and I'm trying to determine how hard it would be to rank for on Google: SEOChat Keyword Difficulty Check shows a 48.17% difficulty Typing the keyword into Google returns 1,030,000 results Typing the keyword into Google (using quotes) returns 482,000 results Google allintitle returns 113,000 results Google intitle/inanchor returns 81,700 results Based on what Google is telling me, I think 48.17% is too low. 1. Would you agree? 2. Is there a better keyword difficulty tool? 3. Is there another piece to this puzzle that I should be looking at? Thanks in advance for your insight!
I'm not familiar with SEOChat Keyword Difficulty Check, but from the figures you posted from Google, you don't have a chance. Not in this decade anyway.
Thanks, Zeekstern! I went ahead and checked Yahoo for the backlinks of each site ranked on the first page of Google for the keyword. From this angle, it doesn't look impossible...does it? 1. 2,156 2. 109 3. 242 4. 0 5. 22 6. 113 7. 25 8. 41,357 (totally unrelated) 9. 2 10. 30 Also, let me ask this: Where do you draw the line with Google? What are your maximum numbers for allintitle, without quotes, with quotes, intitle/inanchor?
Or maybe take a chance. Where competition it`s high you will have a lot of visitors, where 0 you will have a limited number of visitors - a low number.
Tough question. I don't have a set number. I evaluate the competition using basically what you have, and a few more things. If I can find a weakness in one area, and think I can beat them out, I go for it. But if you are new to IM, you will probably want to start off by keeping the allintitle under 10,000 if possible. But you still need to do a lot of back linking etc. After you have a few of those under your belt, up it to about 20,000. This is playing it safe.
I appreciate the info! That's a good strategy and I plan to follow it. I have identified many keywords with decent traffic that meet that criteria for allintitle. I've read that intitle:"keyword" inanchor:"keyword" provides a better idea of the keyword competition than allintitle:keyword. Some of my keywords have large differences between these two queries (allintitle is usually way higher). Any ideas why? Also, best wishes for a Happy and Prosperous New Year to everyone!
there are lots of keywords to choose from... list down all the keywords you want to target and see for yourself what is the best keyword to use..
Manually using the search operators is a very powerful way to search. The problem is that you must be very careful and understand exactly what you are doing. Otherwise, your results can be skewed. For example, Google by default returns synonyms in the results unless you explicitly tell it not to. Some of those operators will return you keywords used in the title and the text on a page. allintitle is usually higher? I don't know for sure, but think it might be due to people are becoming more "SEO aware", but are still lazy or don't know SEO basics. For example, everyone knows to put their keywords in the meta Title tag, but do not bother to take it one step further and include keywords in anchor text on the page. Does google care about anchor text? You bet it does.)
Number of backlinks is important, but you need to be aware of the page rank of these sites as well. The last question you asked their depends on a number of factors, but in general, the more competition the longer it will take and the more work you will need to do to get to the top of the results.
1 million for broad match is not bad 482,000 phrase results can be a little difficult but doable 113,000 allintitle is pretty competitive The authority status of the top 5 sites would be the deal breaker for me. Lets say that keyword was in the auto industry and the top 5 sites were edmonds cars.com kellybluebook.com autotrader.com ebay.com I would probably stay away (probably) If on the other hand they were just some plain Jane sites with backlinks like you posted then we could easily out rank the other sites. Here is one we just targeted: 60.9 million broad match 240,900 phrase results 7207 allintitle You'll notice the allintitle is quite a bit less...in under 30 days we hold 2 of the top 10 spots. In 30 more days we'll own 2 of the top 5. We may own more of the top just depends on if google puts our videos up there and the different web 2.0 properties we use. I know this because we have been doing this for quite a while and through testing we know what we'll have to spend to get the rankings we want. hope this helps j
Zeekstern - Thanks again! I was not aware that Google returned synonyms by default. Rvrabel2002 - Excellent point about the PR. I'll go back and check that out. I need to factor that in, as well as the ages of each sites domain name. Jvmarket - Wow, that's quite a broad match! Way to go! About authority status...what if the top ranked sites for my keyword are lower PR pages hanging off of the main URL's, like "edmonds.com/old-clunkers/tires-for-sale"? edmonds.com itself may have a large number of backlinks to the main page, but this other page may only have 10 (for example). Does the lower page carry over the authority, or can I beat it? Really appreciate the insight and help! I'm learning a lot!
Thank you guys, I'm learning a lot But can I use phrase keyword (i.e: 3 words) ? If so is it enough to create only 2-4 pages in all the website ? Because there will not be much to talk about I also have the same question of Andy217: Thanks !
Type your keyword into Google without quotes. Many fake SEO gurus will tell you to use quotes to figure out competition. If the first 20 sites are made by SEO masterminds for your keyword, then even if the search comes back as just 2000 sites, you will still have a VERY hard time ranking high. Pay attention to the first 4-5 sites with your keyword. Are their title 100% optimized to your keyword? For example, if your keyword is Make Money Online, is the title to the first few sites "Make Money Online"? If yes, then you will have a very hard time IF their pagerank is 4+. "Make Money Online" is 100% relevant to the keyword "make money online" but "Make Money Online - Tips To Make Money Online" for example, is not 100% relevant match to the exact keyword you put into the search engine. The title is a very important factor. Don't count how many search results come back. I don't care if it has 20 billion. Analyze the first few sites for your keyword. If the first 4-5 sites are all 4 PR and below with non-fully optimized titles and keywords in domain, then you can still beat them all. The problem is that you will not beat them in a few days, but perhaps a year+.
Not always a deal breaker if the results are all links within the homepage. For example: edmonds.com/blah/blah/blah/blah/bmwm3new The HIGH pagerank linkjuice is all in edmonds.com homepage. By the time the juice gets to /bmwm3new page, it will probably be PR 1-2. You can get this free SEO tool called SEO For Firefox. You can easily find it in Google search. The tool will immediately tell you what is the pagerank of each site so you do not have to waste time researching it. Most products that show up in ebay.com have PR 1-2. But, if your keyword was just "auction", then you will see ebay.com homepage as #1 (as of today). THAT you will not want to compete against.
Good Stuff Blogaboutnothin! Thanks! I'll need to dig deeper on each of my keywords and look at these factors.