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Analyzing your keywords and competition

by krull
6 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I've had some keyword research done with a list of keywords to sort though. There are all kinds of different variables in the spreadsheet so I've definitely got enough info.

I'm used to a completely different kind of traffic generation method, so SEO is something slightly new to me. My question is this: what is considered a good, doable keyword in terms of competition? For example, there's a keyword here that looks good. Here's the info on it:

500-1600 searches a day (depends on phrase or exact)
Competition: 82100
Title competition: 9300


What amount of searches per day is good, and what should I cap my competition at for either broad pages or exact title pages?
#analyzing #competition #keywords
  • Profile picture of the author werner77
    Look at a tool called Micro Niche Finder. takes out all the guess work on keywords and saves alot of time.
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  • Profile picture of the author John Hixson
    Originally Posted by krull View Post

    I've had some keyword research done with a list of keywords to sort though. There are all kinds of different variables in the spreadsheet so I've definitely got enough info.

    I'm used to a completely different kind of traffic generation method, so SEO is something slightly new to me. My question is this: what is considered a good, doable keyword in terms of competition? For example, there's a keyword here that looks good. Here's the info on it:

    500-1600 searches a day (depends on phrase or exact)
    Competition: 82100
    Title competition: 9300


    What amount of searches per day is good, and what should I cap my competition at for either broad pages or exact title pages?
    What do you mean by 'doable' keyword? I think for any answer to be relevant you need to lay out what you are looking for a bit more.

    For example are you going down the niche site method, and so basing an entire site around a keyword, or are you talking about a page on an already established site (which may need less competition but also less searches).

    There is a considerable variance in what can be considered 'doable'
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    • Profile picture of the author mikeevee
      Personally I do my keyword research myself. Its actually quicker than outsourcing in my experience. This is my method and it works awesomely well:
      • Before starting create a new Excel sheet for your site so you can record your initial and final keywords
      • Now select 5 or so keywords or keyword phrases that you think you might want to target
      • Go to Google Keyword tool (https://adwords.google.co.uk/select/KeywordToolExternal) and paste in those keywords. Make sure the "Use Synonyms" box is checked
      • When the results come back you will see a list of similar keywords, alongside Local Search Volume (v important), Global Search volume and Advertiser Competition
      • Click the dropdown box to add Estimated CPC to this list
      • Export the results to an Excel list (using the button near the bottom so you can sort and filter easily)
      • Now what you are gunning for is keyword phrases that have relatively low competition compared to the number of searches, and taking into consideration the CPC of that search, which is a good indicator of how many people are willing to spend money once they reach the target site.
      • In the Excel list sort the results by local search volume. Add a new column to calculate (Excel formula) the local search volume / average local search volume, multiplied by the CPC, and divided by the Advertiser competition. Then resort on that formula so the top results are at the top. This will give you a great list of high value, low competition keywords to start with

      The above is a basic approach that works very well. You can play with the formula to change the weighting if you wish, for example to make advertiser competition less important than CPC.

      I hope that helps

       Mike
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      • Profile picture of the author simpleonline1234
        mmmm....your close on your ideas but you need to zoom on one aspect of your results.....the competition level....


        The number of competition doesn't mean squat and I will tell you why in just a sec.

        The only real data that you need to asses is the level of competition in the top ten spots of Google if you going after the SEO approach. Everything else is garbage...

        Here's a good way to view this.

        Lets say keyword A has 5000 hits a month but it has 1 million sites in competition for this keyword.....most people say screw that and move on to the next word but lets say that when you pull up the top ten urls in Google you see that the highest Page Rank for any of those sites is PR2 and they each only have a few links to each url that doesn't have anything over a PR2.....

        If the adsense pay out was a least $1 then you would have a good keyword to use...why?

        Because you can achieve a PR3 and get a few hundred quality backlinks and take the top spot in Google....

        That's whay I always tell people not to worry with the amount of competition but to analyze the level of competition before dropping the keyword.

        Now on the opposite end of that equation lets say that you find a keyword that has only 100 people fighting over the keyword....some people say wow I've just found a good keyword and they setup shop and start writing articles, or obtaining backlinks in other ways and they just can't seem to break the 99th position after a month of digging.....after a simple anlaysis of the top ten urls in google you find they all have a PR7 with a few thousand high pr quality backlinks....chances are you would waste too much time try to out rank these guys and will end up getting nothing in return for a very long time...

        There you go....a quick lesson on competition analysis.


        UPDATED: As far as they amount of daily searches go...this depends on the amount of payout for the keyword.....but for me I go after the $1 min ....and 3k searchs per month with competition levels of PR3 and under with a beatable amount of backlinks....I figure I can chuck a few hundred backlinks at a site and let it ride until it start to drop then chuck a few more hundred at the site...but that's just me....everyone has their own approach.
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        • Profile picture of the author krull
          Thanks a lot for the advice here

          I'd be targeting mostly keywords where the keyword isn't a part of the site. I'd target the keywords using a website that has relevant content, but not in the keyword itself. So I'll make a page and make the title and h1 tags the keyword I'm shooting for.

          Here's an example of some competition:

          There are over 7 million results in google so it says for this keyword, and the main site has 2.6 million backlinks according to backlinkwatch. To me, that seems uh, a little impossible

          The example I gave in the first post seems MUCH more 'doable' as far as getting my page to #1. Basically, I'm not sure what numbers I should be looking for. I've heard something like "at least 500 searches per day with under 500,000 pages on google' is a starting point. Is that a good estimate?
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          • Profile picture of the author thecableguy
            MarketSamurai recommends around 200 per day. Of course you'd only receive a percentage of that if you reach the first page. And rather then competition you might want to check how well optimized the sites on the first page are. You can download TrafficTravis the free version does that, or SEOQuake (I think) addon for the Firefox browser does something similar. Or MarketSamurai has a trial version.
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