How do you measure competition?

Doing that gives you an idea of how amny pages rank for that particular phrase with the words in that order. Sometimes the phrase is in the title and sometimes not.

This is used by some people as a rough idea of how many competitors ther are for that exact keyword phrase.

Other people use the allintitle operator in google. And some people use the allinurl operator to gauge competition level.

Only doing it this way without looking at the individual sites ranking for that phrase leaves you lacking some information about competition. Thins like how many links in teh sites have, what they look like, if they are optimized.

But as a first step towards figuring out your competition, it is not bad.

I use Market Samurai's SEO Competition feature. The more "pink" there is, the more competition. You should give Market Samurai a try, it has a free trial.

Yea, Market Samurai is great. In general it offers to define 2 thigns:
- Amount of competition (You can use Google keyword tool as alternative)
- Strength of the competition (On-site and Off-site optimization factors like keyword in Title, Meta and etc.)

From my own experience (I promoted 3 websites in Top 10 of Google) the key here is to define strenth of the competition.

And as I said befor there are two strategies: ON-site (Title, Meta etc) and OFF-site (number of backlinks) optimization.

So, to mease competition:
1. Define amount using Google Keyword Tool or Market Samurai
2. Define strength (FREE: use Seo Quake and analyze Page Rank and Number of backlinks)

Also I know that previously it's a SPECIAL 30-Day Trial for Market Samurai for Challenge members.

Here's the website for Challenge: The Challenge

And also search google for Market Samurai Challenge Free Trial.

Important tip: Don't waste your time on Google Keyword tool. Instead use free trial Market Samurai and you will feel the power.

I am using Adwords Keyword tool, it has a precise competition, and search tool.

I never check competition. I don't care what other people are doing.

Use Traffic Travis to get an idea of how much competition you have for that particular keyword. If you have some money to spend, then yea go with Market Samurai. But Traffic Travis is enough for me and it's FREE!