How you check the competitions for a particular keyword?

[akki313]

Hey!

It has been more than 1 years since I have been using allintitle and allinurls for determine the competition of a particular keyword.

I'm just wondering how you guys check the competition of a keyword on which you are going to make a brand new site?

Please feel free to share

Thanks

[dburk]

Hi akki313,

I don't think either of those are particular useful for sizing up your competition.

Please consider the following:

Generally speaking, competition that is not in a top 10 SERP position is not much to be concerned with. You only need to beat the webpage listed at position 10 to make it to the first page of SERP. Anything below that will usually not generate enough traffic to justify your efforts. (excepting certain high search volume keywords).

Use Google Search to see which page is listed at position #10, then look at the allinanchor: for your keyword candidate. If the same page appears at a lower position than it did for regular search it's a relatively easy to rank keyword. No more research necessary, add it to your easy list.

If the page that is listed at #10 is ranked the same or higher using the allinanchor: operator, then take a look at the backlinks for that page to see if the effort to equal that exceeds the estimated value of the possible search traffic, adjusted for CTR.

Once you have a suitable list of keywords that merit getting a first page listing, repeat the above process on the page at position #1 for each keyword in your list to prioritize which keywords you should focus on first.

[Shakd]

Average top 10 PR
number of back links to that given WEBPAGE
Domain name ( if exact match is a concern)
then use Market samurai - to check those back link anchor texts... not all back links are GOOD!

Cheers,

www.shakfromthegroundup.com

[Kikos]

Hi, you can use a free tool called Traffic Travis and use the SEO analysis module inside it to get the break down of the top 10 for your keyword and then judge if you can break them or not.

[Kikos]

oh forgot also put your keyword in google and see if ads show up. if there are no ads then maybe not a good idea to use it.

[joyseo]

The adwords keyword tool can give you idea...
The market samurai also can do the same job...

[Stephen Gilbert]

I use traffic travis. They have a free version. A simple google search will get you the link!

[srinu]

i used good adwords tool

[wadezwd]

Originally Posted by dburk

Hi akki313,

I don't think either of those are particular useful for sizing up your competition.

Please consider the following: ……

If the page that is listed at #10 is ranked the same or higher using the allinanchor: operator, then take a look at the backlinks for that page to see if the effort to equal that exceeds the estimated value of the possible search traffic, adjusted for CTR.

inspiring point for the comparison of one page in different search term, but i am afraid that i cannot completely understand the later part as in "to see if the effort to equal that exceeds the estimated value of the possible search traffic, adjusted for ctr", do you mean that we should check if we can reach a possible search traffic? and how to estmate the value? alas, i am confused...

[jpr106]

I check out the 1 Page competition, see it they have the KW in their main domain, how old is the site, how big the site is etc.

Competition isn't really that important so long as you know what you have to do in order to get a high ranking

Jonathan

[divahotcouture]

google adword keyword tool is the best tool for searching competition of particular keyword, you can try it

[divahotcouture]

i use google keyword tool for check the competition of particular keyword, i think this the best tool

[Grade1]

i think you have not tried Google adword tool?

[dburk]

Originally Posted by wadezwd

inspiring point for the comparison of one page in different search term, but i am afraid that i cannot completely understand the later part as in "to see if the effort to equal that exceeds the estimated value of the possible search traffic, adjusted for ctr", do you mean that we should check if we can reach a possible search traffic? and how to estmate the value? alas, i am confused...

Hi wadezwd,

I was simply trying to say that you need to weigh the benefit of ranking for a particular keyword against the effort it takes to earn that ranking. The cost of ranking for a keyword is determined by the strength of your top competitors, not by the number of competitors.

If you are assessing the potential traffic of a position #10 listing you need to look at the search volume multiplied by the average CTR for position #10. If you are assessing the traffic for a position #1 ranking then you need to use the CTR for position #1. The point being, the average CTR is very different for those positions.

I think you need to look at your time and labor as an asset. You need to set values for your labor and determine the cost to do the work necessary to achieve a particular ranking and weigh the expected benefit against the cost.

The point of your keyword research is to select the best keyword candidates based on net gain after cost. It is essentially a cost benefit analysis.

[JSProjects]

1. I do still check allintitle and allinurl for keywords I'm interested in. If there's a ton of comeptition it usually means that the top 10 pages will be pretty strong. (Usually, not always.)

2. I'll check the top 10 competition. If there's a ton of authority sites it's probably going to be tough. But if most of the competition has less than 1k backlinks and URL's / titles that aren't optimized well for the keywords it's usually pretty easy to beat them.

You can usually outrank sites that have more backlinks than you if yours are higher quality and you've properly optimized your site.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by JSProjects

1. I do still check allintitle and allinurl for keywords I'm interested in. If there's a ton of comeptition it usually means that the top 10 pages will be pretty strong. (Usually, not always.)

Hi JSProjects,

Yes, it seems that the larger the field of competition the greater the chance of having strong competitors. However, you may miss some of the very best candidates as they will often have one or two strong players that makeup the bulk of those numbers while a 1st page ranking is super easy.

Back in the days when very few webmasters did keyword research you could use that as a way to find keywords that hadn't been adequately covered. These days you will often find many competitors piling onto the bandwagon going after the exact same keyword. I find a more refined approach to be much more effective.

Originally Posted by JSProjects

2. I'll check the top 10 competition. If there's a ton of authority sites it's probably going to be tough. But if most of the competition has less than 1k backlinks and URL's / titles that aren't optimized well for the keywords it's usually pretty easy to beat them.

You can usually outrank sites that have more backlinks than you if yours are higher quality and you've properly optimized your site.

Number 2 is a much better approach in my opinion. However, rankings aren't based on backlink counts. Nor do I buy into the notion of website authority as a ranking factor. While they are indicators, there are too many variables in the value of individual backlinks to rely just on counts or relevant anchortext. That is where the allinanchor: ranking comes in as one of the most important tools for competitive analysis.

[wadezwd]

Originally Posted by dburk

Hi wadezwd,
……
If you are assessing the potential traffic of a position #10 listing you need to look at the search volume multiplied by the average CTR for position #10. If you are assessing the traffic for a position #1 ranking then you need to use the CTR for position #1. The point being, the average CTR is very different for those positions.

I think you need to look at your time and labor as an asset. You need to set values for your labor and determine the cost to do the work necessary to achieve a particular ranking and weigh the expected benefit against the cost.

The point of your keyword research is to select the best keyword candidates based on net gain after cost. It is essentially a cost benefit analysis.

hi dburk, thanks for your detailed explainations and enlightening advice

[wadezwd]

Originally Posted by dburk

Hi JSProjects,
......
Number 2 is a much better approach in my opinion. However, rankings aren't based on backlink counts. Nor do I buy into the notion of website authority as a ranking factor. While they are indicators, there are too many variables in the value of individual backlinks to rely just on counts or relevant anchortext. That is where the allinanchor: ranking comes in as one of the most important tools for competitive analysis.

i do agree with you
when i check the SERPs before and after using the allinanchor: operator for one keyword, the top 10 pages are almost in the same position , with 3 pages replaced by new pages... does this mean the competion is very very very tough?

[dburk]

Originally Posted by wadezwd

i do agree with you
when i check the SERPs before and after using the allinanchor: operator for one keyword, the top 10 pages are almost in the same position , with 3 pages replaced by new pages... does this mean the competion is very very very tough?

Hi wadezwd,

Yes, typically the tougher the competition, the closer those two queries tend to be.

[razorico]

There are many sites, where you can check your competition. I use semrush, it's cheaper.