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Google Ranking Competition Question (of sorts)

by Brekat23
14 replies
I don't know why I'm confusing myself with this question because I feel as though I already do and should know this, however I'm going to ask just for clarification.

When your trying to rank for a KWP in Google and your currently in the process of sizing up your competition and choosing which keyword phrase out of your list of potentials would be the best to go for competition/ranking wise - which way of 'Google-searching' is the best method for us as internet marketers; either "KWP", or KWP (with or without quotes)?

My guess is I need to be searching with quotes, correct? Because with quotes means it gathers the exact searches whereas without is broad. The exact searches is my direct competition for ranking with my exact KWP I'm targeting.

I feel like I'm in class and I'm asking my professor (You WF genius's)

Please let me know if I'm correct or if I'm way off or if I'm leaving anything out - thanks so much and once again...I am constantly amazed at the wealth of info. and support here, it means alot! :p:rolleyes:
#competition #google #question #ranking #sorts
  • Profile picture of the author Michael Mayo
    You could receive a more targeted and accurate answer to you question in the
    Adsense / PPC / SEO Discussion Forum.

    Hope that Helps,
    Have a Great Day!
    Michael
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    • Profile picture of the author Brekat23
      Originally Posted by Michael Mayo View Post

      You could receive a more targeted and accurate answer to you question in the
      Adsense / PPC / SEO Discussion Forum.

      Hope that Helps,
      Have a Great Day!
      Michael

      Didn't think to do that - great suggestion!
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  • Profile picture of the author Dwight Anthony
    I usually do it without the quotes because most people are doing simple searches without any type of keywords in quotes usually. More advanced people use quotes for exact searches but most people don't search that way. It's worth knowing both numbers though.
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    • Profile picture of the author Brekat23
      Originally Posted by danthony View Post

      I usually do it without the quotes because most people are doing simple searches without any type of keywords in quotes usually. More advanced people use quotes for exact searches but most people don't search that way. It's worth knowing both numbers though.

      Thats really interesting, I actually wasn't aware that it works that way - for some reason I was thinking that Google reads over the quotes and gathers results from the exact keyword you put in.

      For example if the keyword I was targeting was yellow banana baskets and I insert "yellow banana baskets" into google with quotes, it would pull up the amount of exact results with yellow banana baskets (meaning where yellow banana baskets is the target keyword tag on the site and is unbroken).

      Such as,

      Purchase your yellow banana baskets
      Yellow banana baskets are always in season
      et cetera...

      However if you were to put yellow banana baskets into Google without quotes it would pull up search results where yellow banana baskets is throughout the site like so -

      Purchase your basket of yellow bananas
      decorate your yellow bananas with a ribbon and basket
      et cetera..

      I am glad that I made this a thread because now I'm even more confused - am I way off or just over-analyzing, which wouldn't surprise me :p
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  • Profile picture of the author Brekat23
    P.S. Plus, if you could perhaps reccommend an average range to stay above and below?? I really have no idea and I don't wish to target something that is ridiculously high. Thanks again!
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  • Profile picture of the author vndnbrgj
    No quotes= Broad match
    Quotes= "Phrase"
    Exact Search= [keyword]

    Also, competition isn't that big of a deal. If you work hard enough at your SEO, you can get onto the first page and be number one. It all depends upon how much time you want to put into it. The lower the competition, the quicker you can get onto the first page.
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    • Profile picture of the author Brekat23
      Originally Posted by vndnbrgj View Post

      No quotes= Broad match
      Quotes= "Phrase"
      Exact Search= [keyword]
      Ok so call me crazy but I'd like just alittle more clarification if I may. Which way should I do my keyword/competition research in this case? With or without quotes or with these brackets [ ]'s? I want to try and rank (obviously) for the exact keywords that people are targeting in their searches. The exact KWP's that they are entering into google, so would this then require that I do my research with the brackets?? []'s??


      Also, competition isn't that big of a deal. If you work hard enough at your SEO, you can get onto the first page and be number one. It all depends upon how much time you want to put into it. The lower the competition, the quicker you can get onto the first page.
      I believe this, and I do intend to work hard to outrank my competition correctly, however I don't understand how this can be true if there are TLD's on the top 10 of google, such as authority sites instead of user generated content type sites.

