Why am I having so much trouble ranking for low competition keywords?

[brian11]

Hi, I am trying to rank my website for the keyword "how to use a smoker". It does not appear to have very tough competition. Several articles rank on the first page of google without backlinks and the other website don't have too many either. My webpage is over a year old now. I first built a couple dozen backlinks with articles about a year ago and then just waited. It did start to show up on google's 2nd page of results steadily for a couple months. Then about 2 months ago I started building backlinks again and my site dropped of the radar. It came back for a couple days and then left again, it has probably gone missing now for 2 months. I might have about 40-60 backlinks now from articles and social bookmarks.

I have not had much luck with other websites either.

Why is it so difficult to rank high on google for this? I just don't get it. How do you get a page to rank 1st on google for a low competition keyword? People make it sound so easy. Please help.



Thanks,
Brian

[guzie]

Your site is still a little too new...Almost all of us here have experienced the same thing. The S.E's go thru this little thing called "algorithmns" They look for backlinks, relevant content and keyword stuffing etc.... Once it decides your site is what searchers are indeed looking for it will stay on top...at least until others try to knock you off. Happens all the time.

My 5 cents worth...used to be 2 cents gotta adjust for inflation!
Paul

[flipkid]

Hi Brian,

I'm new to this forum but not to SEO, maybe I can help. If you go to Google and input in quotes the term "how to use a smoker" it returns 1.16 million pages.

That's not exactly low competition. You would be competing with eZine Articles which is ranking #2 for the keyword. If you use the keyword difficulty checker at SEO Logs (I can't post links yet, sorry). It returns a difficulty of 54 which is considered very difficult.

Your best shot to rank for this keyword is to do some linkbuilding using the exact term. There are so many factors involved, but this is the general idea.

I'll answer any questions you have.

[oliverwinston]

Hi Brian,

Is your site a .tld or a web 2.0 property? Does it have the keyword in the domain name? How old is the domain?, etc...

Since there are many variables we don't know about your specific project, I'll try to help you by telling you about a technique I used that got the top ranking for a keyword with similar competition. (about 1 million) and maybe it will help you get ranked.

I wanted to see if I could get a top Google ranking for the keyword "best warrior special offer", since I launched my first W.S.O. a month or so back. The keyword has about 1 million competition.

I created a free web 2.0 blog called "the best warrior special offer" here The Best Warrior Special Offer, you can see it's a simple blog and only took a few minutes to make.

I wanted to see if I could get it ranked without spending alot of time or money so I went and posted around 200 backlinks on general topic wordpress blogs with low or no pagerank and boom, less than a month later I was #1 on google for the keyword.



I didn't do any article marketing, any paid links, or any other type of promotion, etc. I just posted my anchor link on several hundred general topic blogs.

Now, don't freak out about having to get hundreds of backlinks, it's really not that hard or expensive to do. I already have a software system in place that automates it for me, but you could easily buy one of the blog comment poster robots that are advertised here on the warrior forum or you could go to rentacoder.com and hire a freelancer to post comments for you and it might only cost $10 or so.

There are even a couple of free blog commenting software solutions you could use, they find the blogs for you and automatically fill in the comments, you just have to be there to fill in captchas, etc.

Good Luck!

If I did it, I'll bet you can too :-)

PS- If you want to send me over your domain name and keywords and I'll run a 35 page comprehensive SEO report for you and email it over to you today.

BTW- Now I'm off to try and get the #1 ranking for "Warrior Special Offer"

[Gale10]

I live in the UK so I checked it out on Google.co.uk and frankly the field is wide open.

Unless you don't have a .org, .com, or .net, you should be ranking at number one easily.

Have you only got really low pr backlinks?

The url is a bit long, but apart from that I cannot understand what is wrong.

I would make a video for it, give it a boost, that might do the trick. Feel free to pm me if you want to re the vids.

Best wishes,

Ruth

[cjfuss23]

Is your keyword in your domain name? Also you want to make sure that you use lots of LSI keywords in your content and in all of your different pages. You can find what LSI keywords are relevant by going to the google keyword tool and typing in your keyword. It will then give you what it thinks are relevant keywords related to your main keyword listed in order of relevance. I have used this technique often and had great results. What is the name of your site?

[KateD]

Hi...

I think the main reason has already been addresses as to why you are haiving trouble.

You are using a highly competitive keyword phrase. The fact that there is 1.5+ millions results in the Google results INSIDE OF QUOTATION MARKS indicates that this keyword phrase will be incredibly hard to rank for.

To me, "low competition" are keyword phrases that have 100,000 or less results in Google. Personally, I tend to target keyword phrases with less than 50K competition.

KateD

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by flipkid

Hi Brian,

I'm new to this forum but not to SEO, maybe I can help. If you go to Google and input in quotes the term "how to use a smoker" it returns 1.16 million pages.

That's not exactly low competition.

Sorry flipkid. I know people have been taught this but number of pages in search results have nothing to do with the competitiveness of a term. In this thread

How can I compete against 10 million other pages? Easy

That was laid to rest. Literally within hours I ranked that thread on the front page of several terms which had over 2 million search results. The search results number only tells you how many times the words have appeared in the index not the level of competition for the front page.

[medway]

If you keep paging to the end of how many pages are shown you can see a much lower number:

"how to use a smoker" - Google Search

That shows on 255 results when accounting for " entries very similar"

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by brian11

Why is it so difficult to rank high on google for this? I just don't get it. How do you get a page to rank 1st on google for a low competition keyword? People make it sound so easy. Please help.

