Can someone help me with keyword research

by kea55
20 replies
Hello,
I've been told that it doesn't matter how many competing pages there are for a certain keyword, what matters is what kind of backlinks the top five pages in google have for that keyword. Well, I was trying to look up a pages backlinks in google, but I'm not sure if I am reading the results correctly. Can someone help me out?
#keyword #research
  • Profile picture of the author Elizabeth Fee
    I'd be happy to help you out. Where in google are you looking up the backlinks? You should look into the top 10 competitors from Google, not just the top 5.

    Shoot me a PM and I'll take a look WITH you.

    Elizabeth
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    Elizabeth Fee
    The Niche Mom - My personal blog to inspire and guide you towards earning an income online.

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    • Profile picture of the author cutemegatron
      kea55, use ahrefs.com to check backlinks for top10 competitors. Also you can use Market Samurai to check about 10 important parametrs (pr, age, backlinks to page and to domain, etc.) You need to find out what kind of backlinks do your competitors have and what anchors do they use for backlinks.
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      • Profile picture of the author LukePeerFly
        Originally Posted by cutemegatron View Post

        kea55, use ahrefs.com to check backlinks for top10 competitors. Also you can use Market Samurai to check about 10 important parametrs (pr, age, backlinks to page and to domain, etc.) You need to find out what kind of backlinks do your competitors have and what anchors do they use for backlinks.
        I must have been living under a rock for ages or something because I have never heard of http://ahrefs.com and you've just made my day. Thanks!
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  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by kea55 View Post

    I've been told that it doesn't matter how many competing pages there are for a certain keyword, what matters is what kind of backlinks the top five pages in google have for that keyword.
    Well, this is clearly true. There are still people who like to pretend otherwise, but their arguments don't stand up to very much examination.

    Look at it this way: which you would you rather compete for, a keyword with 5,000 competing sites of which the whole of the first page comprises age-old authority-sites each with multiple, relevant, high-PR backlinks from other age-old authority-sites, or a keyword with 5,000,000 competing sites with nothing much to speak of on the first page, some article directory articles and this sort of nonsense which one can beat in about 3 days? (There are many keywords like this).

    It's a no-brainer, isn't it?

    The reality is that this idea that "the more pages the harder the competition" - however popular and widespread it it - is a fundamentally misguided one.

    When I'm researching a keyword, what I care about is the SEO quality of the top 5 listed results for it in Google.

    I need to study those in detail because those are my only 5 competitors. If I can't replace any of them, there's no point in my trying the keyword, because I can't get any traffic for it (to speak of). I don't care whether those top 5 results, which I'll analyse and examine in detail, are followed by 4,995 other results or 4,999,995 other results: those others are simply not relevant to me at all.

    Systems based on/around "numbers of pages" are therefore somewhat flawed.

    SEO isn't about "numbers of things", really. It's about quality and relevance. At all levels, from keyword research onwards.

    Originally Posted by kea55 View Post

    Well, I was trying to look up a pages backlinks in google, but I'm not sure if I am reading the results correctly. Can someone help me out?
    The things you need to be aware of, in this regard, are:-

    (i) The SERP's results vary from location to location;

    (ii) They also vary from browser-history to browser-history. For example, if you look at the SERP's for a keyword in which you have some business interest, yourself, and then clear your browser history and look again, they may look very different indeed. And the same if you download a new, different (Chrome?) browser and look that way.

    For this reason, asking other people to "read the results for you" is of very limited value.

    The important thing of which to be aware, in this context, is that potential customers will typically have some "browser history".

    You appreciate that - in simplistic terms - "Google shows people what it thinks they want to see" and it determines what it thinks they want to see by interpreting what they've seen before?

    I know that some marketers imagine that "their potential customer" has just put the keyword into Google for the first time ever, on that day, has never previously looked and is on no other, competing marketer's list in the niche, and I hope those people will excuse the observation that they're living in a dream-world, because those instances are very much the exception, rather than the rule.

    The point about examining and assessing the SEO quality of the top five sites is that whatever they happen to be, when you look, how you look, where you look, that's going to be a general indication of how easy/difficult the keyword is to compete for.

