Strength of Competition

[fortony]

I'm having problems with finding the true Strength of Competition in the niches I am going after. I usually use Micro Niche Finder. It generally works ok, but sometimes it seems that SOC numbers it gives me are off and I go for niches in places I shouldn't.



Does anyone have any advice on this? What works best for accurate SOC numbers?

[Amitywill]

I recommend just typing in your keyword into Google and then looking
at the first page of results. If it's full of article directories, pages
with few back links or pages that aren't optimised well then it should
be easy to rank.

If however it's full of authority sites such as wikepedia, about.com
and other sites that seem to rank well for all their keywords in that
niche then it's going to be a bit harder.

Don't rely on tools too much to give you information. Make your
own decisions about whether a keyword is too competitive or not
based on your own SEO skills.

Will

[kkchoon]

Originally Posted by fortony

I'm having problems with finding the true Strength of Competition in the niches I am going after. I usually use Micro Niche Finder. It generally works ok, but sometimes it seems that SOC numbers it gives me are off and I go for niches in places I shouldn't.

Does anyone have any advice on this? What works best for accurate SOC numbers?

The Long tail keyword

Micro Niche finder and SENuke are great tools to pick up a lot of long tail keywords with decent searches but extremely low competition!

When looking at these type of long tail keywords, you generally just look at how many sites in the title, in the content... which is what you are doing now.

However, this doesn't give you absolutely accuracy, the most accurate way to find the competition is JUST look at the first page for that keyword.

Do a background check on the top 10 ranking website, see how many backlinks they have and you will have an idea how competitive this sites are...

Nope, Micro Niche Finder is right!

Having said that, it doesn't mean Micro Niche Finder and SENuke are wrong, which some warriors will say it is!

You need to understand this - when picking low hanging fruit, the search volume is small, and you need a lot of long tail keywords to really see some good traffic, if you perform top 10 analysis on all sites, it would not be "cost effective"!

That's why sometime Micro Niche Finder doesn't work, but work most of the time. You just need to do the volume game and you will be OK!

Kok Choon

[SEO ibiza]

a combination of assessing the first page of results and using the allintitle: and allinanchor: and allintext: searches give you a pretty good idea of who is where and why.

[lockwood77]

Originally Posted by SEO ibiza

a combination of assessing the first page of results and using the allintitle: and allinanchor: and allintext: searches give you a pretty good idea of who is where and why.

Certainly do, and my Keyword Examiner software automates the process for you! See my signature for a WSO.

I don't know how MNF calculates its SoC, but I find the above searches produces an accurate idea of keyword competition. As noted above, the other key aspect is the links and PageRank of the pages in the top 10.

[euhlir]

I've found MNF is pretty right on for everything. the software's not based on opinion, but numerical equations.

[thecableguy]

You can download Marketsamurai (30 free trial I think) or TrafficTravis (free version) and it'll show the amount of backlinks, keyword in URL,meta-tags, header, etc. of the top ten results. Or if you use Firefox there's an addon (SEOquake I think) that'll display some of that info. Sometimes even with a low number of competing pages can be very competitive.

[nextdayflyers]

Yeah there is all this fancy competitor research stuff, but really u can get an idea of the competition in just a few seconds. I first put the keyword into google as a broad match and examine the top 30 sites and the number of search results appearing. Then i dig a little deeper and starting looking at the top ranking sites more in depth such as checking out their backlinks, how long they have been around and how big they are in general.

Takes a little practice but eventually you can spot a good niche quickly.

[fortony]

Thank you all very much for your advice.

One niche I was looking at has a very low SOC but most of the sites that come up on a google for the phrase look like quality sites with good PR. I suppose they are not optimized for those keywords though.

I guess sometimes it is just a gamble..

[SEO ibiza]

once you become a true Jedi you can assess serp strength without even doing the search just by looking at the words on a piece of paper

[kkchoon]

Originally Posted by SEO ibiza

once you become a true Jedi you can assess serp strength without even doing the search just by looking at the words on a piece of paper

Wow, teach me ! Master!

[clickbump]

Originally Posted by fortony

I'm having problems with finding the true Strength of Competition in the niches I am going after. I usually use Micro Niche Finder. It generally works ok, but sometimes it seems that SOC numbers it gives me are off and I go for niches in places I shouldn't.



