Determining Strength of Competition?

John Brown · 12-28-2010, 11:31 PM

I've gotten pretty good at doing keyword research. I find a happy area of between 1k - 3k exact searches with no more than 8k competing websites in quotes.

A half hour to an hour of research and I'll have 3 or 4 fitting this criteria.

My problem comes with determining whether or not the competition is beatable. It would seem obvious that if they have a high page rank with a high amount of backlinks, I shouldn't go for it. But the way they rank seems to be completely random.

[using SEO quake]
Sometimes I'll see like a PR 0 with 20 YSE (Yahoo Site Explorer) backlinks beating page with PR 5 500 YSE backlinks. And the Google index always shows like 1 million backlinks so I do my best with what I see.

Even some of my own sites are beating other sites where they "shouldn't" be based strictly upon Page Rank and # of Backlinks.

What I want to know is where is the method and organization to this? I see that on-site SEO could play a huge factor but it seems so random how everything is done with page rank and BL's making almost no correlation to where its ranked in Google.

Lately I've just been going for anything that's reached my previous criteria and in a few months when things have settled and they have some weight to them I'll try to compare all the stats and see what's really playing a factor based on my experience.

But in the meantime, what's going on here? What should I be looking for in my competition?

InitialEffort · 12-28-2010, 11:37 PM

I look at these factors if I am buying a new EMD and trying to rank for the keyword.

PageRank
# of Backlinks
# of Pages
Anchor Text of Backlinks

I try to find the weakest domain and the group and I ask myself, if I did that, is it worth spending the time or money to reach those results. Then I ask, is the #1 position so strong that I can't beat it?

#1 42% of traffic from Google
#2 12% of traffic from Google

HaRrY84 · 12-29-2010, 12:43 AM

Simple go and get the paid version of Market Samurai and evaluate just 3 criteria:

# of backlinks
anchor text of each one
PR coming from the backlink page

I highly suggest you to grab a free copy of the Perpetual Traffic Free Report from Ryan Deiss. You will see the the equivalents of links from pages with PR 0 to PR 10. Did you know that a link from a page with PR 5 is equivalent to 555 links PR 0?

12-28-2010, 11:31 PM	#1
John Brown Active Warrior Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 63 Thanks: 3 Thanked 5 Times in 4 Posts	Determining Strength of Competition? I've gotten pretty good at doing keyword research. I find a happy area of between 1k - 3k exact searches with no more than 8k competing websites in quotes. A half hour to an hour of research and I'll have 3 or 4 fitting this criteria. My problem comes with determining whether or not the competition is beatable. It would seem obvious that if they have a high page rank with a high amount of backlinks, I shouldn't go for it. But the way they rank seems to be completely random. [using SEO quake] Sometimes I'll see like a PR 0 with 20 YSE (Yahoo Site Explorer) backlinks beating page with PR 5 500 YSE backlinks. And the Google index always shows like 1 million backlinks so I do my best with what I see. Even some of my own sites are beating other sites where they "shouldn't" be based strictly upon Page Rank and # of Backlinks. What I want to know is where is the method and organization to this? I see that on-site SEO could play a huge factor but it seems so random how everything is done with page rank and BL's making almost no correlation to where its ranked in Google. Lately I've just been going for anything that's reached my previous criteria and in a few months when things have settled and they have some weight to them I'll try to compare all the stats and see what's really playing a factor based on my experience. But in the meantime, what's going on here? What should I be looking for in my competition?
	How to Make Blog \| 17 Inch Laptop Bags \| Read Guitar Tabs

12-28-2010, 11:37 PM	#2
InitialEffort Senior Warrior Member War Room Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Minnesota Posts: 1,104 Thanks: 16 Thanked 117 Times in 87 Posts	Re: Determining Strength of Competition? I look at these factors if I am buying a new EMD and trying to rank for the keyword. PageRank # of Backlinks # of Pages Anchor Text of Backlinks I try to find the weakest domain and the group and I ask myself, if I did that, is it worth spending the time or money to reach those results. Then I ask, is the #1 position so strong that I can't beat it? #1 42% of traffic from Google #2 12% of traffic from Google
	--> SESuperNet - High PR Blog Posts + Web 2.0 Links <-- --> SESlingshot - Guaranteed SERP Increase<--

12-29-2010, 12:43 AM	#3
HaRrY84 Active Warrior Join Date: Dec 2010 Posts: 45 Thanks: 1 Thanked 2 Times in 1 Post	Re: Determining Strength of Competition? Simple go and get the paid version of Market Samurai and evaluate just 3 criteria: # of backlinks anchor text of each one PR coming from the backlink page I highly suggest you to grab a free copy of the Perpetual Traffic Free Report from Ryan Deiss. You will see the the equivalents of links from pages with PR 0 to PR 10. Did you know that a link from a page with PR 5 is equivalent to 555 links PR 0?