This is your real competition

[Troy_Phillips]

I know common practice dictates that if you put your search terms in double quotes you will find your direct competition.

This is only a result of how many times that exact phase turns up in a search .

Some will argue since people do not search in double quotations this is useless.

Now I use the double quote method to see what I am up against but I do not consider I am in direct competition with 623,000 people just because that is what the search returns .


You competition is only the ones you are going after . In other words my competition starts out as the top ten on Google .

Those are the ones I research . This is the page I want to be on.

Since I would rather be number 11 on Google than number 10 ( just one of my hair brained theories ) I really am only interested in the top three.

This is where most of the clicks come from.

If I am using article marketing to get in the top three ... I really like to see an article already there . If an EZA article is already there ... My article has a chance also.

If a website occupies these positions ... I direct the back links to my site instead of the article . Eventually I am going to point all my links to the my site anyway .

I beleive that anyone that knows what they are doing can and will take an articles spot on the page . Sometimes the article will get quicker traffic .

This is not always the case for those that have an established site .

Just remember ... the competition is directly related to what spot on the search engine page you want to occupy .

[Tsnyder]

HEY! How did my user name show up in your sig line?
Must be a new bit of forum programming... pretty cool!

Oh... nice post, too.

Tsnyder

[Erum Munir]

I was wondering what you meant when you said you saw your username in his sigline until I saw mine. Wow! Now that is targeted marketing lol.

[Michael Taylor]

Hhhmm...for some reason, some guy named Fred Garvin shows up in his sig when I read this post.

Originally Posted by Troy_Phillips

Now I use the double quote method to see what I am up against but I do not consider I am in direct competition with 623,000 people just because that is what the search returns.

Good point. And for the new folks, regarding your keyword's high number of supposedly competing pages, even on exact match searches, don't sweat it. At least not for long tail phrases. I was experimenting with a phrase a month or two ago that popped up on number eight almost overnight and has stayed there since, except for a couple days last week at number eleven.

The number of competing pages even for exact match? Over 1,000,000.

Lesson is, don't be intimidated by a big number just because it's a big number. There are reasons to avoid a keyword phrase, but a high number of pages isn't necessarily it.

[Vaan]

Originally Posted by Michael Taylor

Good point. And for the new folks, regarding your keyword's high number of supposedly competing pages, even on exact match searches, don't sweat it. At least not for long tail phrases. I was experimenting with a phrase a month or two ago that popped up on number eight almost overnight and has stayed there since, except for a couple days last week at number eleven.

The number of competing pages even for exact match? Over 1,000,000.

Lesson is, don't be intimidated by a big number just because it's a big number. There are reasons to avoid a keyword phrase, but a high number of pages isn't necessarily it.

Awesome post..

How can you dominate google for thet keyword phrases? I mean you need a lot of backlink to be top ten google SERP...

Is'n it safe to use automated link building software? considering that this is Blackhat method,,

Vaan

[Michael Taylor]

Well, one entry on the first page isn't exactly domination. If I had 80% of the first two pages, then maybe. But even if I did that, this single phrase isn't going to make me rich.

I have maybe five backlinks that show up in Yahoo's system. Yes...just five. Now, this one phrase only gets up to 10 visitors a day at most, so I'm not going to the Bahamas just yet.

But my point was not to be freaked out by big numbers and thinking you have to practice some form of voodoo to show up on the first page.

It just depends on the phrase and how strong the real competition is. Now, if I tried to get slot eight for the phrase "make money online", I'd be out of luck.

And I don't consider backlink building to be black hat. It's not hands-off, hope a real human finds my content and blesses me with a link hat, but I don't think it's dirty pool, either.

[jasonmorgan]

I feel special... and great leapin' gizzard guts how did he do that with his signature?

nevermind.. figure it out

oh yeah, I'm with you on #11 over #10... or even #21 over #10.

[TheRichLife]

Originally Posted by Troy_Phillips

Since I would rather be number 11 on Google than number 10 ( just one of my hair brained theories )

I have a site that spent quite a bit of time drifting between #10 and #11 for a highly competitive search term. The traffic from that term while at #11 was nearly double the amount it was at #10.

