6 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
6 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

SEO Keywords - Competition markers

by condra
5 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi guys. A couple of questions about judging the competition when choosing keywords.

Any answers or tips much appreciated!

When looking at your competition in the SERPs, are you most worried about the top result, or do you consider say, the top 3, or the top 10?

Do any of you use Firefox toolbar plugins to analyze the SERPs? I have the SEO Book thing, and it seems good, but not sure what stats are the most important.

If you see a YouTube video in the results, do you take that as a good sign?
I've seen people claim that YouTube videos in SERPs are easy to outrank.

Are you most concerned with the competition without quotes, in quotes or "allintitle" ? I'm guessing without quotes is most important.

Finally, aside from the actual number of competing pages, what other markers do you consider? e.g Page Rank, etc??

Thanks a million for any replies here.
#competition #keywords #markers #seo
  • Profile picture of the author seoace
    1. Top 10. If its a big money keyword and you're looking to bank on it a.s.a.p then Top 3.

    2. I use Ultimate Niche Finder to measure the difficulty of the keyword I'm targeting.

    3. No preference. I see all types of results as equals. Eventhough they "might" have some SEO advantages comparing website results to pdf results, I believe the differences are so minimal that it isn't even worth considering.

    4. Don't bother with the no.of results intitle, inquotes, etc. It's a very inaccurate way of judging the competition.

    5. # of backlinks, pr of backlinks, is the website optimized for that keyword and the domain authority of the top 10 websites.
    Signature
    Who else needs a SEO Client Dashboard for their SEO services ?
    Let your clients monitor their SEO campaigns (Rankings, Backlinks and Work Done)
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8576052].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author HN
    Banned
    You are probably not going to like it, but I 'll tell you what I think. Analyzing the top results to try and figure out how to squeeze yourself in, is like chasing the leaving train. I never concentrate on things that I can't change or control.
    1. I can't control the Google algorithm
    2. I can't control the authority of competitors' site.
    3. I can't control the backlinks (spamming aside), I 've never begged for a single BL.

    Instead, concentrate on what you can do, create a site with a few million pages, so it will rank naturally for anything, even the most difficult terms.

    OK, let's say you chased down a keyword phrase that is easy to rank today. Is it going to be easy tomorrow? Are your competitors going to try to rank the for the same phrase? You have no idea and you can't control this. You wasted your time on research instead of investing it into creating content.
    If people had a bit of common sense they'd collaborate and create a huge authority site together, instead of competing with each other. Those who control us, know exactly how - that's why we only have a few insurance companies, a few banks and less than a dozen media companies.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8576139].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author jxam69
      Originally Posted by HN View Post

      Instead, concentrate on what you can do, create a site with a few million pages, so it will rank naturally for anything, even the most difficult terms.
      That advice went out of date on the 23rd of February 2011 when Panda was launched by Google.

      Sure, doing that will generate huge amounts of internal PageRank, but unless you can keep the quality up, which is very hard to do with that many pages, Panda will push you way down the SERPs.

      I know this from first hand experience - I had a site with over 1 Million pages which was making truck loads of money right up until Panda.
      Signature

      This space will be awarded to the first WSO owner who can prove they make Million$ from their methods.

      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8576786].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author HN
        Banned
        Originally Posted by jxam69 View Post

        That advice went out of date on the 23rd of February 2011 when Panda was launched by Google.

        I know this from first hand experience - I had a site with over 1 Million pages which was making truck loads of money right up until Panda.
        That advice will never go out of date, unless you deliberately choose to be a googleslave, ie. your business is at someone else's mercy. With a that many pages you should have been able to build a large member (customer) base, google traffic should always be considered as a bonus.

        This is what I mean - do you always come to this site (WF) from google?
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8577868].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author HeadStartSEO
    I would say the top 5 is the only thing that matters really. Really no tool is that amazing for finding keyword.

    You have to do a few things,

    1) Link at links via MajesticSEO
    - Look at critical flow and trust of that page
    - Look at how many links
    - Look at Anchor Text (IE: look for the keyword, but also look for optimization)

    2) Look to see if they use the keyword

    If you have a good set of links, and use the keyword then move on. Use a tool to find the keywords, but at the end of the day you have to use the SERPS.

    I wouldn't say YouTube videos are a good sign, they are easy to spam and rank right now. I use Youtube videos to rank all the time in the SERPS. I turn and burn them.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8576846].message }}

Trending Topics