SEO - Am I doing it right?

[xtrapsp]

Hey guys,

I have a website I am optimising as I make it. LizardGuru - Lizard Caresheets | Gecko Care | Reptile Care | Kent | Reptile Guru | Care Sheet
now I have some competition which is really quite annoying because they are huge! the-lizard-lounge

How am I going to compete with them in all honesty? they are at the top already and I'm not on any pages when you search for Lizards and most stuff around that area.

[xnice]

Research about them before go further. Find how many back links do they have, domain age, what do they do with SEO on page. After that, you may have some background about your competitors.

[xtrapsp]

I have done that, which is the thing. I Cannot physically compete with them

[Kay81]

The most important thing about SEO is how you choose your keywords. No matter how competitive a niche is, there are always sub-niches within the niche that usually have low competition that you can write on and rank for easily without even building backlinks. So I advice you find small niches within this your niche to write content on so you can be getting traffic, then build some backlinks to those your competitive keyword pages and hope that eventually they'll start ranking in search results.

But for future purpose, if you want to start a site, it is important you do a thorough keyword research and competitors research first to be sure you can rank for your keyword of choice before even starting the site, that is if you want to depend on search engine for traffic. Fortunately there are a lot of free tools to help you with such research. But to win the fight of high ranking, I encourage you to invest in a good keyword research tool if you don't already have one. Combine Google adword tool with a paid keyword tool for research, and you'll find great keywords in any niche to work with.

[nicoledeal]

Originally Posted by Kay81

The most important thing about SEO is how you choose your keywords. No matter how competitive a niche is, there are always sub-niches within the niche that usually have low competition that you can write on and rank for easily without even building backlinks. So I advice you find small niches within this your niche to write content on so you can be getting traffic, then build some backlinks to those your competitive keyword pages and hope that eventually they'll start ranking in search results.

But for future purpose, if you want to start a site, it is important you do a thorough keyword research and competitors research first to be sure you can rank for your keyword of choice before even starting the site, that is if you want to depend on search engine for traffic. Fortunately there are a lot of free tools to help you with such research. But to win the fight of high ranking, I encourage you to invest in a good keyword research tool if you don't already have one. Combine Google adword tool with a paid keyword tool for research, and you'll find great keywords in any niche to work with.

What Kay81 said is spot on, accurate. I also am a firm believer that keyword research should be done prior to commiting to a promotion. If I can't rank for any relevant keywords I move on to consider a different promotion.
That said, think of all the hundreds of searches people may conduct for lizard care/food/housing, etc.
Eco friendly lizard homes
organic lizard food
happy lizard
my lizard is sick
lethargic lizard
why is my lizard green
where can I buy a lizard
do lizards bite
is that a lizard in your pocket
do lizards lay eggs
what do lizards eat
how much to feed my lizard
lost my lizard

Of course you can take all the fancy name variations of lizards and try them also, but research all the possibilities to find some that are relevant to your site content, have decent exact match searches, and are low competition. You may have to change up your site content to fit the keywords that will best serve you. Then backlink. I assume you are comfortable optimizing your site?

You can optimize each page separately, using your main keyword and also other variations of your keywords, as long as you have researched them as well. Be sure your intended keyword is in the page title as for me that seems to make a huge difference. By adding articles (pages) to your site you can use different keywords and not have all your eggs in one basket so to speak. Choose the titles of your pages carefully! Carefully researched keywords are golden.

[andynathan]

If they are bigger and better find something they do not do or you can do better. Otherwise, you will always be scraping for business.

[pjwenterprise]

You could try an SEO software which has a small cost but should help you to achieve what you want.

Take a look at SEO Elite Software | Search Engine Optimization | Link Popularity | Web Promotion | Link Exchange Search Tool

[MDSEO]

i would try Traffic Travis to start.. its free also then look into keyword ranking with the tool in my sig! it works the best!

[AdBank]

PM me...... I know of a great SEO tool you can use that is free. You need to have a wordpress site though.

[james8888]

There's no way to beat competition without doing hard work. Just keep building back links from a wide variety of sources. Be consistent, you you'll outrank your competition eventually.

