Need help on competition analysis

[mesmerist]

Hey guys, I'm not good at analyzing competition and always feel unsure about it. I need a quick opinion from you on this particular keyword that I'm analyzing.

Please look at the Traffic Travis SEO Analysis screenshot here:


I found a .net emd for this keyword and considering that the emd is available, would you go for this keyword?

In terms of difficulty level, how would you rate the difficulty of this keyword between 1-10? 1 being the easiest and 10 most difficult.

Thanks guys, I greatly appreciate all your opinions.

[warner444]

I say 5, if you theme well, use original content, and good quality links, you could get page one. Might take a while. EMD still have excessive priority to Google it seems.

[nicoledeal]

Without doing my own research, I am hesitant to hazard a guess, but it does seem promising.

Glad to see you recognize the importance of this research...and you are doing it before even purchasing a domain!!

That said, be careful to look at the exact number of searches, look at local in addition to global.

I'm sure you have already searched your potential keywords in Google to get a feel for the competition. Intuition plays a part in keyword selection, and it is really difficult to avoid going against a bad gut feeling once you get hyped up about a product or service.

Ask yourself if the keywords you plan to use are something you will be excited to promote through articles, authority posts, etc. When your heart is into it the work just pours out, and you know about the work required.

Good luck!

[mesmerist]

Thanks for the valuable advice guys. From what I see, I certainly can do well in on-page seo and emd (if emd has an effect that is), but the backlinks part looks tough for me. The backlinks column in the screenshot is the only factor that I'm not quite sure about. Then again, will an emd make all these easier?

[nicoledeal]

Originally Posted by mesmerist

Thanks for the valuable advice guys. From what I see, I certainly can do well in on-page seo and emd (if emd has an effect that is), but the backlinks part looks tough for me. The backlinks column in the screenshot is the only factor that I'm not quite sure about. Then again, will an emd make all these easier?

Easier...maybe, just don't look at it a deal breaker, or a deal maker.

What I am saying is don't bank on it. It's not priority number one, it's just one more bullet in a 100 round clip so to speak.

Place your efforts in ranking for your keywords and work the crap out of it.

[Loloy Diango]

I would go for this. Position No. 1 looks like it's yours for the taking:





Of course, you need to work hard on it as you'll be up against a lot of aged domains with mostly considerable number of backlinks.

And you also need to determine if the keyword has real commercial value and decent exact monthly search volume worthy of your time, effort and - whenever you deem necessary spending - money.

But, as I said, I'll go for it. When researching keywords, I always have my sights first on the top three positions and see if there is any chance for me to grab any of them. I don't mind doing the hard work, even spending a bit of money if needed, to implement my plan of action. If that's what it takes to get to the top, then so be it.

Why aim for the lower positions when it's at the top where the action is?

If, however, I see that the top 3 positions would be hard to beat, I move my sights down Page 1 of the SERPs and weigh if the KW's search volume (monthly exact, that is) is huge enough to enable me to grab a decent number of it even from the lower rungs of the first page.

If analysis shows me it doesn't, I just move on to the next keyword.

Good luck on your online endeavors!

[Tmill]

I see a lot of sites that don't even have the keyword in title or description. If you build a site with your keyword in everything and then build keyword backlinks, I wouldnt see why you couldn't rank well with this.

I am still confused on how to determine whether you should go after a keyword or not. It seems as if a lot of the links that sites get are not even keyword links and don't have very good seo such as title and other stuff.

[Loloy Diango]

Originally Posted by Tmill

I am still confused on how to determine whether you should go after a keyword or not.

You'll get over this in time. I believe keyword research is both a science and an art. Science because we deal with statistics in it; art because we just have to play on our hunches most of the time after all amount of statistical analysis have been done. With keyword research, the way we use our intuition is crucial. And that's something we get to sharpen over time. Experience, indeed, is the best teacher in this regard.

Originally Posted by Tmill

It seems as if a lot of the links that sites get are not even keyword links and don't have very good seo such as title and other stuff.

Maybe they're just doing their due diligence in diversifying their link sources and anchor text? That way, they make their inbound links look quite natural.

Just my two cents, though...