I am looking at allot of different keywords right now, for my new site (1 year old this month, but hasn't been ranked/worked on at all, direct marketing only). I am planning on doing the full meal deal, 2-14 article submissions to e-zine articles per week, podcasts, videos, interviews, open source tools, blog, forum, etc. The competition for these keywords *exact match* range from 21,300 results, to 934,000 results. most of the websites on page 1 are pagerank 4-6. So, considering that I am going all out on this, should i target the 165,000 search volume 417,000 google results keyword (97% commercial intent), or the 3,600 search volume 17,600 results keyword (73$ commercial intent) phrases? I have several keywords in the 200,000-300,000 results range that I would like to target the most, but I just don't know? I suppose, what I am asking, is "What does the difficulty curve look like for ability to rank vs X result set, assuming that the other sites (at least the first 100) have already done basic on page SEO (h1 h2 tags, alt tags, title with the keyword)?". EDIT: I guess this thread should have been in the "Keywords" section of SEO. My apologies. If an admin sees this, please move. Thank you.
You shouldn't judge the competitiveness of a keyword by the number of results. Regardless of how many sites in total have your keyword, it is normally only the top 10 - 20 websites that you are actually competing against. You should be analyzing the top 10 sites for things like: number of links, pr of links, usage of the keyword in anchor text, usage of the keyword in key onpage locations, etc. The competitiveness of the word you target depends on a few things: -your seo skill level...a beginner should go after easy keywords, seo veterans know what it takes to get more competitive rankings -your time available. If you need traffic right away, start with easy keywords. If you can wait for traffic, it may be worth going straight for more competitive terms. -exactly how strong that competition is. Take a look at who you are competing against...are they 1 man sites or multi-million dollar companies? If it were me, I would pick 5 - 10 keywords and target them concurrently. Pick a mix of competitive and uncompetitive keywords. Spread your efforts equally across these keywords to start. Eventually your rankings should go up for all of those keywords. As some keywords get to the top 3, you can put more focus on the lower ranked keywords. With this strategy you will gradually dominate your niche and pick up some rankings fairly quickly. It also looks more natural to the search engines to have multiple anchor texts.
vansterdam, thank you for your reply. This is what I was leaning towards. I currently have 6 keyword terms/phrases picked out that have relatively low competition *in both returned results, and on page SEO for the given term, have yet to check links back. I suppose that I was mostly looking for validation, since all of my SEO has been in the realm of theory... I have been one of those trolls, trying to understand all things SEO for the past year and a half, only now starting to put things into practice.
Well it sounds like you have a decent grasp on things so far. You should do pretty well by starting off with 6 low competition phrases. Just keep monitoring your rankings as you build links and add content. If the keywords are quite low competition, you could quickly dominate these keywords and then move onto more keywords. As you get more comfortable you could start targeting tougher keywords. All of your previous efforts would help build your domain's link profile and help make it easier to go after high competition keywords.
Amerigohosting, vansterdam has already given you some decent advice - not looking at the number of search results and just concentrating on how strong the top 20 are is worth keeping in mind every time you research a keyword. Anything outwith the top 20 is just noise really, and completely irrelevant. Without knowing url's, keyphrases, niches, or your budget, its near enough impossible to tell you what keywords to target. If your site can build natural links then you might want to go for the big money one. If it can't but you have a nice budget, then do the same. If you are on a low budget then go for the easier ones first, and reinvest any profit in ranking for the next ones. I wouldn't worry so much about the competitions onpage SEO - forget that for now, and compile reports on their backlinks. Backlinks are 90%+ of SEO. Use firefox and download the plugin required to use this - http://linkdiagnosis.com/ - its free and as good as any tool to give you a quick look over competitors backlinks. See how strong they are and decide where to attack to get in the serps. You can also use that tool to find other link opportunities where competitors have bought or somehow acquired an easy link. Depending on what you are trying to do you might not want to post it, but if you can post the url, keyphrases etc you are probably going to be able to get more relevant advice. If you post competitors links, don't use live links - no need to hold their hand and direct them straight to this thread.
Focus on the first page of results as this is where you want to be, I normally look at the sites manually one by one, check out their page titles, keywords, descriptions, amount of pages, on site seo and backward links. Then estimate where you think you will fall especially with page number and backward links and then start working on the keywords where you think you have the best chance to rank on that first page (though this is hard to guess). I would start at the very top target the hardest words or 4 or 5 of the top words and after a few months if results are not great tweak the words and bring in some lower ranked words. I find SEO these days a matter of review and changes until you get the right mix.
