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What do you consider to be LOW competition

by david5000
5 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I've been doing research for a few days on what is "Low" competition.

What i mean by low is when you type your search into google in "equation" marks and you get the total number of pages back.

This would be done when starting a niche site (well in this case that's what i'm referring to )

I've a few niche ideas and found long tail keywords.

What i'm stuck on it what can be considered as low competition. I dont want to start my site/domain/articles to find out the competition was to high for me to even think about it.

The guide i've been setting myself at the moment is something like this.

  • Keyword must have 1300+ [Exact] searches on google.
  • Keyword must have exact match domain in .com/net/ord
  • Google should only have 30000 competing pages for my keyword when searched in quotation marks.
  • Allintitle searches of below 1000
Is this about right ? Should i up the 30000 competing pages to 50k or 100k ?
Should i up the exact searches from 1300+ to more ?

any info would be great.

Thank you.
#competition #low
  • Profile picture of the author John Williamson
    Searching in quotes and number of competing pages and allintitle are all irrelevant and useless. Just search for your keyword like any normal user would, look at what's on page 1 of the non-personalized results, and see if you can beat them in terms of PR, backlinks, title tag, header tags, content, etc.. Simple as that.
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    • Profile picture of the author thecableguy
      Yeah that's right, you're only competing with the first 10 listings in the SERPs (that is if the searchengines will be your main source of traffic). Take a look at the link below and if you scroll down a bit you'll see that only about 10% of the searchers reach the 2nd page, so unless there's a huge amount of traffic the search volume for page two is next to worthless. Page one or nothing when you're going that low.

      How Much Money is a Top Google Ranking Worth to Your Business?

      If you plan on receiving traffic from articles, facebook, twitter, etc. than use the numbers as a guide. And if you're using the Google keyword tool for those numbers keep in mind that Yahoo, bing and a few more searchengines may also send you traffic.

      Competition numbers isn't the best way to determine the competition. Even some of the tools that's been created to do just that (MNF, NF) falls a little short (JMO), it would be better if they only analysed only the first page in the SERPs. Download MarketSamurai, TrafficTravis or if you use Firefox the Seoquake addon (backlinks to the page).


      As for the search numbers it depends on how you're monetizing the site, but I wouldn't cut the search numbers to close. A 50 cent click for Adsense is different than a 40$ commission for an affiliate program. And keyword tools are notoriously inaccurate.

      Here's some exact match searches that don't jive, the search numbers look good, but if you're expecting that kind of traffic at this time of the year you're in for a long wait. Both Google and Wordtracker gives you a monthly average of the PREVIOUS 12 months, look at the "Local Search Trends" as well.

      electric heaters 8,100
      skis 18,100
      ski boots 9,900
      ski pants 9,900
      valentines gift baskets 27,100
      mothers day gifts 27,100
      valentines day gifts 18,100

      So if it's an evergreen niche and you'll hold onto the domain for years the figures will average out, on the peak months you'll get more traffic and less on the other months. But for "short term" niches like HDTVs or some types of electronics you may want to keep that in mind.

      The keyword(s) that you're targeting won't be the only one's you'll receive traffic for, but still I wouldn't cut the search numbers to close.

      And if you're using Adsense as a your main monetization strategy keep in mind you're looking at the Search Network figures, a lot of people use those numbers but are actually using the Display Network (higher commissions but much lower CPC).

      As for the EMD it helps, but it's not magic. In fact for longer tail keywords it sort of hinders you from growing the site out. Used to go crazy with EMDs a few years ago and I'll still get it when possible, but if not just getting the keyword in the domain will satisfy me usually


      JMO
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  • Profile picture of the author topfree
    Well I have ranked number 1 on google for a keyword phrase that had 800 searches per month and 230,000 competing pages. I didn't even do much SEO to get to number 1 so it's like omrishabbat said, it depends on how good the competition is.

    If the first page is full of sites like best buy, sears, target and IM sites that are like 8 years old, have over 100 pages and 3000 backlinks, you will probably not get to page 1. If however the number 1 position is a badly made site with one page, has only 150 words for content and the site has only 5 backlinks then you should be able to rank above him with not much work.

    So check the sites on the first page of google, see how good they are, use a backlink checker to see how many backlinks they have and then make your decision.
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  • Profile picture of the author david5000
    Thanks guys gives me alot of good info to move on.

    I was too focused on the exact searches to traffic. I'll look at the competition as well.
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  • Profile picture of the author Look4VGames
    Originally Posted by david5000 View Post

    I've been doing research for a few days on what is "Low" competition.

    What i mean by low is when you type your search into google in "equation" marks and you get the total number of pages back.

    This would be done when starting a niche site (well in this case that's what i'm referring to )

    I've a few niche ideas and found long tail keywords.

    What i'm stuck on it what can be considered as low competition. I dont want to start my site/domain/articles to find out the competition was to high for me to even think about it.

    The guide i've been setting myself at the moment is something like this.

    • Keyword must have 1300+ [Exact] searches on google.
    • Keyword must have exact match domain in .com/net/ord
    • Google should only have 30000 competing pages for my keyword when searched in quotation marks.
    • Allintitle searches of below 1000
    Is this about right ? Should i up the 30000 competing pages to 50k or 100k ?
    Should i up the exact searches from 1300+ to more ?

    any info would be great.

    Thank you.
    It all depends on your SEO skills. 30,000 used to be low competition for me about a year ago, but now that i am an expert on SEO low competition is about 150,000-200,000 competing sites. But 30,000 is a good start if you are just getting into SEO
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