[itcoll]

these tools will be useful too:
SEOmoz | Linkscape — Unparalleled Link Intelligence - to know the number of unique domains linking to the top sites on SERP
Link Diagnosis - examine your link competition - to know the anchor text variations of the inbound links

[Troy_Phillips]

Originally Posted by Michael Taylor

Well, one entry on the first page isn't exactly domination. If I had 80% of the first two pages, then maybe. But even if I did that, this single phrase isn't going to make me rich..

I ahve a search term that is pulling an average of 23 visits a day . For this phrase , I have at least the first 9 on Google's first page . Certain days I own the first 12 spots .

The phrase actually has buy in it . It does convert well.

The deal is , yeah I have the kw pretty much wrapped up but it is still 23 searches a day . This would not change if I owned the first 5 pages .

Thank you for enriching this post . Much appreciated

[Michael Taylor]

Hey Troy, on those 23 searches, do you get much in the way of conversion? It would be interesting to see a low searched term still packs a punch in terms of real dollars.

[Steven Carl Kelly]

You should always target page one on Google. Volume of "competing" pages is often quite a useless number. In fact, Google only returns 1,000 pages anyhow.

[Tsnyder]

So... nobody answered my question about my user name
showing up in the sig line. Is that a feature available only to
WSO's?

Tsnyder

[Zeus66]

I don't have it handy, but there's a chart somewhere that shows that being #10 at Google is better than being #9. The theory is that human nature being what it is, we're drawn to the beginnings and endings of things in general. Better to be at the very bottom than just above that. Kinda makes sense if you think about it. Same for being at the top of Page 2. I have noticed no drop-off if I'm #11 vs. #9 or #10 (for some phrases, not all).

For my money, the "real" competition is the Top 10. If you see some vulnerability in there, it's a term to go after. Regardless of how many total competitors there are for that term.

John

[Zeus66]

Originally Posted by Tsnyder

So... nobody answered my question about my user name
showing up in the sig line. Is that a feature available only to
WSO's?

Tsnyder

I think you do it by putting this where you want the reader's user name to show up in your sig:

[ YOU ] (no spaces)

I think.

John

[Tsnyder]

Originally Posted by Zeus66

I think you do it by putting this where you want the reader's user name to show up in your sig:

I think.

John

LOL... a blank line?

Tsnyder

[Tsnyder]

Okay.. I see it now... thanks!

Tsnyder

[Troy_Phillips]

Originally Posted by Michael Taylor

Hey Troy, on those 23 searches, do you get much in the way of conversion? It would be interesting to see a low searched term still packs a punch in terms of real dollars.

I actually make a few sales a day from it . It does help that the word buy is in the long tail.

The first three words of the long tail are "want to buy"

This is why it converts so well.

[Traffic-Bug]

You are right. Even if there are 625,000 competing pages in the SERPs the real competition ends within the first page or two. 'Organic competition analysis' can just be limited to the top twenty five or so results for your chosen keywords in the search engines.

[DogScout]

Last figure I saw (& I have no idea where or how accurate) was only 12% even go to the 2nd page!

Unlike 78% of all statistics that are made up on the spot, the first one wasn't made up by me. (Although the second one was.)

[Troy_Phillips]

Just an added tidbit . I don't always use low searched long tails .

I just promoted a long tail that gets 421 estimated a day .

Wrote an article for my site . Sent the same article to EZA. Changed the article into three different formats and promoted and pinged everything .

Just for kicks I checked the search on google and in less than 30 minutes of the first submission I am now number 6 on the first page for the term.

Some places amaze me in how quick they get indexed .

[Steven Carl Kelly]

In addition, 14% click on the Adwords ads.

[JohnMcCabe]

Originally Posted by Steven Carl Kelly

In addition, 14% click on the Adwords ads.

If you want to talk about pure position, then you want to talk about the first x natural results, depending on how many pages back you are willing to consider. If you think the first page is all that matters, then x=10, first three pages, x=30, and so on.

If you want to talk about clicks, then you can effectively double that number because you are also competing with the paid ads for that click.

So if you consider the first three pages worth working for, and your emphasis is on clicks rather than pure position, you are actually competing with up to results - 30 organic and 30 paid.

If I were going to use any measure of "in quotes" for judging competition, it would be intitle: rather than just seeing the phrase somewhere on the page. That would hint at an intent to optimize for the phrase, at least.