Is this search string the best to use in Google to find our true competition that has optimized there sites for SEO. intitle:"keyword" inurl:"keyword" inanchor:"keyword"
It's the only way to gauge true levels of competition. And remember you have to go to the end of the SERPS results to find the actual number (the first number reported is not the true number since it contains pages that aren't included by Google). You have to find the last page of SERPs where it says "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the xxx already displayed" where xxx is the true number of competing pages. To get to this page quickly, you can append "&start=900" to the end of your Google query URL. The problem arises when you need to do this on a large scale (e.g keyword research). I haven't seen an automated service that achieves this well, yet.
It's the only way to gauge true levels of competition. And remember you have to go to the end of the SERPS results to find the actual number (the first number reported is not the true number since it contains pages that aren't included by Google). You have to find the last page of SERPs where it says "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the xxx already displayed" where xxx is the true number of competing pages. To get to this page quickly, you can append "&start=900" to the end of your Google query URL. The problem arises when you need to do this on a large scale (e.g keyword research). I haven't seen an automated service that achieves this well, yet.
Thanks for all the replies, I use SEO PowerSuite & I used there Spyglass to Analise my top competitor using my main keyword and in the report it's telling me how to optimize my site & where to get backlinks etc to get a top ten ranking. Is SEO PowerSuite reliable & should I start doing the optimizing it recommends for my site. Anyone have success with the recommendation's that Spyglass is telling me to do.