Does anyone have any advice on this? What works best for accurate SOC numbers?

Hi FT, here's what I do...

First you'll need the SEO4Firefox plugin from seobook.com

Once you have that installed, restart firefox and head over to google.

Enter your search, exactly like you expect your target audience to enter it, then hit return

Once you see the results, click on the "100" link (this forces google to return the results in their true order and not your own personalized view, which is misleading to a lot of people who are not aware of it)

If you see at least 3 sites with a PR- or a PR-0 and without a crazy number of Y! page links, then you can move on that niche (assuming you can get the exact match domain name for the search you just did)

That's the real world test for strength of competition :-)

I've attached a pic to help illustrate the point...

We would not move on this niche (only 1 target opportunity, we want at least 3)

What would it take to get a green light for this search?

1) Three or more PR- or PR-0 pages in the top ten search results (we only have 1 here)

2) At least 5 advertisers which as you can see from this search, we have.

3) Sufficient search volume using exact match on MNF or GAKT (they use the same data, mnf is paid, GAKT is free)

4) We can get the exact match top level domain

5) Spyfu returns at least .50 PPC for this search (prefer $1 or more)

[cagliostro]

Originally Posted by clickbump

Once you see the results, click on the "100" link (this forces google to return the results in their true order and not your own personalized view, which is misleading to a lot of people who are not aware of it)

Where is the "100" link ? Can you explain a bit more ?


thanks

[clickbump]

Originally Posted by cagliostro

Where is the "100" link ? Can you explain a bit more ?


thanks

Hi cagiostro, I've updated the pic now. There's a big red arrow near the top pointing to the "100" link.

When you click this link, it displays the top 100 listings for the search, and does not personalize the search, so the results are in the actual order they are ranked, not the order that they appear when personalized for you.

*Tip: if you are logged into a google account, you will get misleading search results that are tuned to your previous searches and pages you've clicked on from google search results listings.

This is what G calls "Personalized Search" and it leads many people to believe their sites are ranked very highly (since they likely click on their own sites from the serps), when in fact they are not...

If you hear a lot of people complaining, "My site is #2 in google, but I'm getting no traffic and no clicks", its probably due to personalized search results that they are not even aware of...

If you want to avoid getting personalized search results and have a super niche research tool as well, get the SEO4FF plugin and start using it.

[Biggy Fat]

Good advice there, Scott. But a word of advice for MNF users - just because you get a green light on MNF doesn't mean that the niche is there for the picking. Double check your competition on Google and see if it is beatable (using Scott's advice).

John (XFactor) recommends at least 2500 searches/month, but you can find some real nuggets at 1000 searches/month. In fact, I found one at 1300 AND the competition is nearly nonexistant AND the spyfu numbers look great AND the .com was available. Don't go below 1000, though - not worth your time.

Finding the HUGE nuggets at 5000 searches/month or above takes a lot of time, but when you do find them, you'll be swimming in clicks.

[cagliostro]

Question for Clickbump:

Google displays different results in each country. How we deal with that for checking ?

[clickbump]

Originally Posted by cagliostro

Question for Clickbump:

Google displays different results in each country. How we deal with that for checking ?

I live in the US, so for me, I'm good to go with the local search numbers :-)

[cagliostro]

Originally Posted by clickbump

I live in the US, so for me, I'm good to go with the local search numbers :-)

Good for you !

But many of us are not. How do we search ? Traffic Travis is one solution maybe ?

[clickbump]

Originally Posted by cagliostro

Good for you !

But many of us are not. How do we search ? Traffic Travis is one solution maybe ?

That's a good question, I would have that that when you use GAKT, the local search would be localized to your geocode, apparently not.

My response was a bit too tongue in cheek, perhaps. I'll see what I can dig up...

[Shellfish]

Originally Posted by cagliostro

Good for you !

But many of us are not. How do we search ?

Try this.

Do a search for your keyword on Google.com. Once the results are out.

Then add &gl=us at the end of the string like this...and press Enter. [see bold below]

http:/www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=fat+loss&btnG=fat+loss&fp=2cca7 b2e99206b9c&gl=us

You should see different results and I believe you'll see what our buddies in the US see. Good for those outside the US doing Adwords as well. You can use TLDs instead of the US to see other countries as well. Example &gl=uk

For the GAKT just visit via a US proxy.

