The Competition Factor - How important is it?

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I've heard a few different views on this one recently.
If you type a keyword phrase into google in quotes e.g. "dog training guide"
it returns about 60,000 results. This is often used to "access" the competition.

A lot of people advise going for keywords with a lower number, usually <30,000 while others say that it doesn't matter what the number is and that it's all about accessing the competition on the first page since this is where all the action is.

Many believe that if you think you can outrank the top 10, you should still go for it regardless of what the quoted keyword number is.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on this, and preferably experience with keywords you've gone after.

Personally I think that it does play a role, but mainly in that it will take you longer to crack the top 10 of a 60,000 keywords phrase vs a 25,000 keyword phrase.

I don't think it will necessarily be harder, it will just take longer. I don't know if this is because Google take a little longer to place your website since there are more sites to consider.

Anyone got any experience on sites with both low and high quote numbers?
#search engine optimization #competition #factor #important
  • Well I think logic says that is has to take longer, as you are competing with more people. No? This isn't the case 100% of the time though.

    It doesn't really depend on how many results show up in the query though.... that's probably a very bad way to do keyword research. That just shows you how many folks have that keyword (according to google), not how many folks are searching for it or clicking thru it.

    I think you need to take a step back and maybe do some reading on keyword research. It seems to me you're going about this all the wrong way.

    If I'm understanding what your asking correctly anyways.
    • [1] reply
    • Hi,
      I've been using MS and I think I'm getting pretty good at this.
      The one column in the software that always makes me second guess myself is the SEOC column.
      Up until now I have chased keywords that are below 30k, but obviously are 'money keywords'. I was just curious if anyone goes after the 100k, 200k 300k keywords, and what their results/experiences have been.

      Thanks for the feedback though, but don't worry, I am not really basing my keywords choice on this factor alone.
  • I personally go for words where seo competition is weak in the top 10. If you see any weak pages, PR0, BLP less then 200, then you have a legit shot to rank in the top 10. Another thing to look out for is parked domains, when a parked domain is ranking high, that means competition is pretty weak since they have done 0 seo for that page.
  • it is not the number of searches that count, it is the pagerank and backlinks of the competition on the first page that count.

    What happens is that normally the higher the demand for a keyword, there are more people going for it and spending time and money to try and rank for that keyword. This is especially so when there is a high profit potential.

    But it is still possible to find niches with high searches, provided it is a fairly new niche or, for some reason, there are other factors that discourage people from chasing them
  • if you are looking at the competition and getting discouraged, i would at least check out the top 10 sites, becuase there could be 1,000,000 competing sites, and they all could be poorly optimized for a term, and just so happen to rank for it. So check out the top 10 serp, and you'll be able to tell if you can rank, i wouldn't judge comp as a big factor unless they are all optimized, then.. good luck.
  • I have been having the exact same question.

    I am researching a niche associated with a medical condition. I have found keywords for this niche where the competition in the top 10 results have PR of between 3 and 5 and BLP of double or low triple digits with most backlinks from low ranking sites.

    Also, most of these high ranking sites for my keyword are really not competitors because they are sites like Wikipedia or WebMD that are offering general info on the very broad topic though due to strength they are also ranking for tons of other keywords and such.

    Even though several of the top ranking sites have PR's of 3 and lowish backlinks.... the keyword SEOC is over 250K.

    Should this be a big turnoff?


    Terry
    • [1] reply
    • +


      Nope . What you didn't mention is were the sites targeted for the keywords they were ranking for. It doesn't mean anything when you see High Pr pages on the front page unless you see that they are optimized for the term in their title and content plus have links with the anchor text.

      Sometimes they rank where they are because the fornt page is weak and few people are going for the term at all. Their position isn't planned in those cases.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
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