How can you tell if you can rank for a keyword?

[Ron.]

I am trying to decide what kw's I have a chance of ranking for for my offline business authority site.

I was told to use the link popularity checker to see how many links are pointing towards my competiors sites.

I used this method and here is what I've found:

#1 position in Google has 28 in pointing links
#3 has 151 links pointing in
#5 has over 1000 links pointing in.


Does anyone have a good method for deciding if you can rank for a word?

[zoobie]

Don't use Google checker and it is not accurate. Use Yahoo instead. They will give you a better idea on how many links your competitor will have,

Also, you should check if you can tackle for a keyword by using AllinTitle operator in Google. If it gives you a few thousand. < 5000 say.Then you will have a better chance to rank good in Google otherwise it may take ages to out rank your competitors.

[Preben Frenning]

Well, it really depends on you SEO knowledge. Are you AWESOME at SEO? Then go compete with authority sites. If not, here is what I would do:

When doing keyword research, use the "allintitle:keyword" command in google.
This will help you find out how many sites use the keyword in their titles (Which is one of the most important factors for google)

Then analyse the top 3 from there.

The amount of links really doesn't have that much to say. It's rather their authority over that. (My newest website has PR 3, and one link in. It was registered in 2003, and is ranking second for it's domain againts 70million competitors. Gratis web)

What you could do, is to find out whether you are able to "On-page optimize" better than your competitors, and if you are able to get the same amount of authority links back to your site. If you are, then there shouldn't be a problem.

It might take some time though, but that's what I would do =)

Good luck!
- Prebz

[Nahar]

Links are important but it's not the only thing that determines your position in Google. Your website content (keyword relevance, proximity and other SEO tricks), how often you update your site (add new content), etc. are equally important.

The 1st thing I do as I choose my keywords is comparing the keyword popularity (how many times a day people google it) to the competition (how many websites there are in search results for the particular keyword).

[Ron.]

PF,

thanks.


Much appreciation.

Originally Posted by Preben Frenning

Well, it really depends on you SEO knowledge. Are you AWESOME at SEO? Then go compete with authority sites. If not, here is what I would do:

When doing keyword research, use the "allintitle:keyword" command in google.
This will help you find out how many sites use the keyword in their titles (Which is one of the most important factors for google)

Then analyse the top 3 from there.

The amount of links really doesn't have that much to say. It's rather their authority over that. (My newest website has PR 3, and one link in. It was registered in 2003, and is ranking second for it's domain againts 70million competitors. Gratis web)

What you could do, is to find out whether you are able to "On-page optimize" better than your competitors, and if you are able to get the same amount of authority links back to your site. If you are, then there shouldn't be a problem.

It might take some time though, but that's what I would do =)

Good luck!
- Prebz

[Ron.]

Nahar,


thanks

Originally Posted by Nahar

Links are important but it's not the only thing that determines your position in Google. Your website content (keyword relevance, proximity and other SEO tricks), how often you update your site (add new content), etc. are equally important.

The 1st thing I do as I choose my keywords is comparing the keyword popularity (how many times a day people google it) to the competition (how many websites there are in search results for the particular keyword).

[Preben Frenning]

You're welcome Ron =)

Feel free to PM me if you have other questions, and I will do my best to help you.
Now I'm NOT an "SEO Expert", but I know quite a lot of simple SEO that works. Let's say I've dominated google a couple of times

[terrysacia]

Ron,

I'm not an affiliate for market samurai but have found very useful tools in that software. Fortunately for me I bought it when it first hit the market in beta and now (still in beta but more advanced) i think the cost has doubled but still may be cheaper to get it now than when it's fully completed.

It's really hard to know what works because as a person would think, the site with more links should win, but then what type of site are those links coming from. I have a PR5 site that is simply a OSTicket support system login page... No links.... No info... Go figure!

[maestero2010]

Use some tool to find out the backlinks for your competitors site. IN this way you can start building links for your website.