We'd have to see the on page seo to see what the problem is. Besides that you are up against a few article sites on the front page that have good authority. Does your page have relevant contnet that mentions things like meat smoker, smoker grill, wood chips or barbecue etc.?

Incidentally 40-60 backlinks isn't really anything.

[brian11]

Thanks for your suggestions, my site does not have the keyword in the domain, it is a .com, and there is a nice content article on the page. That's why I am not sure what else to do. I guess I can keep getting more backlinks.

[Baldpilot]

Brian11,

There are many factors that come into play when trying to rank in the big G with just about any kw. Many people experienced in seo say having your kw in the domain does get some additional love. If you have a considerable amount of competition, expect to be in for the long haul, and plan appropriately. Creating backlinks (lots of them), web 2.0 properties (squidoo lenses, etc.), and article marketing are all ways you can promote and move your site up in the serps. If you are serious about this project or kw, promote like crazy. If you choose to read up on similar experiences from people here long before you and I, you will notice that at least 100 articles are the minimum to see a real jump in results, as well as substantial back links. All can be outsourced for not too much money, and you will be where you want to be, on the first page
I'm still new to the seo game, but have seen real results after some hard work, target kw in the domain name, and not being afraid to promote my sites like crazy.
I hope it helps, and would be happy to share with you in pm's (if we even can pm) the results I have seen with very competitive kw's.

Best of luck on your journey....

BP

[thebarksmeow]

Originally Posted by oliverwinston

Hi Brian,

Is your site a .tld or a web 2.0 property? Does it have the keyword in the domain name? How old is the domain?, etc...

Since there are many variables we don't know about your specific project, I'll try to help you by telling you about a technique I used that got the top ranking for a keyword with similar competition. (about 1 million) and maybe it will help you get ranked.

I wanted to see if I could get a top Google ranking for the keyword "best warrior special offer", since I launched my first W.S.O. a month or so back. The keyword has about 1 million competition.

I created a free web 2.0 blog called "the best warrior special offer" here The Best Warrior Special Offer, you can see it's a simple blog and only took a few minutes to make.

I wanted to see if I could get it ranked without spending alot of time or money so I went and posted around 200 backlinks on general topic wordpress blogs with low or no pagerank and boom, less than a month later I was #1 on google for the keyword.



I didn't do any article marketing, any paid links, or any other type of promotion, etc. I just posted my anchor link on several hundred general topic blogs.

Now, don't freak out about having to get hundreds of backlinks, it's really not that hard or expensive to do. I already have a software system in place that automates it for me, but you could easily buy one of the blog comment poster robots that are advertised here on the warrior forum or you could go to rentacoder.com and hire a freelancer to post comments for you and it might only cost $10 or so.

There are even a couple of free blog commenting software solutions you could use, they find the blogs for you and automatically fill in the comments, you just have to be there to fill in captchas, etc.

Good Luck!

If I did it, I'll bet you can too :-)

PS- If you want to send me over your domain name and keywords and I'll run a 35 page comprehensive SEO report for you and email it over to you today.

BTW- Now I'm off to try and get the #1 ranking for "Warrior Special Offer"

How long did the process take?

[jazbo]

This had me stumped. I was wondering why anyone would want to search for info on how to use a smoker, use them for what? Target practise?

Ah, its a outdoor cooking term that our American cousins appear to use. So its a regionally-specific search phrase.

[GardenStateNJGuy]

Oliver,

I would be interested in receiving this as well, but am disallowed from pm'ing you with my details because I'm underaged.

Peter

[Morpheo]

Just build more links. You need 100s-1000s of links to rank well. A dozen ain't gonna do it.

[Marhelper]

Everyone is talking about more links. I know that is important but so is throwing up fresh content on a consistent basis. How often do you add to the site. These one and gone sites are known to duck dive after time. I would suggest adding content to your site regularly and then report back with the results.

[oliverwinston]

Keep on it Brian11 and you can get to the first page. It is a long and sometimes boring road, but if you want it bad enough you will get it there.


RE: thebarksmeow: To get my blog to the top for "best warrior special offer" it took about one hour of set it and forget it on my blog network.

The blog itself had been up probably for a couple of weeks before I did any promotion for it.

I've made a few blogs based on keyword phrases with 1,000,000 competition, did a backlink blast on my blog network and had them in the top 5 of google within 24 hours. That was with NO other promotion.

BTW- Brian11, I would also try and get a domain with the keyphrase in it. Try some aftermarket domain sellers, maybe you can even get one with some age.

[flipkid]

Sorry flipkid. I know people have been taught this but number of pages in search results have nothing to do with the competitiveness of a term.

Hi Mike,

I disagree. Competitiveness in search engines is of course somewhat based how many pages are returned. Assuming you find 10 million Google results with no backlinks on any page, the results returned from the 10 million pages will be based on on-page factors and authority. Add some off-site linking and it's no contest as you proved in your thread. But to say it has nothing to do with it is not correct.

In the thread that you posted and I agree that the quality of the sites in the results is certainly a HUGE factor in relation to your ability to rank. You can compete with 10 million pages but if they have no backlinks you can rank on any term, that's not really a huge mystery.

When I read about ranking for "how to use a smoker" I was referring to the fact that he'd have to beat out authority sites like eHow to grab first page rankings. If he's not an authority and has no PR, that's no easy target.

Of course without the URL none of us will ever know his link quality or site structure, but you can't make a blanket statement saying that results don't matter at all because when there's no linking and no on page SEO, the number of search results are a huge factor.

[sousen]

Try to generate back link as much possible to using your keywords, you can do web directory submission, article submission, social bookmarking, blog comment, forum posting