These are my top 10 things I check for when looking at potential competitors, and how difficult it will be to get my site on the first page of G:

1. The bigger the number of pages listed in G when the keyword is entered in surrounded by quotes, means the hard it is gonna be to rank.

2. If there are very few pages on the first page that have the keyword as a page title, then the easier it becomes.

3. How many have the keyword as poart of their domain and path structure.

4. The number of Yahoo backlinks per listing . Don't bother using Google to determine the number of backlinks as it only gives you a random sample of the sites linking back to you.

5. Big pageranks of the sites mean harder work.

6. The age of the domains on the first page, if the sites are young (< 2 years old) then its will be easier. If they are old, then its gonna be hard

7. Number of videos that show up. If videos appear on the first page, then its much easier to get onto the front page than if there are no videos present

8. Do any article directories appear on the front page for that term. If so, then its easy to get ranked

9. Is the front page dominated by .GOV sites or Wikipedia listings. If so, then its gonna be hard to get onto the front page

10.Check how many Web2.0 listings appear on the front page. The more there are, the easier its is to rank for.

I hope this helps

Bruce