Hey Guys, I've been finding out some good stuff lately in my "starting from square one" niche businesses, and I have to tell you something that I'm finding out, and I'll keep ya'll posted on anything else I find. To some, this might seem like very basic, almost stupid stuff, but for those starting out, and maybe even some intermediate people, like me, going back to the very fundamentals is key. I was reading a report that I downloaded a while back on Article Marketing, and the guy said something along the lines of "don't look at the amount of indexed pages" as a sign of competition. I didn't know what he meant by that until I found out that I could go no higher for a certain keyword. The amount of sites IN the pages wasn't very high, only a couple of million, but I couldn't get past the second page! I thought that I needed more links. So I bookmarked more, but still no farther. Then I went to analyzing the title pages. The higher quality (in Google's eyes) have the entire term in the title! (Okay, that's a duh, but the next part was something I considered really interesting, so keep reading). So I decided to, lately, do my competition keyword research with the "allintitle" variable in the search engine. This will give me a great look at how many REAL competitors for that term I have. The numbers look a LOT lower. But I realized, then, that I kept staying in the same spot! I've since resigned to the position, but not since finding out another variable for your research: allinanchor. the "allinanchor" search help finds all of the pages with that particular keyword linked to that page. The number is also significantly lower than the "allintitle" page. My recommendation: when you find a keyword that you think is going to be easily ranked for, use these two variables to double check or else you're in for a while ride: a headache in the worst kind of way. Take care, and I hope that was valuable enough for anyone.
This is very true. Even just doing a search for your keyword phrase in quotes will yield more accurate results and allow you to have an idea of how much effort it will take to get decent rankings. Matt
Thanks for the tip. I knew about the allintitle tag, but allinanchor is new to me. I suppose less than 1000 results for allintitle would generally be rather easy to get decent rank in? correct me if I am wrong. Maybe 500 results would be more realistic. Is there a google tag for checking keywords in the h1?
Guys I have to just say that I think you are going about judging keyword competition the wrong way. Think about it, it doesn't particularly matter how many sites there are competing for a keyword because to get to page 1 of google your only concern are those sites currently holding positions 1-10, if you can beat any of these you are sorted. See my latest blog post for more on the subject.
Mido, Hey. Search with the "allintitle" tag before your keywords (preferably surrounded by quotes) so your search query looks like this: allintitle: "keyword phrase" I hope this helped you out. ##### PedigreeChump, Anyone who reads this: Pedigree is Absolutely right. I did a research on a niche, and I looked at the SERPs and it looked rather daunting to kind of compete in. BUT, there is one more thing that I planned on adding yesterday that I found out: When doing all of these, make sure you check the top 10 results' back link count. Ultimately, the greatest combination of getting higher in the SERPs is quality links, and lots of them. Quality: meaning the anchor text is relevant. So, I have one more step to add: First, search your keyword with allintitle: "keyword phrase". When you find out how many pages are actually internally OPTIMIZED for your keyword, you can assess the search engine competition on this level. Place the Top 10 results in a spreadsheet, or write them down. To understand the amount of competition in the quality of the links department, use allinanchor: "keyword phrase". This will show you the pages that are externally optimized for your keyword. Now you can assess the link competition in your niche. Place the Top 10 of THESE results in a spreadsheet (right next to the others) and see if there are any similarities. This isn't crucial, but it is helpful to see any big players in your keyword. Now, do a regular search for your keyword phrase. Click the number one link, place that URL in your spreadsheet. Copy that URL, and then do a google search of link:http://www.theurlinyourkeyword.com and it will tell you, approximately how many links BACK that particular site has. If it has 200, that means you're going to generally need MORE than 200 quality links back! Do the same with the last result on page one to assess how many links are needed to at least get you on page number 1. I can't guarantee that these steps will work like a charm. They makes sense in theory, and I am testing them out all today. However, this will give you a more thorough look at your competitors in your keyword. Hope this helps! PS. The reason you have them all in your spreadsheet is so that you can see if there are any similar urls. It also shows you what sites are better a) optimized on their pages, and b) optimized off their pages for that keyword. This is all general, and I'll keep you posted on any findings.
You have obviously gained some very good skills... When you get this close the next step to pushing your site to the top is fresh content. Google really likes websites that are updating and they reward this activity. Also do what you can to get your targeted keywords into anchor text links. Yea, for you... Keep up the good work.
Hey Friends, I just realized something that's fairly basic, but kind of goes against what I said up there a little earlier. Instead of being lazy (like I've been doing) and just looking at the number 1 spot and number 10 spot, I have failed to realize that numbers 2 - 9 are also important. Let me give you an example. On a slightly competitive keyword (9M SERs) I looked at number 1. It had only 5 backlinks. Or so I thought. I decided to look at numbers 2 and 3. Number 2 had 20 backlinks. I thought to myself,Crap! But then it hit me. Google doesn't ALWAYS update the supposed backlink count even when it registers. I've seen this on my own sites ranking well, but still not showing any backlinks. My recommendation: look at numbers 1 - 10 and then take the highest 5, average them, multiply by 2, and then shoot for this amount of backlinks, and then some. Thanks, Guys for all the comments! Peace!
The was a problem with a couple of my sites, but typically, the ones with a blog on the site did very well. Only, if they don't have enough links back, they still can only go so far. But you just sparked another experiment for me. Thanks.
Thanks for the nice information. It has really helped to find out the exact competition for the keywords.
If you have a static website try creating a FAQ or Glossary of Terms page. These are great way to easily add fresh content.
Damn, I thought lets try this one and I think I have some work to be done on one of my sites but thanks alot for the tips. They are great.