    Whether someone else sees exactly the same five sites listed as you, in the same order (that would actually be unusual) doesn't matter.

    What matters is whether or not it's realistically foreseeable that you can get your site ranked "up there in the first 5", whatever they happen to be when you look, because without being able to do that, it's unlikely that the keyword is worth competing for.

    You can, if you want, try it with different browsers, or even using different Google searches (.com/.co.uk/.cmo.au/.ca/.whatever), and you'll perhaps see different listings each time. That doesn't matter. What matters is the general indication/impression.

    You see what I'm saying, perhaps? Don't imagine that this is something completely objective and completely scientific, because it's just isn't.

    What matters is one's collective impression of whether the sites around 3rd/4th/5th in the SERP's one sees are "beatable". If they're all age-old authority sites each with incoming backlinks from 100 relevant authority sites, you might want to forget that keyword and think again. If they're new, marketing sites with 100,000 backlinks each and appear to have been put up by people who've "bought mass backlinks" and you can't see anything better than article directory backlinks and forum profiles and other nonsense (and this is quite common!) then you can rank very easily, with a small number of relevant, quality links.

    Don't let big numbers of backlinks for other people's sites put you off, if they look like universally poor quality. When people have "done their SEO in quantitative terms" imagining that "numbers of backlinks" determine rankings, and they don't understand the importance of "relevance", their sites tend to be very easy targets indeed.

    Again, bear in mind that different "backlink checking sites" will give you slightly different results. Those aren't accurate or reliable, either. And again, it doesn't matter.
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    • Profile picture of the author JLA
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      [DELETED]
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      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
        Banned
        Originally Posted by JLA View Post

        For competitive keywords, in my experience, I have not found many sites that implement this mass approach where most of backlinks come from pages with no page rank, such as with article directories.
        That certainly matches my experience. (Your experience of that may be much more "capacious" than mine, anyway, because my own keyword interests tend to revolve, mostly, around what I think many marketers would perhaps classify as "low-to-medium" and "medium" competitiveness, rather than around "competitive keywords" per se).
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        • Profile picture of the author RSMarketing
          Grab this firefox addon I think it's called SEOQuake, can't remember. I'll look it up when I get home if thats not the right name.

          Anyways it's a toolbar that shows all kinds of info for the domain you visit.

          Hope that helps,

          Rich
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          (¯`·._.·Want Free Instagram Followers?·._.·´¯)
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          • Profile picture of the author Newbieee
            Originally Posted by RSMarketing View Post

            Grab this firefox addon I think it's called SEOQuake, can't remember. I'll look it up when I get home if thats not the right name.

            Anyways it's a toolbar that shows all kinds of info for the domain you visit.

            Hope that helps,

            Rich

            seoquake and all the other versions of it are not accurate.

            furthermore there is a limit, if u use them too often to pull data it will bann ur ip. giving u results that look like this "error" in red.

            and anyways, last i heard, seoquake isnt working, no more data shown.

            nv used it for quite some time already because its not accurate.
            Signature
            Pain is a perception, so is defeat & happiness!
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            • Profile picture of the author RSMarketing
              Originally Posted by Newbieee View Post

              seoquake and all the other versions of it are not accurate.

              furthermore there is a limit, if u use them too often to pull data it will bann ur ip. giving u results that look like this "error" in red.

              and anyways, last i heard, seoquake isnt working, no more data shown.

              nv used it for quite some time already because its not accurate.
              Works for me

              Rich
              Signature
              (¯`·._.·Want Free Instagram Followers?·._.·´¯)
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        • Profile picture of the author JLA
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          [DELETED]
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          • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
            Banned
            Originally Posted by JLA View Post

            Do you knock out sites in competitive keywords with the links you acquire from the whole article syndication thing you got going on? When I say competitive, I'm talking about terms that bring in traffic on the order of like 40,000 plus searches per month and are buyer keywords.

            You just gather up the singles and doubles along the way with your low-to-medium and medium competitive keyword terms until you reach the home run keywords?