Good strategy from vansterdam and great tool by vic_mackey Try to create mutliple websites to dominate that niche
PLEASE: If you are going to recommend keywords to me, do so in a PM. any other information, please post in this topic. Normally, i'm pretty paranoid of sharing my information, but I may as well give in to the community. my site is credit lookups . com (no spaces). although I am working on a redesign right now (following the advice from stompernet free videos). my main competition is credit dot com and creditorweb dot com I am targeting the creditcard market for affiliate deals. My budget is approx 600/month beginning january 15th, and have about 180 man hours beyond that (per month). I plan on using the majority of that budget for articles (currently textbroker dot com is my #1 choice). Any money earned from the site (currently $20 / week) will be reinvested into my budget. After thinking about it, I'm going to go ahead and make this project a case study and post the results in a forum here. My plan of attack: Daily updated Blog entries, targeting (when i can) thinks in the news that are within my niche. Weekly updated research paper quality articles (3000-5000 word). On my site only. Daily released 300-500 word articles on other sites only. (anything on the site is going to be unique, and i want /no/ duplicate content on the web. I will be monitoring copyscape and using go ogle webmaster tools to keep it this way (hopefully)) Compile all blog entries, and all articles, for the week into an audio recording by various women that I know, Release as a podcast. Also attempt to include a 'guest speaker'. Basic animation added to the audio, and re-release the audio as video to all major sites (probably through tube mogul dot com) Creating, and maintaining quality wikipedia entries which site my research papers. Starting 1-3 open source projects related to credit (haven't decided this yet, but they will be web scripts, php/perl/ruby/whatever) dmoz, yahoo directory, log commenting, sig purchases, etc. And a few other things that I don't care to talk about right now Below is a db dump of the keywords I am considering (from a tool which i developed). I would like to concentrate on /any/ of them which would be "easy" to get relevant traffic from. note: "null" just means that go ogle banned my IP before the spider finished. (from my work IP none the less, 'caused a bit of chaos) mysql> select keywords, results, searchVolume from smallBusinessCreditCards; +-----------------------------------------+-----------+--------------+ | keywords | results | searchVolume | +-----------------------------------------+-----------+--------------+ | credit | 914000000 | 37200000 | | credit cards | 114000000 | 2240000 | | citi | 28500000 | 1220000 | | business credit | 16600000 | 550000 | | major credit cards | 16500000 | 4400 | | business loans | 4720000 | 673000 | | creditcards | 4250000 | 165000 | | credit card information | 3600000 | 22200 | | visa credit | 3260000 | 201000 | | credit card offers | 2790000 | 110000 | | business credit card | 2760000 | 165000 | | student credit | 2680000 | 246000 | | credit card companies | 2560000 | 49500 | | 0 apr | 2540000 | 90500 | | apply for credit | 2410000 | 165000 | | best credit card | 2320000 | 165000 | | business credit cards | 2120000 | 90500 | | best credit cards | 1710000 | 90500 | | student credit card | 1640000 | 60500 | | apply for a credit card | 1630000 | 90500 | | credit card offer | 1620000 | 49500 | | apply for credit cards | 1110000 | 14800 | | instant approval credit | 1110000 | 40500 | | student credit cards | 1060000 | 49500 | | apply credit cards | 1040000 | 22200 | | corporate credit | 1010000 | 49500 | | the best credit card | 982000 | 9900 | | free credit card | 934000 | 165000 | | credit card applications | 889000 | 74000 | | approval credit card | 877000 | 33100 | | get a credit card | 827000 | 33100 | | apply online for credit card | 821000 | 8100 | | credit card bad credit | 788000 | 74000 | | apply for credit card | 773000 | 135000 | | credit card apply | 738000 | 165000 | | unsecured credit card | 737000 | 22200 | | credit card interest | 737000 | 110000 | | low interest credit cards | 730000 | 33100 | | secured credit cards | 716000 | 40500 | | no credit credit card | 617000 | 40500 | | 0 apr credit card | 566000 | 40500 | | compare credit card | 563000 | 14800 | | bad credit card | 512000 | 110000 | | cash back credit card | 472000 | 27100 | | cash back credit cards | 431000 | 18100 | | credit cards offers | 417000 | 4400 | | bad credit cards | 417000 | 165000 | | credit card instant | 391000 | 33100 | | credit card deal | 388000 | 14800 | | rewards credit cards | 355000 | 27100 | | reward credit cards | 339000 | 9900 | | credit card rewards | 330000 | 