Can we please make a new rule?

[packerfan]

If you're going ask for specific advice about how hard it is to rank for something, you must provide the keyword and your website.

Here's a little secret. There are two kinds of people on this forum. Those that are too busy to go build a site to compete with 1,000 exact match search keyword you hold so near and dear.

And those aren't going to do anything.

You want advice from folks in group 1.

The whole idea of keeping your "niche" secret is retarded.

Now, I'm not saying just come start giving up all your great keywords. But if you want specific advice, provide specific details.

You'll be amazed at the difference in the quality of answer you'll receive.

[BigNorm]

You forgot group 3.

Those who'll nab your keyword and compete for it since all the hard work is now done.

[webworm]

Yes you guys are right.But the most important things is that there are also the groups who have realized these things very early.

[outwest]

Sorry I would never give out my kw
thats about the dumbest idea I have ever heard

I would never even give my site and kw to a trusted friend in a pm
just not a good idea

[Maraun]

Originally Posted by outwest

Sorry I would never give out my kw
thats about the dumbest idea I have ever heard

I would never even give my site and kw to a trusted friend in a pm
just not a good idea

What you CAN do however is just show the data of the top 10 competition as returned by Market Samurai or similar tools. That should be enough to tell how hard it is to rank a keyword.

[MikeFriedman]

Originally Posted by Maraun

What you CAN do however is just show the data of the top 10 competition as returned by Market Samurai or similar tools. That should be enough to tell how hard it is to rank a keyword.

Actually, that silly top 10 data chart in MS tells you almost nothing about the difficulty of the competition.

[timpears]

It is a little difficult to give people advice on this type of question if you don't know what the hell keyword they are gong after. If you can't reveal that, then don't bother asking people as you can't get a serious answer anyway.

People that don't want to reveal their key words and web site kind of amaze me. Your key words and site are up on the web for all the world to see.

[outwest]

Your keywords are and site are up on the web for everyone to see? there are 10s of millions of sites, they can only SEE mine if they if they know my kw

If a person says, what do you think of the competition to my site? they can just post a screenshot of Market Samurai SEO screen top 10 google with the URLS not showing........
that tells people 99 percent of what they need to know to make a judgement.........without revealing the kw or urls of the site

to me thast smart business
revealing your kw and url so others can "help" you is just insane

help you steal your kw is more like it

[mikenin]

I agree that it is a bad idea to reveal your keywords, but I don't know why anyone would. If you want to know how hard it is to rank for a keyword, learn how to do keyword research, don't ask everyone here to do the work for you.

[yukon]

Originally Posted by timpears

It is a little difficult to give people advice on this type of question if you don't know what the hell keyword they are gong after. If you can't reveal that, then don't bother asking people as you can't get a serious answer anyway.

People that don't want to reveal their key words and web site kind of amaze me. Your key words and site are up on the web for all the world to see.

Correct.

Then when you post the URL + keyword with questions how to beat the competition in the SERPs, you instantly show the competition your forum name. A simple forum search would reveal a lot about your SERP tactics & your sites.

Then you have copycats on this forum. I would never give my content away to a bunch of people on an IM forum, that's just crazy IMO. Years of work scraped in 1 hour (not going to happen).

[bcruan]

Are you fishing for peoples kw's or are you seriously suggesting this? I understand its hard to give advice unless you know more, but asking for peoples keywords is kind of ridiculous.

I have seen countless sites on flippa be overtaken from nowhwere, within a few months of being listed and know people who actively research on there.

[Barry Unruh]

I think PackerFan's thought is correct. If someone is asking for SPECIFIC ADVICE it is impossible to give it without that information. Which should really lead to the second thing...

If you need that SPECIFIC of advice, you should be consulting with an SEO adviser, mentor, or someone you trust, and not asking an unanswerable generic question, because all of the "social bookmarks, articles, directory listings, forum posts, etc..." are not really valid answers without having the proper context.

People who have been around for a while could take a look at those top ten listings for your phrase and take a glance at your site and probably give you a fairly good idea of what it is going to take to have a chance. But without the information it is just a shot in the dark.

I would not list my keywords or sites on an important site here, either. I would share them with trusted people in my mastermind group, mentors, or an SEO partner.

[GeorgR.]

Originally Posted by packerfan

The whole idea of keeping your "niche" secret is retarded.

The whole "niche concept" and juggling "oh so important" numbers like competition and "number of results" is actually retarded.

I see almost every day that people judge keywords, niches and rankability of keywords based on "numbers of results" ...

Fact is that such numbers are never a real indication of how hard it is to rank a keyword...tell me, who cares about "the number of results".

You can believe me that concluding from the number of results or "competing sites" etc. is a very, very rough and non-precise/amateurish way to decide whether a keyword has good chances to get ranked.

I myself do (mostly) not care about competition, intitle: etc. numbers anymore because at best it can give you a false impression about what to expect - a simple "non professional" look at page #1 and #2 in Google for WHATEVER keyword with whatever searches/"competition" can tell me much more than the numbers MS or whatever keyword software spits out.

Worse...if you are obsessed with the "advice" your keyword software gives you...do you think i would have a made a site in the past for "lose weight" and then actually hit #1 with it several months later? No! Because i would have said "IT'S IMPOSSIBLE!" and would have never made a site around this keyword in the first place.

The MOST important metric is searches/month (exact) and then check whether very authoritive sites are dominating Google..this is all you need to know. ("very authoritive" meaning XYZpedia.com and gov sites, mostly)

[outwest]

"Fact is that such numbers are never a real indication of how hard it is to rank a keyword...tell me, who cares about "the number of results".

Nobody is talking about amateurish methods like "number of results"
we are talking about posting your Market Samurai top 10 competition for that kw and blanking out the urls etc of the top 10 sites

now tell me how the MS google top ten SEO comparison is meaningless ?
Personally I would not even pm my sites or kws to a "trusted friend" on this site or elsewhere

the skill sets of people on the board are such that not only would stealing my kws be easy, but highly profitable, and no way would I ever know it was that person doing it

sorry I dont trust ANYONE with my kws or sites