            How long until you start seeing fairly big numbers, 1000 plus visitors per day, of traffic from the search engines? I know that's not your primary aim, search engine traffic, but still you receive it with what you are doing and it would be interesting to hear your reply.
            Since you joined this forum about 48 hours ago, JLA, you've made 12 posts, of which it seems 10 (arguably even 11) have been addressed to me personally, in various different threads. You apparently honed in on me, personally, from the moment you arrived, with the express purpose of an interrogation not about the general principles of internet marketing but specifically about my own business.

            When I'm not replying to your latest barrage of questions, I'm replying to an influx of personal messages asking me many (fairly understandable) questions about who you are, what's going on here, and so on and so forth (to none of which I know the answers at all, of course).

            On Monday night, I tried dropping a "tactful hint" about my lack of willingness to discuss any further the exact details of my business with you, but it apparently fell on stony ground.

            So now we'll see whether a slightly less ambiguous statement achieves anything: with absolutely no offense meant, and attributing the blame for this only to myself rather than to you, JLA, please excuse the fact I (and a large number of others here) do find your behavior here both extremely unusual and frankly not to my own taste, and that actually I have no wish to debate my business with you any further, at the moment. That's expressed clearly enough, I think? My apologies indeed, and thank you for understanding.

            Please excuse my appearing a little sensitive about this (if indeed that's how it strikes you - though it seems to strike many others in a very different way!), and appreciate that something similar has happened to me here - in only very slightly different guises - on at least 3 (arguably 4) previous occasions, and that each of those 3 (or 4) previous "new members" turned out to be people other than who/what they pretended to be and are no longer members of this forum. I hope this accounts for what may otherwise appear to be my "unusual sensitivity" to your behavior here, and that henceforth you'll perhaps just ignore me completely and enjoy and benefit both from the forum and from your future interactions with others here.
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    • Profile picture of the author cs.marketer
      Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

      Well, this is clearly true. There are still people who like to pretend otherwise, but their arguments don't stand up to very much examination.

      Look at it this way: which you would you rather compete for, a keyword with 5,000 competing sites of which the whole of the first page comprises age-old authority-sites each with multiple, relevant, high-PR backlinks from other age-old authority-sites, or a keyword with 5,000,000 competing sites with nothing much to speak of on the first page, some article directory articles and this sort of nonsense which one can beat in about 3 days? (There are many keywords like this).

      It's a no-brainer, isn't it?

      The reality is that this idea that "the more pages the harder the competition" - however popular and widespread it it - is a fundamentally misguided one.

      When I'm researching a keyword, what I care about is the SEO quality of the top 5 listed results for it in Google.

      I need to study those in detail because those are my only 5 competitors. If I can't replace any of them, there's no point in my trying the keyword, because I can't get any traffic for it (to speak of). I don't care whether those top 5 results, which I'll analyse and examine in detail, are followed by 4,995 other results or 4,999,995 other results: those others are simply not relevant to me at all.

      Systems based on/around "numbers of pages" are therefore somewhat flawed.

      SEO isn't about "numbers of things", really. It's about quality and relevance. At all levels, from keyword research onwards.



      The things you need to be aware of, in this regard, are:-

      (i) The SERP's results vary from location to location;

      (ii) They also vary from browser-history to browser-history. For example, if you look at the SERP's for a keyword in which you have some business interest, yourself, and then clear your browser history and look again, they may look very different indeed. And the same if you download a new, different (Chrome?) browser and look that way.

      For this reason, asking other people to "read the results for you" is of very limited value.

      The important thing of which to be aware, in this context, is that potential customers will typically have some "browser history".

      You appreciate that - in simplistic terms - "Google shows people what it thinks they want to see" and it determines what it thinks they want to see by interpreting what they've seen before?

      I know that some marketers imagine that "their potential customer" has just put the keyword into Google for the first time ever, on that day, has never previously looked and is on no other, competing marketer's list in the niche, and I hope those people will excuse the observation that they're living in a dream-world, because those instances are very much the exception, rather than the rule.

      The point about examining and assessing the SEO quality of the top five sites is that whatever they happen to be, when you look, how you look, where you look, that's going to be a general indication of how easy/difficult the keyword is to compete for.

      Whether someone else sees exactly the same five sites listed as you, in the same order (that would actually be unusual) doesn't matter.

      What matters is whether or not it's realistically foreseeable that you can get your site ranked "up there in the first 5", whatever they happen to be when you look, because without being able to do that, it's unlikely that the keyword is worth competing for.

