Help me understand these two issues

[markw89]

Day by day, I learn more about SEO. It is hard in the beginning, but eventually one learns after making many mistakes.

So far, 2 questions run through my mind, hoping warriors can help me:
- Related CPC research: assume you have all the indication of being able to rank #1 for keyword "American dollar speculation". Now before going for it, you check for CPC, whether on Google Traffic Estimator, or Spyfu, would you use the whole keyword (american dollar speculation)? or a part of it (american dollar)? or you research your CPC based on something close and related to your keyword?
Because sometimes I'd find a great keyword, yet if I write the whole keyword in Google Traffic Estimator i'd get 0 for it..

- I see everyone going for keywords that get +1000 US searches per month, with low competition.. but one question ran through my mind, why can't I go for moderate-high competitive words, build a nice and unique website, and build quality backlinks over a long peroid of time (~1 year)?

For example, a keyword with 823,000 EXACT searches per month, #1 competitor is a PR3, has ~4000 backlinks (most PR2 - PR3), Age 2001, alexa ~60,000
how hard would it be to beat it, if we set a strategy of getting a matching domain, unique and updated content, and over 4000 quality backlinks spread on a long period?

[MikeFriedman]

Originally Posted by markw89

Day by day, I learn more about SEO. It is hard in the beginning, but eventually one learns after making many mistakes.

So far, 2 questions run through my mind, hoping warriors can help me:
- Related CPC research: assume you have all the indication of being able to rank #1 for keyword "American dollar speculation". Now before going for it, you check for CPC, whether on Google Traffic Estimator, or Spyfu, would you use the whole keyword (american dollar speculation)? or a part of it (american dollar)? or you research your CPC based on something close and related to your keyword?
Because sometimes I'd find a great keyword, yet if I write the whole keyword in Google Traffic Estimator i'd get 0 for it..

- I see everyone going for keywords that get +1000 US searches per month, with low competition.. but one question ran through my mind, why can't I go for moderate-high competitive words, build a nice and unique website, and build quality backlinks over a long peroid of time (~1 year)?

For example, a keyword with 823,000 EXACT searches per month, #1 competitor is a PR3, has ~4000 backlinks (most PR2 - PR3), Age 2001, alexa ~60,000
how hard would it be to beat it, if we set a strategy of getting a matching domain, unique and updated content, and over 4000 quality backlinks spread on a long period?

You have to remember that if a backlink checker is telling you the site has around 4000 backlinks, that probably means it has more like 20,000-50,000. Backlink checkers do not show you all the backlinks. If they are showing mostly PR2 and PR 3 backlinks, and that many of them, they are doing a good job attracting quality backlinks, so you are in for a lot of hard work to surpass them.

That sounds like a pretty tough one to beat, but even #2 or #3 would get some decent traffic if there are that many exact searches.

[kakaboo]

If you are new you should stop worrying so much and just build links. Only when you have a site to play around with will you understand how those links influence your rankings.. rather than what all those tools are saying.

[markw89]

I am using Yahoo site explorer, i thought this one, unlike google, shows all the backlinks?

[Talat10]

It is not possible for any tool to show every back link, as for as PR3 is concerned I would say, if it’s a good niche and traffic is good, I think you should go for it, you can beat a PR3 website, add social media in the mix create YouTube videos with your keywords etc. You should be able to beat a PR3 site easily.

[markw89]

Thank you guys, I now know how it goes. I guess I'll have a bigger picture when I am actually competing.

But what do you think of my first issue?