[kkchoon]

I use market samurai to have a glance on the competition, however, if you are building authority sites, you need top 10 competitor analysis, which is much more accurate for competitive terms.

[fortony]

Some great advice.

I tried as clickbump suggested and the top ten sites are PR2 or higher so it seems like a no go.

What confuses me though is that MNF and the Google tool give low competition scores for the phrase and variations of it. The phrase is in a competitive field and has a high click cost though.

I realize google looks at different things than PR when giving the rankings. It just seems odd that what I see and what the tools give me are so different.

Any thoughts?

[warrior123]

If you use Microniche Finder and other tools that measure SOC as "allintitle" and "allinURL" you have to remember that this is not really a TRUE accurate metric of competition.

Why?

Because Google can still rank a site high in the SERPs even if the keyword phrase you are going after is NOT in the URL or title of the page.

For example, if you want to check out the competition of the keyword phrase "real estate" -- 7 out of the top 10 results don't even have the keyword in the URL. So any keyword tool that uses "allinURL" as a measure of competition is not going to pick up these websites, therefore you'll completely miss out on what the real competition will be.

[stoaf88]

Hey clickbump why was your other thread deleted? You know the one about your first $100 day in adsense?

That thread was awesome and now its gone what happened?

[clickbump]

Originally Posted by stoaf88

Hey clickbump why was your other thread deleted? You know the one about your first $100 day in adsense?

That thread was awesome and now its gone what happened?

Thanks for asking, I've had lots of people sending me PMs asking the same thing. The first line of my sig pretty much sums up my thoughts on it - I abide by that. Relentless persistence...

I don't want to hijack Tony's thread, so I'll point to a comment I made about it < here > earlier today.

[DarkTangent]

Hi clickbump,

I want to say one thing, i have become a fan of you.

You are really very generous, they way you share your knowledge and all is quality stuff.

I tried to do what you said... It was all fine but could not find the 100 Link when my plugin search for it... I have look that you have pointed towards it with an arrow but it simply does not appears when i search on my browser....

Note: I was signed out of my Google account...

I could send you a screenshot of it if you want...

According to your advice i have found a keyword with the no of ads on right side and the first page with PR- and PR0 sites...

It will be difficult to find a domain name although as all the domains have been sold and come up when one searches for it...

I would like to ask can one get an idea of the worth of ads which will be displayed if i put a site for this niche?

The local keyword search volume is 22,200

Regards

[be strong]

Originally Posted by cagliostro

Good for you !

But many of us are not. How do we search ? Traffic Travis is one solution maybe ?

traffic trav is an excellent supplemental free tool too

you can check page rank/other numbers and in fact they added a new strength of competition button to the tool

so yes, you can check for SOC there too

[clickbump]

Originally Posted by DarkTangent

Hi clickbump,

I want to say one thing, i have become a fan of you.

You are really very generous, they way you share your knowledge and all is quality stuff.

I tried to do what you said... It was all fine but could not find the 100 Link when my plugin search for it... I have look that you have pointed towards it with an arrow but it simply does not appears when i search on my browser....

Note: I was signed out of my Google account...

I could send you a screenshot of it if you want...

According to your advice i have found a keyword with the no of ads on right side and the first page with PR- and PR0 sites...

It will be difficult to find a domain name although as all the domains have been sold and come up when one searches for it...

I would like to ask can one get an idea of the worth of ads which will be displayed if i put a site for this niche?

The local keyword search volume is 22,200

Regards

Hi DT, send me a screenshot of your search and perhaps I can figure it out. I'm no expert on the support of SEO4FF, but I use it and it just works.

You can send the screenshot to via my link below in the sig.

You want to check spyfu.com to make sure there are adequate advertisers to support a niche site with adsense (min of 5, prefer 20+)

[DarkTangent]

Gave the tool a one more try and it has started to show the options...

Thanks

[DarkTangent]

found a good google sandbox here...

Google Adsense Sandbox Preview Tool with Text, Image and Video Ads - Leaderboard, Skyscraper, Rectangle and Square formats