      Thank you immensely for any help and guidance on this issue, I couldn't be more grateful for I am unsure whom or where else to get information on this - thanks!!!
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  • Profile picture of the author stepiw
    If you are just starting out:

    1. Make a search in quotes. Stick with phrases that bring under 100k searches.
    2. Analize top 5 competition. You can do with with free SeoQuake addon or free TrafficTravis software.
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    • Profile picture of the author Brekat23
      Originally Posted by stepiw View Post

      If you are just starting out:

      1. Make a search in quotes. Stick with phrases that bring under 100k searches.

      Why quotes exactly?? Why should I use quotes instead of the brackets []'s, or without quotes?
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  • Profile picture of the author canadaexpert
    it is good idea to use quote keywords, but the thing is there is limitation either in joomla or wordpress to define.

    Good luck
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  • Profile picture of the author Bill_Z
    You are confusing Adwords broad, phrase, exact definitions with what is done on Google.

    Just search for your keyword without quotes. And honestly the number of competing sites isn't a good indication of the difficulty of getting onto first page. You need to analyze the top 10 results, those are your competition.
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      I think several posts here are talking about two different things.

      When using the Google Keyword Tool, you want to research exact matches (the ones in brackets). This gives you the search numbers for those exact phrases. This is the information you want.

      In Google's search box on their home page, is where you would want to do the search in quotes to analyze your competition. Don't listen to the "only look for keywords that return 100k or less" kind of stuff. It doesn't matter how many results there are. There could be 2 billion. You only have to outrank the top 10. None of the other 1,999,999,990 sites matter.

      Back to the keyword research. Different people will tell you different numbers to look for in number of monthly or daily searches. It depends on what you are marketing. If you are relying on AdSense, you need higher search volume (at least a couple of thousand a month) to really see many clicks. If you are marketing a specific product and targeting buying keywords, you do not need as many. If you are targeting a high ticket item, with laser targeted keywords, I am willing to accept even fewer search queries. One sale makes my month in those cases.

      Just my $.02
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  • Profile picture of the author Bruce99
    I use exact search in the keyword tool because it gives you a truer indication of what volumes to expect for your url/ keywords on your site. Typically I have found that the exact search numbers are usually one tenth or lower the broad search visitor volumes. And if you look at the broad search long tail phrases you can get five plus word phrases that are incorporated in the data, which you are unlikely to actually outrank, so broad search etc is very misleading in the keyword tool - it is only for people advertising on google to see the maximum number of impressions there ad might be seen for and can help in budgeting etc. I was also recently made aware that not only do you have to half the exact search volumes because they include affiliate networks (not google search) and then subtract x% because the volumes also include video searches etc, not just websites.

    Actual competition is best seen using market samurai or just manually analysing the top ten results on page one for domain age, inbound links, keywords in URL, in title etc. Obviously analysis can go as deep as you want.

    The hardest thing that everyone in here comes up against is finding where to post your link that will give you maximum juice. its a daily task and yes you can go for article sites, social networks forums etc ... but I have yet to find the perfect mix.
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    • Profile picture of the author rrielly
      Some have given you the answer you are not looking for....

      when you type in a keyword...like scented candles.......no qoutes... that is a broad search.... that means when searched in can anywhere NOT in exact word order in that page,url description and so on... when you type in "scented candles" in qoutes that is phrase.... that means it is the exact word order as it appears in the site...url and so on.... you want the exact word order to figure out if can out rank the broad word search.... remember the lower the number in competition the better chance of ranking on first page... but it will hard to out rank a authority sites.... like wiki, cnn, stuff like the nice wieghtlose.com kinda sites.... long tail keywords are the best to outrank other sites ....if you see yahoo answer.... you will out rank them with a lng tail keywood.... sites that look like blah-blah-blaba.com...you want to go after them with something like "Iknowwhatiamdoing.com making your keyword the same as your URL... google looks at it I what I am doing .com is a authority site.... try it ....it works...
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