My Keyword Research

[Edge88]

I am so confused about keyword research. I feel like I,m getting a good grasp of the tools, but I don't think I am calibrated enough to tell if it's too competitive or not. either that, or I'm finding some keywords/niches that are being overlooked.

If I type a keyword into google, and the top few sites have a lot of backlinks (say 500), but none of them are anchored to the right keyword. Would it be safe to assume that (with proper on page SEO) by matching their number of links and link quality, but with the specific keyword as the anchor text get me to rank above them when that specific keyword is typed in?

or is "site age" and other factors important enough that even though they don't seem to be optmized for that keyword in their backlinking, I would still not be able to rank.

Thanks!

[Michael Nguyen]

Keyword research a tough nut to crack and alot of the learning comes from learning about the types of websites out there. You build up a kinda of feel about how weak or strong a site is. And trust me, when someone says "Go for keywords under XXX in quotes" ....that is a load of rubbish

Site age is not important as the page that is ranking. I out rank amazon all the time just because the page is weak.

In general if you do the same and better what the competition has you can out rank them but its not always guaranteed. What is guaranteed is that the more keywords you go for the more chance you'll hit a winner or two.

Good luck
Michael

[Caragui]

Hi Edge,

You seem to have a good idea of what keyword research is.

By tools what do you mean? Is it Goggle's Keyword Tool of the paid ones. It is possible to do a competent enough research using the free ones but the paid ones make it much easier. You still need to double check their results but the time you save in the preliminary stages really offsets the initial costs of the paid ones.

IMHO, you should be able to outrank a site on the top places if you have a better SEO than they do. Like what you said about about the "anchor text" links. That one is on offsite SEO But I'd also take into consideration other factors like; titles, H1 tages, etc which are onsite SEO.

A good onsite SEO model plus a good offsite SEO strategy would give your site a good chance of beating the more established sites. One main consideration for this is the keyword you are targeting. If its too competetive, you'll have a harder time.

[Edge88]

Thanks for the responses guys.

Caragui,

I'm just starting out so I've been using only the free tools until I make some money. I think that's a dumb mentality in business. But until I prove that I can do it (not that it's doable) I wont be investing much other than web hosting and the necessary stuff.

So I've been using Google Keyword Tool, SEO for Firefox, and Backlinkwatch mostly to research niches that I think of.

Michael,

I feel like the worst part about keyword research is that it "depends" on so much. so for a beginner, getting a solid idea of how competitive a keyword is really depends on a lot of other IM knowledge. But at the same time people tell you to start with solid Keyword Research to avoid wasting time, and that right there can get a lot of newbies stuck. I guess to build up a gut feeling, you have to put your head own and try it a few times. I'm just afraid of working too hard or building hundreds of backlinks to a keyword that is too competitive for me to crack.

Some of the sites that rank on Page 1 for the keywords I was looking at are like you mentioned Amazon, or BedBathandBeyond. They scared me at first, and still does sometimes, but like i said, they arent optmized for the specific keywords, so for THOSE keywords I guess I should be able to rank

Amazon . com/category/sub-category/relatedkeywordandrandomcharacters

Thanks again for the responses, any more will be greatly appreciated. I keep hesistating when I think that the niche will be too hard to crack.

Edge

[Marcel Hartmann]

Hi Edge.

I think the best strategy is just to analyse the top 10. You're not competing with 6 million pages, just the ones that occupy the first page.

Something you probably already know: 60-75% of clicks go to the first 3 positions, so this is where you should aim to rank. A good way to test your competition: see if the top three results gain backlinks over a 2-week period. If yes, analyse the latest backlinks (you can compare the logs given by Yahoo Site Explorer at two different dates) and see if these are promotional or self-made, and whether they contain anchor text for the term you'd like to rank for. If yes for all, you know you're competing against a site that is *actively optimising for that term.*

Before you start, make sure the search terms are as active as the keyword tools claim. I've found some gems by running Adwords tests to gauge true search volume over 24 hours in English speaking countries. One keyword was searched for 10x more than Google predicted (for exact match), and many turn out to be utter failures despite Google and Wordtracker predictions.

I can afford to sink $100 into an adwords campaign for a semi-competitive niche if it's going to allow me to avoid the landmines, so to speak, and find terms nobody else will try to rank for that actually get 100+ searches a day.

Hope I've helped.

[Traffic-Bug]

Thats why you need market research tools like the Noble Samurai. Or something like nichebot. That analyzes your competition for the keywords or theme you choose and tells you if you have a chance for succeeding or not. Other such tools are micro niche finder. You can also subscribe to something called NicheaDay and NicheChick to find interesting niches that have the potential to generate money in returns. Google to find the appropriate urls.

[Marcel Hartmann]

Originally Posted by Traffic-Bug

Thats why you need market research tools like the Noble Samurai. Or something like nichebot. That analyzes your competition for the keywords or theme you choose and tells you if you have a chance for succeeding or not. Other such tools are micro niche finder. You can also subscribe to something called NicheaDay and NicheChick to find interesting niches that have the potential to generate money in returns. Google to find the appropriate urls.

Before I ditched it, Micro Niche Finder gave me SOC numbers that didn't actually represent the difficulty of a niche at all. I wouldn't put all your faith into automated competition checks, because most take into account the thousands and thousands of pages you will outrank with 3-4 articles in a day or two.

Some tools are great, though, like WebCompAnalyst (in determining the true competition: the top 10 results). There is a bit of analysis involved (not much), so it may put some people off.