      You can, if you want, try it with different browsers, or even using different Google searches (.com/.co.uk/.cmo.au/.ca/.whatever), and you'll perhaps see different listings each time. That doesn't matter. What matters is the general indication/impression.

      You see what I'm saying, perhaps? Don't imagine that this is something completely objective and completely scientific, because it's just isn't.

      What matters is one's collective impression of whether the sites around 3rd/4th/5th in the SERP's one sees are "beatable". If they're all age-old authority sites each with incoming backlinks from 100 relevant authority sites, you might want to forget that keyword and think again. If they're new, marketing sites with 100,000 backlinks each and appear to have been put up by people who've "bought mass backlinks" and you can't see anything better than article directory backlinks and forum profiles and other nonsense (and this is quite common!) then you can rank very easily, with a small number of relevant, quality links.

      Don't let big numbers of backlinks for other people's sites put you off, if they look like universally poor quality. When people have "done their SEO in quantitative terms" imagining that "numbers of backlinks" determine rankings, and they don't understand the importance of "relevance", their sites tend to be very easy targets indeed.

      Again, bear in mind that different "backlink checking sites" will give you slightly different results. Those aren't accurate or reliable, either. And again, it doesn't matter.
      Great advice.


      SEO depends on many factors....Educating yourself is the best way forward...Always remember, never give up
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    • Profile picture of the author syedakramreviews
      Thanks for the long good explanation. Its really help other people too.

      Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

      Well, this is clearly true. There are still people who like to pretend otherwise, but their arguments don't stand up to very much examination.

      Look at it this way: which you would you rather compete for, a keyword with 5,000 competing sites of which the whole of the first page comprises age-old authority-sites each with multiple, relevant, high-PR backlinks from other age-old authority-sites, or a keyword with 5,000,000 competing sites with nothing much to speak of on the first page, some article directory articles and this sort of nonsense which one can beat in about 3 days? (There are many keywords like this).

      It's a no-brainer, isn't it?

      The reality is that this idea that "the more pages the harder the competition" - however popular and widespread it it - is a fundamentally misguided one.

      When I'm researching a keyword, what I care about is the SEO quality of the top 5 listed results for it in Google.

      I need to study those in detail because those are my only 5 competitors. If I can't replace any of them, there's no point in my trying the keyword, because I can't get any traffic for it (to speak of). I don't care whether those top 5 results, which I'll analyse and examine in detail, are followed by 4,995 other results or 4,999,995 other results: those others are simply not relevant to me at all.

      Systems based on/around "numbers of pages" are therefore somewhat flawed.

      SEO isn't about "numbers of things", really. It's about quality and relevance. At all levels, from keyword research onwards.



      The things you need to be aware of, in this regard, are:-

      (i) The SERP's results vary from location to location;

      (ii) They also vary from browser-history to browser-history. For example, if you look at the SERP's for a keyword in which you have some business interest, yourself, and then clear your browser history and look again, they may look very different indeed. And the same if you download a new, different (Chrome?) browser and look that way.

      For this reason, asking other people to "read the results for you" is of very limited value.

      The important thing of which to be aware, in this context, is that potential customers will typically have some "browser history".

      You appreciate that - in simplistic terms - "Google shows people what it thinks they want to see" and it determines what it thinks they want to see by interpreting what they've seen before?

      I know that some marketers imagine that "their potential customer" has just put the keyword into Google for the first time ever, on that day, has never previously looked and is on no other, competing marketer's list in the niche, and I hope those people will excuse the observation that they're living in a dream-world, because those instances are very much the exception, rather than the rule.

      The point about examining and assessing the SEO quality of the top five sites is that whatever they happen to be, when you look, how you look, where you look, that's going to be a general indication of how easy/difficult the keyword is to compete for.

      Whether someone else sees exactly the same five sites listed as you, in the same order (that would actually be unusual) doesn't matter.

      What matters is whether or not it's realistically foreseeable that you can get your site ranked "up there in the first 5", whatever they happen to be when you look, because without being able to do that, it's unlikely that the keyword is worth competing for.