[blueorca17]

If you don't feel that you can rank for a specific term that you think is competitive, find keywords that your competitor is NOT using. Often times you can find enough long tail keywords in the same niche and with the same meaning as your competitor's keywords that have NO competition. For example:

how to clean my lizard's tank
help me clean my lizard tank
lizard tank cleaning instructions
guide to clean reptile tank
reptile tank maintenance

All of these keywords mean pretty much the same thing, but big competitiors will usually target the most commonly used one. The more long tail keywords you use, the more of an advantage you have over your competitior. If you get enough of them, you can actually get MORE visitors to your site coming from long tail keywords than the really competitive keyword got. Make sense? So say "how to clean my lizard's tank" gets 3600 searches per month (I'm just making these numbers and keywords up by the way) and you cant rank for it. BUT you create a whole bunch of pages that target long tail keywords (keywords that have 3 or more words in the phrase), and all together your long tail keywords get 5000 searches per month. See how this will work in your favor? Be creative.

Don't work harder; work smarter.

[GettingBetterAtIt]

A question about long tail keywords. I use the google tool and it only seems to show me related phrases 2-3 words in length. How do I discover those 5 and 6 word phrases?

Do you make up phrases and then test them in your tool of choice or does the tool draw them out? This has me somewhat baffled.

[Targeted Traffic]

One thing about SEO is that you have to work hard for it...'regularly' and then wait...wait...wait...

you seem to be so anxious on beating your competition...
patience my friend..and then a lot hardwork...

Also what has been already mentioned above is correct.


SEO starts with a solid keyword research and sorting. Most search engine optimization professionals are impatient and always in a hurry to implement their ideas.

Keyword research for effective SEO results needs a lot of patience and intelligent calculations. Above all you should be using the best possible tools to perform keyword research for a strong search engine optimization.

For example Google Keyword Tool, Google Insight and Google Suggestions. You will get the exact number of monthly searches on Google Keyword Tool. Here is what you should do then;
a) Download them in an excel sheet.
b) Find out your kind of keywords (that match your website content and products).
c) Sort them by daily searches.

Then optimize your content...optimize your webpage...perform high quality back linking

[Kiosk]

Exactly it seems keywords plays an important role for the success or otherwise of an online marketing efforts. It you are in a competitive niche than consider those un exploited keywords to work on and start capturing end users from those keywords this will help you to rank for those competitive keywords in long run.

[skele]

If your niche is competitive it's important to do the basics. Really, do not skip it!

In order to start ranking for most of them do this trick. It works. It's not for lazy one but for one who is serious about making money online.

I have one site that is 1st on Google where competition is 26.800.000. It wasn't overnight and yes, it took lot of effort. But once Google sees you as a authority, it's quite easy to stay in the business.

1. Make a decision that you will do EVERYTHING necessary to rank your page on 1. place in Google. Dont look at what you have TODAY, look at what you WILL have as you start ranking in position No. 1

2. Take first of your primary keywords and make a Google search for them. Here you will find your real big competitors. Don't get nervous about them. You will beat them. I believe that you can do it.

3. Open all 10 sites on first 10 positions and check their backlinks on Yahoo! Site Explorer.
(one at a time, so you will do it 10x for 10 competitors)

4. Select Inlinks and then select from Show Inlinks dropdown: "Except from this domain". Then change "Only from this URL" to "Entire site". You will get the backlinks to your compoetitors.

5. Go to sites that contain backlinks to your competitors and try to get one. Choose main keywords as anchor text but be sure that anchor is not allways the same.

6. Repeat these steps for every main keyword you want to rank for.

It is old-fasion way that works well from early days of internet. It's proven way. Also be sure that you have relevant content on your website.

Please ask if you have any further questons.

[creese]

Originally Posted by xtrapsp

Hey guys,

I have a website I am optimising as I make it. LizardGuru - Lizard Caresheets | Gecko Care | Reptile Care | Kent | Reptile Guru | Care Sheet
now I have some competition which is really quite annoying because they are huge! the-lizard-lounge

How am I going to compete with them in all honesty? they are at the top already and I'm not on any pages when you search for Lizards and most stuff around that area.

There is some good advice here about going for longer tail keywords.

I recommend that you spread your keyword targeting around your site a bit rather than go for all of it on the main page. Example, maybe you can make a seperate page or section of your site for Gecko Care, and another page with car sheets, and another section for reptile care. It might be a bit easier to optimize in this manner.

I am also a firm believer in believing that you can achieve anything if you are willing to put the effort and time into it. Although some goals maybe be significantly harder than others.