390,000,000 First Page Question

[Revampyourgame]

So heres the deal. I am competing for a keyword that has 390 million competitors...but the first page for this keyword is covered with pages that have 10 backlinks or less. What does this mean? I would like to hear from someone who is knowledgeable in seo. My site is highly optimized for this keyword, so what are your thoughts? Does this just mean it will take forever to climb to the top? thanks in advance!

edit- (also im on page 8 with no backlinks right now)

[Tom Goodwin]

Originally Posted by Revampyourgame

So heres the deal. I am competing for a keyword that has 390 million competitors...but the first page for this keyword is covered with pages that have 10 backlinks or less. What does this mean? I would like to hear from someone who is knowledgeable in seo. My site is highly optimized for this keyword, so what are your thoughts? Does this just mean it will take forever to climb to the top? thanks in advance!

edit- (also im on page 8 with no backlinks right now)

One of the biggest fallacies in SEO and IM is that you have 390 million competitors. You don't have anywhere near that number.

If someone lists your keyword once does that mean their a competitor? nope.
If you have a multiple keyword, its even less relevant, as if you did a search for: weight loss in 1 week, you would turn up every single page with each of those words appearing at least once on the page, even if those words are 10,000 words apart

To really look at competitors, you have to look at things like if they have the keyword in the title, in the URL, the keyword density of the page, etc.

But, in reality, if you just look at page 1 you can get an idea if they are tough to beat or not. If your site is better than #10 (the last item on page 1), you will get on page 1.

But, note that not all 10 backlinks are created equal. They could be 10 links coming in from nasa and the whitehouse

[sajan1kota]

Tom thanks a tone for sharing your knowledge. it's a learning for me.

[ppcIcon]

OP, it sounds like a bit of work getting backlinks will pay off well for you. Getting to page 2, then page 1 should be do-able fairly quickly.
Use backlinkwatch.com to see where your competitions links are coming from and then see if you can duplicate them.