      You can, if you want, try it with different browsers, or even using different Google searches (.com/.co.uk/.cmo.au/.ca/.whatever), and you'll perhaps see different listings each time. That doesn't matter. What matters is the general indication/impression.

      You see what I'm saying, perhaps? Don't imagine that this is something completely objective and completely scientific, because it's just isn't.

      What matters is one's collective impression of whether the sites around 3rd/4th/5th in the SERP's one sees are "beatable". If they're all age-old authority sites each with incoming backlinks from 100 relevant authority sites, you might want to forget that keyword and think again. If they're new, marketing sites with 100,000 backlinks each and appear to have been put up by people who've "bought mass backlinks" and you can't see anything better than article directory backlinks and forum profiles and other nonsense (and this is quite common!) then you can rank very easily, with a small number of relevant, quality links.

      Don't let big numbers of backlinks for other people's sites put you off, if they look like universally poor quality. When people have "done their SEO in quantitative terms" imagining that "numbers of backlinks" determine rankings, and they don't understand the importance of "relevance", their sites tend to be very easy targets indeed.

      Again, bear in mind that different "backlink checking sites" will give you slightly different results. Those aren't accurate or reliable, either. And again, it doesn't matter.
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    • Profile picture of the author thefsboking
      Wow Alexa you seem to really know SEO. Is there a good free tool to find out the number and quality of the links for the top 5 sites for a keyword? Are there any paid SEO tools you would reccommend? I have been looking at SEO Powersuite. Thanks in advance I really appreciate experienced Warriors like yourself who take the time to help out us noobs with sound advice and not try to sell a product or coaching program.

      I just took a look at my competitors for "mycity seo" and it seems they have quite a few links but all seem to be links from non relevant sites. None ot the sites have good on page SEO either when the listings appear in Traffic Travis. So with good onpage SEO and links from sites like .edu sites and high pr relevant sites I should be able to outrank them correct? Next question is how do I get good quality relevant links (and not take years to do)?
      Signature

      Mike Williams

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  • Profile picture of the author Val Wilson
    The free version of Traffic Travis will give you the number of backlinks, and other relevant SEO factors, to the top 20 sites in Google for any particular keyword. As has already been pointed out, this is not definitive, only a guide, but a useful guide nonetheless.
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  • Profile picture of the author Flowithit
    Start with Google tool

    And your CPA network should also give you a tool to use too
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  • Profile picture of the author trafficfire
    You should checkout SEMRush. Here is a promotional code for 14-days free: promotional code "6M53-4165-0N3W-F3D5"
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  • i think you are doing a little bit good... but always remember "Google dance" is going ... so for some time if a site came in top searches then in next hour you'll never know where it goes... and one more thing there is no such a good which shows exactly number of backlinks for a site......simply because once i checked for a specific keyword that on the first page the total number of back links for no 1 site is 8239 and for the 10th number site the back links were 16,014... now what i say... i just realized that there not a good site which shows exact number of amount back links......

    well the better option will be if you go with a quality SEO and SMO...... as all we know slow and steady wins the race... if you do quality link building regularly... you'll be there in some time.....
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    Feel free to contact with me @ seoglobalexpert004@gmail.com

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  • Profile picture of the author xfairguy
    One more vote for Traffic Travis.
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  • Profile picture of the author timb98133
    It’s really important to look at the top 10 results (not just the top 5). But I also think it’s important to write good quality well themed content. To be honest most of my pages don’t rank that all that well for the main KW phrase, however they still get a ton of traffic because they rank well for many other long-tale KWs. It’s all about having a well themed page!!
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  • Profile picture of the author ukhosting
    although inbound links are a main factor in SEo it seems google is moving more and more to the content rich sites and sites with social 'points' e.g. google +1's.

    on a few clients sites we've made that are new and have virtually no inbound links are ranking highly with just facebook twitter and google+ social +1's

    makes sense since the net in general is going social and a +1 is more reliable in google's eyes than a inbound link.
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  • Profile picture of the author jaiganeshv
    you can outrank any and each competitor out there except for brand names. All it needs is

    1. Domain name- k/w rich is possible
    2. content - quality, consitant, very relevant
    3. backlinks - quality - on demand
    4. time - based on competition


    thx
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