How competitive a keyword is???

[rafiseo]

I am really very weak in keyword research. In fact I even dont know how to measure competitiveness of a keyword.

Can anyone tell me How Can I measure competitiveness of a keyword?

For an example...

"Dog names" is this competitive keyword?



Thanks for replies.........

[Srinagarhouseboats]

Use googlle adword tool to and search google for the keyword to measure the competition of keywords . Dog names" is a medium competition keywords

[Steve Crooks]

The competitiveness of a keyword can basically be measured by three things..

1. How many searches are being conducted for that phrase.
2. How many website owners are OPTIMIZING their content for that phrase.
3. How many advertisers are bidding on Adwords for that phrase and how much they are bidding.

However the overriding point about competitive keywords is this.. If any keyword phrase brings you targeted web traffic that achieves your end goal (sales, Adsense clicks, list sign ups etc..) it is valuable to you. Therefore, competition for a keyword then becomes slightly irrelevant.

[dogmachris]

One of the best keyword tools out there is Wordtracker. It shows the competition on a keyword as well an estimated daily search volume, which is pretty accurate and also gives you related long tail keywords. So perfect to find good keywords with low competition.

It's not very cheap though, the price is I think about $69 per month, to use their database.

but you can also access the wordtracker database using Nichebot. It gives you the exact same results, but costs only $17.50 a month. Don't know how they do that really, but I've tested it. Still a price, but definitely worth it.

There are many different opinions on both, so the decision is yours.

Hope, that helps you.

Cheers
Chris

[willium4]

Check the search volume, competition and exact competition. From these 3 things we can evaluate competitiveness of a keyword.

[Sohel Parvez]

Google Keyword Tool
I use google keyword for keyword research. Pick 1-5 keyword has less competition & many searches

[glennforum]

The easiest way is to utilise Google's Keyword Tool in order to show you which keywords are competitive.

[UMS]

Some of the advice in this thread is extremely basic or misleading.

Google Adwords Keyword Tool gives you very little information as to the competition of a particular keyword.

Sure the search volume and Adword competition play a small part, but it is still a small part of the competition equation.

To really get a good idea of how competitive a keyword is, you need to look at the sites that are ranking in the top 10 places (no point in trying to rank for anything lower).

You need to look at on-page SEO factors such as keyword in domain, title, headings, keyword density, etc.

Then you need to consider backlinks. Not just the number of backlinks, but the quality and type of backlinks.

[Steve Crooks]

So basically you have just repeated the same basic and misleading advice..

Originally Posted by UMS

Some of the advice in this thread is extremely basic or misleading.

[eurekapsycrille]

You can use some keyword tools on how to check the level of competition of your keywords. To be specific, you can try Google AdWords.

https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeti...AS#search.none

[Kush4242]

Use Google keyword Tool,it's easy to use. or use free version of wordtracker

[imMindset]

Use the Google Keyword tool as in for SEO purposes? In the Google Keyword Tool, competition is defined as a measure of advertisers bidding on a term. But that doesn't necessarily mean that people are trying to rank for that particular keyword. What that can indicate however is the commercial intent of that particular keyword. So no, by using the GKT alone you will not be able to gauge the SEO Competition accurately as many people here are recommending.

So when evaluating how competitive a keyword is, look at things like page authority, domain authority, link profile diversity, and whether or not they are actually trying to rank for that particular keyword with anchor text. Make sure to properly evaluate the page factors, and page links to see whats going on before jumping to any sort of conclusions about how competitive the keyword phrase is. GKT alone will not suffice.

[rakesh1600193]

First you have to check how many sites are competing for the keyword

Try this allintitle:your keyword

It will give you exact results how many sites are there competing for this keyword.

And personally I have checked this keyword manually and with Market samurai.

You can rank your site with in 2 to 3 months on first page of google.com for this keyword.

[rafiseo]

Well from my basic knowledge on Keyword research I think Market samurai is a good tool for KR. Even though I never used this tool.

And from replies of UMS and Steve I think...

1) on-page factors of first 10 websites
2) off-page factors of first 10 websites
3) How many bidders are bidding for the keyword phrase and their bidding amount
4) SEO competition for the keyword

These 4 are the main factors I have to consider.

Just a parallel question. Isnt there any software that can tell me how competitive a keyword is after doing everything automatically? Can Market Samurai do it??

@dogmachris I will try Nichebot. Thanks for ur good info...

[warrich]

You can use the Google keywords tool. Besides being easy to use, it comes with a number of handy and easy to use features. You can get an idea of how much traffic your desired keyword is destined to get and the trends for a particular keyword. Select a keyword that you think will be used by someone to search for your site. Type it in Google and also analyse the top ten results. That would give you an even better idea of how to tackle things.

[UMS]

Originally Posted by Steve Crooks

So basically you have just repeated the same basic and misleading advice..

Missed your reply previously.

Could you kindly point to any basic and misleading advice I have given.

Note that the misleading advice I was referring to is regarding the use of GAKT to gauge competition.

GAKT is NOT a good tool for measuring competition for a particular keyword. Additionally, some people seem to think the "Competition" column in GAKT refers to the ranking competition for the keyword when in fact, it refers to the adwords competition.

[John Moore]

The google keyword tool won't tell you how competitve a keyword is, it will tell you how many searches it gets, the CPC and adwords competition. You need keyword software to get an actual reading of the competitiveness, one quick way without software is too perform a "allintitle:your keyword" search in google, generally any search that gives over 1million results is very competitive, under 100k results is low competition, this is a quick and nasty method though, but good for a quick look.