does competition matters in SEO?

[whitebread]

hey guys i came across something pretty interresting today, im targeting a keyword that has 7 million competitors but the first website that is listed number #1 on google for that search term is not targeting my keyword. how do i know? go to any website hold CTRL+U that will bring up their source file and you should see what keyword they are targeting. does that mean anything if they are not targeting my keyword?

[Aira Bongco]

Hi whitebread,

For your first question, my answer is "Yes, competition matters in SEO". The site may not be targeting the keyword onpage, but you may see that the site has backlinks with your keyword as anchor text. It is harder if that particular competitor is an authority site. This means Google simply rank it simply because it trust it and only considers onpage optimization as a minor factor. All these play a role on why it ranks number 1 in the niche.

[paulgl]

Of course competition matters, that's who you are
trying to out SERP!

But when you say you have 7 million competitors, you
are way off base. Just because google found 7 millions sites,
in no way means they will ever show even a fraction of that,
or even a fraction of that are competing for your keyword. Look
through the listings. After the first couple of pages, you get nothing
but websites that are not targeting keyword or trying to compete.
How many books in a library have the word dog in them? Now how
many books are for people wanting info on dogs?

People don't search for one keyword anymore.

You have just proven that google makes decisions as to what
keyword relevant sites show up. It is not on the whim of the
website owner who thinks by keyword stuffing, using keyword
meta, etc. to try and force google.

Many people think because they are targeting keywords, that google
will automatically agree with them. Many times they don't.

When you search for one keyword, google must make a lot of assumptions
as to what you are actually looking for. They might guess wrong.

Paul

[halfpoint]

Your competition matters, yes.

The number of competing pages, however, does not.

[secondeye]

Competetion matter in SEP in term of backlinks. Those who have quality backilinks will come at top.

For example:
site 1 has 1000 backlinks from PR0 or N/a
but
site 2 has 6 backlinks from PR3 to PR6 site. so Google will give more worth to second site.

[Dave Lianelli]

Whitebread,

1) Do a allintitle or allinanchor search for your keywords in Google, that will help you get an idea of the competition. The webmasters that actually optimize their sites for higher rankings.

2) The quantity and quality of backlinks is important. Some sites rank high without any further SEO, other than having really good backlinks.

3) You can outperform all the sites that don't do anything to SEO. But to make it worth your time you need to aim for the top positions in Google. Less than 0.2% of all visitors get beyond the first page of Google's results.

4) Focus on quality backlinks instead of quantity. Relevant, keyworded, high PageRank backlinks give more 'linkjuice' to your site than anything else.

-Dave

[kkchoon]

Originally Posted by whitebread

hey guys i came across something pretty interresting today, im targeting a keyword that has 7 million competitors but the first website that is listed number #1 on google for that search term is not targeting my keyword. how do i know? go to any website hold CTRL+U that will bring up their source file and you should see what keyword they are targeting. does that mean anything if they are not targeting my keyword?

Just a "Google Bomb" effect, you should outrank that site with less links if you optimize your on page SEO.

[John Hocking]

You can use tools like Niche Marketing Product - Market Samurai to gather information about your competitors and how hard it will be to knock them off the listing.