installing this browser extension: MozBar SEO Toolbar
- Backlinks & RD (referring domains): We want low, ideally less than 100 backlinks to the target ranking page.
- Problems with on-page SEO (see competition research lower down on this thread for examples of problems within competitor content).
- Overall content quality & the length of ranking articles/content. Issues with grammar or factual inaccuracies. Check word count with free word count tool.
- Searchers intent. This is very important. You need to ask & answer as to why these keywords being searched for and if you were searching these keywords, what exact topical information would you be looking for?
We're gonna install an extension to see some of these metrics upon searching for keywords. This is what you'll see after you install MozBar and start a search for one potential keyword:
AI Generated Content
The original thread covers article scraping, spinning, and the like. In this thread, we're going to talk about content & overall content quality in regards to AI. As most of you know, AI generated content is a hot-topic right now and whether or not Google can detect it.
We can only assume as of writing this, Google can detect AI generated content and will penalize you in a future update IF you don't edit what the AI gives you. So, what you need to do is:
- Proofread
Read over what the AI output gives you for an article. You want readability to be fair. It needs to read as if a human wrote it.
Re-write or restructure anything that seems off or doesn't form a proper sentence. Sometimes copy/pasting into MS word or Grammarly can help with that.
- Fact check
Outside of weird sentence anomalies, misinformation, clearly false statements within articles are one of the number one giveaways as to whether or not an AI wrote that content.
It may seem like more work, but it's ultimately worth it.
- Plagiarism check
Run your articles from the AI generator through a plagiarism checker. This goes for any content you post. A few modern plagiarism checkers are:
- Grammarly. Decent pricing plan, can find premium accounts on this forum as well. Has free/limited version.
- QueText. Great pricing plan for what you're getting.
- Copyscape. An older plagiarism checker, but still worth purchasing to check for duplicate content.
Here are a few AI content generators:
- Jasper. Is #1 according to most marketers I've spoken to. Their plans are pricey, but ultimately worth it.
- Rytr. Has an unlimited plan option with a built in plagiarism checker.
- Sensit AI. Free trial w/ customizable pricing structure. Great quality content output.
- WordHero. Pricing is similar to those above, also produces good quality content.
- Writesonic. Fully customizable pricing structure, 1 click to Wordpress export.
- Copy AI. Has a free option for 2,000 words per month. Pricing structure per word is a bit higher than some other options.
If you're looking for a discussion on how well AI content performs on the SERPs, there was a thread posted at the time of writing this section; shoutout to @RealDaddy here: https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/ai-content-can-outperform-most-of-the-content-in-the-serps.1423805
Discovering competitor backlinks & backlink metrics
This is something that's essentially common knowledge among most people that do SEO on the forum, but we all learned it somewhere, so don't be discouraged.
A fair amount, if not all, of high authority websites (your top competitors) block ahrefs & semrush bots from detecting their backlinks. Ahrefs/SEMRush still gives you a good amount of information.
Ahrefs & SEMRush have free versions of their backlink checkers, website authority checkers, & more but they have limitations unless you buy a subscription. However, some of us can't afford an Ahrefs/SEMRush subscription. So, how can we find our competitors backlinks?
I'm going to show you a simple Google operator that can show you a list of backlinks that a website has. For this example, I'm going to use a random Fitness niche competitor of mine.
Operator to check backlinks: "YourCompetitorURL.com" -site:yourcompetitorURL.com
Copy everything, including the quotation marks. Just replace the text with the competitor URL without the http(s) at first.
What comes up when we type in this operator correctly?
- Low DA/PA (Domain authority/Page Authority) on pages that are ranking on the 1st page for any keyword we want to target. That can be done by installing this browser extension: MozBar SEO Toolbar
- Backlinks & RD (referring domains): We want low, ideally less than 100 backlinks to the target ranking page.
- Problems with on-page SEO (see competition research lower down on this thread for examples of problems within competitor content).
- Overall content quality & the length of ranking articles/content. Issues with grammar or factual inaccuracies. Check word count with free word count tool.
- Searchers intent. This is very important. You need to ask & answer as to why these keywords being searched for and if you were searching these keywords, what exact topical information would you be looking for?
We're gonna install an extension to see some of these metrics upon searching for keywords. This is what you'll see after you install MozBar and start a search for one potential keyword:
AI Generated Content
The original thread covers article scraping, spinning, and the like. In this thread, we're going to talk about content & overall content quality in regards to AI. As most of you know, AI generated content is a hot-topic right now and whether or not Google can detect it.
We can only assume as of writing this, Google can detect AI generated content and will penalize you in a future update IF you don't edit what the AI gives you. So, what you need to do is:
- Proofread
Read over what the AI output gives you for an article. You want readability to be fair. It needs to read as if a human wrote it.
Re-write or restructure anything that seems off or doesn't form a proper sentence. Sometimes copy/pasting into MS word or Grammarly can help with that.
- Fact check
Outside of weird sentence anomalies, misinformation, clearly false statements within articles are one of the number one giveaways as to whether or not an AI wrote that content.
It may seem like more work, but it's ultimately worth it.
- Plagiarism check
Run your articles from the AI generator through a plagiarism checker. This goes for any content you post. A few modern plagiarism checkers are:
- Grammarly. Decent pricing plan, can find premium accounts on this forum as well. Has free/limited version.
- QueText. Great pricing plan for what you're getting.
- Copyscape. An older plagiarism checker, but still worth purchasing to check for duplicate content.
Here are a few AI content generators:
- Jasper. Is #1 according to most marketers I've spoken to. Their plans are pricey, but ultimately worth it.
- Rytr. Has an unlimited plan option with a built in plagiarism checker.
- Sensit AI. Free trial w/ customizable pricing structure. Great quality content output.
- WordHero. Pricing is similar to those above, also produces good quality content.
- Writesonic. Fully customizable pricing structure, 1 click to Wordpress export.
- Copy AI. Has a free option for 2,000 words per month. Pricing structure per word is a bit higher than some other options.
If you're looking for a discussion on how well AI content performs on the SERPs, there was a thread posted at the time of writing this section; shoutout to @RealDaddy here: https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/ai-content-can-outperform-most-of-the-content-in-the-serps.1423805
Discovering competitor backlinks & backlink metrics
This is something that's essentially common knowledge among most people that do SEO on the forum, but we all learned it somewhere, so don't be discouraged.
A fair amount, if not all, of high authority websites (your top competitors) block ahrefs & semrush bots from detecting their backlinks. Ahrefs/SEMRush still gives you a good amount of information.
Ahrefs & SEMRush have free versions of their backlink checkers, website authority checkers, & more but they have limitations unless you buy a subscription. However, some of us can't afford an Ahrefs/SEMRush subscription. So, how can we find our competitors backlinks?
I'm going to show you a simple Google operator that can show you a list of backlinks that a website has. For this example, I'm going to use a random Fitness niche competitor of mine.
Operator to check backlinks: "YourCompetitorURL.com" -site:yourcompetitorURL.com
Copy everything, including the quotation marks. Just replace the text with the competitor URL without the http(s) at first.
What comes up when we type in this operator correctly?
