Traffic Travis: Difficulty Rating

BrainCandy · 02-24-2011, 01:27 AM

Hey Warriors,

for a few weeks now I have been using the free version of Traffic Travis to analyse keywords. The more I work with the program the less I understand it I must say.

I am new into niche websites. To find a good niche I have checked my keywords with traffic travis to have a first evaluation.

The funny thing is that it estimates some keywords to be medium difficult although the shown links do not have backlinks, no pagerank and no title / h1 tag. Mostly they are from bigger sites like amazon.

Then there are results where there are competitors with some backlinks, pagerank and even title/h1. Still the keyword is estimated as to be relatively easy.

Whats up with this? Can you trust it or do you mostly estimate it yourself?

Thanks

heavysm · 02-24-2011, 01:38 AM

I have been using it for about a year now and use it as a general guide to tell me keyword difficulty. There are many factors that go into ranking but i find it pretty accurate overall.

I use it for micro niche sites as well and it will display a 3-5 star rating if there are hundreds or less backlinks (so competitors <=100's) and most dont have good on page SEO. But it will show 1 -2 stars, basically difficult, if sites are have hundreds to thousands of backlinks (competition<=1000) and most sites with good SEO.

I highly recommend using micro niche sites for 2-5 star keywords and authority sites (30+ posts/pages) for 1 star. I have ranked for a 2 and 3 star keywords with about 400 links and solid on page SEO.

If i feel iffy about a keyword I just fire up market samurai and look at the anchor text distribution and so on. If you dont have market samurai, just do a yahoo site explorer check of each url in question and do some digging. I honestly don't trust any research method very much for ranking difficulty. I just trust my own efforts to rank and build tons of links.

Hope this helped =)

BrainCandy · 02-25-2011, 07:56 AM

Thats just what I thought. Thanks a lot

patey88 · 02-25-2011, 10:28 AM

I interpret TT difficulty ratings this way:

"If your site has an exact match domain name, or age > about 5 years, and you have this keyword in your title, H1 and description, then you will find it (relatively easy, medium difficulty, etc...) to rank your homepage for this keyword."

That's if I'm thinking about basing a new site around a keyword.

If I'm thinking about adding a new page of content to an existing site, I usually find that even if I pick a "relatively easy" keyword and put it in the title/h1/desc and filename, I still need some backlinks to get it to rank high.

02-24-2011, 01:27 AM	#1
BrainCandy Graf War Room Member Join Date: Feb 2011 Posts: 57 Thanks: 2 Thanked 16 Times in 7 Posts Social Networking	Traffic Travis: Difficulty Rating - true or not? Hey Warriors, for a few weeks now I have been using the free version of Traffic Travis to analyse keywords. The more I work with the program the less I understand it I must say. I am new into niche websites. To find a good niche I have checked my keywords with traffic travis to have a first evaluation. The funny thing is that it estimates some keywords to be medium difficult although the shown links do not have backlinks, no pagerank and no title / h1 tag. Mostly they are from bigger sites like amazon. Then there are results where there are competitors with some backlinks, pagerank and even title/h1. Still the keyword is estimated as to be relatively easy. Whats up with this? Can you trust it or do you mostly estimate it yourself? Thanks
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02-24-2011, 01:38 AM	#2
heavysm HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 254 Thanks: 0 Thanked 24 Times in 22 Posts	Re: Traffic Travis: Difficulty Rating - true or not? I have been using it for about a year now and use it as a general guide to tell me keyword difficulty. There are many factors that go into ranking but i find it pretty accurate overall. I use it for micro niche sites as well and it will display a 3-5 star rating if there are hundreds or less backlinks (so competitors <=100's) and most dont have good on page SEO. But it will show 1 -2 stars, basically difficult, if sites are have hundreds to thousands of backlinks (competition<=1000) and most sites with good SEO. I highly recommend using micro niche sites for 2-5 star keywords and authority sites (30+ posts/pages) for 1 star. I have ranked for a 2 and 3 star keywords with about 400 links and solid on page SEO. If i feel iffy about a keyword I just fire up market samurai and look at the anchor text distribution and so on. If you dont have market samurai, just do a yahoo site explorer check of each url in question and do some digging. I honestly don't trust any research method very much for ranking difficulty. I just trust my own efforts to rank and build tons of links. Hope this helped =)

02-25-2011, 07:56 AM	#3
BrainCandy Graf War Room Member Join Date: Feb 2011 Posts: 57 Thanks: 2 Thanked 16 Times in 7 Posts Social Networking	Re: Traffic Travis: Difficulty Rating - true or not? Thats just what I thought. Thanks a lot
	Are you making money using wordpress? I bet you are. Stay ahead of the game and use only the best wordpress plugins

02-25-2011, 10:28 AM	#4
patey88 HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Arizona Posts: 240 Thanks: 83 Thanked 62 Times in 53 Posts	Re: Traffic Travis: Difficulty Rating - true or not? I interpret TT difficulty ratings this way: "If your site has an exact match domain name, or age > about 5 years, and you have this keyword in your title, H1 and description, then you will find it (relatively easy, medium difficulty, etc...) to rank your homepage for this keyword." That's if I'm thinking about basing a new site around a keyword. If I'm thinking about adding a new page of content to an existing site, I usually find that even if I pick a "relatively easy" keyword and put it in the title/h1/desc and filename, I still need some backlinks to get it to rank high.