What is the "ideal" amount of Competition to get you the

Impossible to tell an accurate figure
I get low competition now since my forum is one among the line :p

I've broken into markets as high as 12 million competitors, but that was a big headache and I don't think I'd go any higher then that.

12 million broad search, few million with the same search in quotes.

The competition really wasn't that fierce, except for maybe the top 15 or so. Those were the ones who were the "authorities" that I had to beat out.

It took me around 6 months to break top 10, around 2 more months for top 5, and then about 2 more months to rank 1 with sitelinks.

Hi Dexx,

That's a really good question that most people don't really think about. I would suggest you start with a google adwords account to see if there is a need for your product or service and if your sales page converts well.

Once you do that, it should take a day to start seeing visitors and a week or two, to know which keyword phrases are the best at getting people to your site. Then you should optimize your site for those exact keyword phrases.

In other words, if you're selling gym shoes, you may find that 'affordable nike gym shoes' may get you a great click through rate (and be targeted to your product!). Then create a page in your site that's specific to that offer/phrase.

Something like http://www.yourdomain.com/affordable...gym-shoes.html

Also, for your ppc campaign, be sure to use the deliminators google suggests to see exactly what you're potential clients are really typing in. If you're not familiar with deliminators, it's a fancy word for putting your keywords in "quotes" and [brackets]. This let's google know if you want an exact match or a phrase match or a broad match.

You can use Keyword Secretary for free to do it for you and watch a tutorial for more details there as well.

Let me know if that helps!

-Mike Cowles. <><

I do not like to compete with more than 2,500,000 sites when I am first trying to break into the market and anything over 10,000,000 sites is a definite no go and an unnecessary headache.

Nice post i don't know all of this before. Thanks for sharing

One aspect that's often overlooked in discussions like this is the quality of the competition. It doesn't really matter how many sites you're competing against. To some extent, if you're up against poorly SEO'd sites with few good backlinks you can still do well. At the same time, you may wish to ponder why the competition is so poor - maybe it's not a money making niche.

On the other hand, I have competed in a UK niche for over 10 years where there's only around 100,000 competitors. I have to fight tooth and nail to stay on the front page. It's not as lucrative a niche as it was up to about 5 years ago when it used to earn me around £3,500 a month - it's now around £500 - but it doesn't get any easier to stay on top.

You'll need to check out the strengh and quality of the competition to get a true picture.

Ray.

PS. Don't ask me the niche, I've got enough problems!