Am I going about keyword research correctly? Are we simply finding ratios? Like average # of monthly searches/ # of results? I must be missing more right?
Well a lot of people will tell you you're doing it right, but I've been doing this for a while and I don't believe simply looking at # of results is really a good indication of competition. It'll show you how many results and potentially competing websites there are, but it won't really give you a good idea of how difficult it will be to rank. I use SEO books "SEO for firefox" tool. Its an addon for firefox that will show you lots of cool stats under each listing when you search for a keyword. I normally type in all the keywords I'm thinking of targeting and note down how many links point to the first 3 listings according to Yahoo. If the average is below 4,000 links for one particular keyword then you've got a fairly easy keyword to try and rank for. Spinned articles, directory listings and maybe a few paid links will suffice for a niche like this. But before you target a paticular keyword make sure to do a thorough backlink analysis on your competitors using SEO Spyglass. Take note if there's a high number of authority sites linking to your competitors, also take note of anchor texts and any websites that you think might give you a link too. The idea is to copy and better your competitors linking profile.
When you said if theres under 4,000 backlinks on SEO analysis ..are you assuming that all those links will be forum/blog/article posts? because your competitor could have 3 links, but if those links are say from highly credible and authority sites..then you can't duplicate their value by getting any 3 links. If you are unable to match that high authority site links then you'd have to break down the logirithm of Google to determine how many lower ranking sites of lesser popularity & authority you'd need as an estimation of how to arrive at the same value. As a simple example, you might have to get 20,000 links to equal a single link your competitor has on a authority site. because remember, every link is more than just a link, it has an authority and popularity value.. and it depends on how well the match (relevance) is between the linking site and the competitors page and site. Look at the keywords on your competitors site PAGE and the backlink anchors. When you plan your site you should have all your keywords that you want to rank for laid out in front of you and consider how you will design each site page around specific keywords, where inthe site structure these pages will be, with lower relevant keywords in subpages. Then dedicate your SEO time to bringing up those site pages first so that you have a solid structur eof pages with the keywords youre targeting as a priority. This will also help you to narrow down the exact type of sites you're looking for when it comes to backlinks. If your site is about Widgets andyou have a page that specifically narrows down a keyphrase for "blue adjustable widgets" .. point "widget" backlinks to "widget" site pages... and point "blue adjustable widgets" to your "blue adjustable widget" site pages. It not only helps you specifically target all your keywords, but it helps to develop your site into an authority site with all the specifically targeted and structured information about widgets. Then when you get the more generic keyword of "widgets" pointing to your top domain / home page.. it will seem more credible since now your site is a structure about widgets, with internal pages each going into specific targeted types of widgets. If every page on your website is having links from "widgets", it makes your site look confused about which is the authority page on "widgets" and competes pages against eachother even if the PR is accumulative averaged. Make each page an authority on a specifc ,structure your site to follow through in that way prioritizing the pages you intend to spend the most time on for keywords and your site will naturally flow and update from your work on it, in a natural way that Google will recognize. Pick a solid structure from the beginning, then work away at it.
Cool thanks. Let me make sure I got this right: You type in the keywords using a tool or yahoo? If yahoo are you just using an SEO xray for example to count how many inbound links there are? Is this what you mean by how many links point to the first 3 listing? You then take a look at who is providing those inbound links to that top ranked site and try to get links from them as well. Assuming you get 100% of the links that point to the top ranked site, plus more, you should out rank them? (assuming all else is equal: kw in domain, previous low quality links, infractions etc..) <---care to add this?
I agree that looking at the number of search results isn't an effective strategy. That just tells you how many pages have those keywords in their content or links. Really only the top 10 - 20 are your true competition. They are likely the only ones specifically targeting your keyword phrase. I like to make a spreadsheet of any potential keywords sorted by search volume. Then I analyze the rankings for each of those potential keywords. I look for things like: -number of homepages showing up in top 10 vs number of internal pages -name recognition of any of the domains in the top 10 -use of the target keyword in the top sites' titles, meta descriptions, headers, links, etc -number/quality of backlinks for each of the top 10 websites I also look for keyword trends to see if there are any groups of keywords that I could easily target togethr.
ezprint- thanks. Thats what the majority of my research also mentions. So going back to choosing keywords. In this scenario we wouldn't be able to tell which would be more competitive to get into to correct? keyword phrase get 100,000 search and has 2,000,000 results vs. 10,000 searches and 200,000 results the 100,000/ 2,000,000 would make more sense only if the top ranked sites don't have too many quality banklinks? is this the overall lesson?
Thanks everyone sounds like good advice. " -number of homepages showing up in top 10 vs number of internal pages" Sorry if its obvious, but what should the number of homepage vs internal page being ranked tell me? "-use of the target keyword in the top sites' titles, meta descriptions, headers, links, etc" how do I count titles and header for the site? I know how to count links (do you mean anchor text?) I'm probably not using my plugins full capabilities. Also, wouldn't it only be listed once for meta description? Again, thanks for the help...I'll try my best to learn quickly so that I won't have to ask these dumb questions.
10.000.000 results or 3.000.000 results doesn't make much sense. You should check the first 10-20 sites for that particular keyword. They are your only competitors
but I doesn't that number figure in to the decision of "wanting to compete for those words" instead of choosing another less competitive word?
OK, I did kinda skip all this, and just kept my explanation simple. But yeah, I normally identify an easy niche and then do a little more backlink research using SEO spyglass, just to make sure I'm not up against a monster authority site.
Install SEO for firefox addon > have it turned on > Go to google > type in your first keyword > SEO for firefox will augment the results and give you stats on each site listed > one of those stats is "Y! Links", note that number down for the first 3 sites > repeat for all other keywords This can take some time, so it might be worth coding a custom script to go get all this info for you (that's what I've done, but I'm not willing to share).