49500 | | credit card comparison | 294000 | 18100 | | small business credit card | 293000 | 27100 | | good credit card | 276000 | 12100 | | free credit cards | 270000 | 33100 | | credit card instant approval | 268000 | 18100 | | credit card reviews | 258000 | 9900 | | credit card interest rates | 256000 | 9900 | | balance transfer cards | 253000 | 40500 | | low interest rate credit card | 240000 | 8100 | | i need a credit card | 237000 | 6600 | | guaranteed credit card | 226000 | 8100 | | credit cards for people with bad credit | 226000 | 18100 | | credit card search | 220000 | 5400 | | no annual fee credit cards | 214000 | 9900 | | credit card low interest | 185000 | 40500 | | low rate credit card | 181000 | 18100 | | credit cards com | 181000 | 22200 | | top credit cards | 180000 | 6600 | | bad credit visa | 171000 | 8100 | | no fee credit cards | 170000 | 18100 | | application card credit | 168000 | 301000 | | corporate credit card | 161000 | 9900 | | no interest credit card | 158000 | 6600 | | instant credit cards | 148000 | 27100 | | credit card apr | 144000 | 74000 | | best credit card rates | 142000 | 8100 | | low apr credit cards | 136000 | 8100 | | fixed rate credit card | 124000 | 4400 | | credit card review | 118000 | 8100 | | new business credit card | 115000 | 2900 | | corporate credit cards | 109000 | 5400 | | secured credit card | 102000 | 60500 | | credit card guide | 99000 | 1900 | | low rate credit cards | 95400 | 12100 | | best business credit card | 92000 | 4400 | | credit cards for students | 90400 | 12100 | | poor credit credit card | 73500 | 8100 | | guaranteed credit cards | 70600 | 12100 | | best student credit cards | 69100 | 1900 | | credit card for business | 68500 | 14800 | | credit cards no interest | 68500 | 6600 | | business credit card application | 68400 | 2900 | | poor credit card | 68300 | 9900 | | business credit card offers | 67100 | 2400 | | good credit cards | 67000 | 9900 | | credit card ratings | 66300 | 4400 | | credit cards for business | 64500 | 6600 | | secure credit cards | 63100 | 4400 | | secured business credit card | 60500 | 2900 | | business credit card online | 59800 | 4400 | | no credit check credit card | 55600 | 6600 | | compare business credit cards | 55300 | 590 | | credit card for small business | 54900 | 3600 | | business credit card offer | 54100 | 4400 | | poor credit cards | 52300 | 18100 | | credit card rating | 50300 | 6600 | | credit card comparisons | 49700 | 4400 | | apply for a business credit card | 48000 | 1600 | | apply business credit card | 47200 | 4400 | | new business credit cards | 43500 | 1600 | | fixed rate credit cards | 42900 | 3600 | | student credit card offers | 42100 | 720 | | credit cards for college students | 40900 | 4400 | | best business credit cards | 40200 | 3600 | | business credit line | 40100 | 110000 | | students credit cards | 39000 | 14800 | | best student credit card | 37800 | 1900 | | best cash back credit cards | 36800 | 2400 | | zero interest credit cards | 36700 | 4400 | | lowest rate credit card | 35800 | 2900 | | credit card for students | 35000 | 4400 | | business credit card online application | 34500 | 590 | | compare business credit card | 33900 | 480 | | credit card for college students | 33200 | 1600 | | o credit cards | 31900 | 2900 | | lowest interest rate credit card | 30900 | 1000 | | business credit card 0 | 30200 | 1900 | | no credit check credit cards | 30100 | 4400 | | instant credit card approvals | 29000 | 590 | | credit cards comparison | 28300 | 1900 | | best small business credit card | 26900 | 1000 | | application credit cards | 26300 | 3600 | | credit cards company | 24700 | 2400 | | 0 apr cards | 21300 | 14800 | | best visa credit card | 19200 | 880 | | lowest rate credit cards | 18400 | 1900 | | apply for business credit card | 18400 | 2900 | | business credit card comparison | 17800 | 1000 | | money back credit cards | 17700 | 480 | | credit cards the best | 17600 | 3600 | | business credit card cash back | 15300 | 1300 | | citi business credit card | 14900 | 1300 | | new small business credit card | 13200 | 320 | | business credit card 0 apr | 13200 | 720 | | credit cards first time | 12000 | 2900 | | business reward credit card | 11200 | 1000 | | secured business credit cards | 10100 | 1600 | | apply business credit cards | 8440 | -1 | | visa business credit cards | 7760 | 1900 | | instant business credit cards | 7710 | 1000 | | business visa cards | 5020 | 3600 | | best air credit card | NULL | 880 | | apply for business credit cards | NULL | 390 | | free balance transfer | NULL | 3600 | | online credit cards approval | NULL | -1 | | guaranteed credit card approval | NULL | 2400 | | poor credit credit cards | NULL | 14800 | | instant business credit card | NULL | 1000 | | low interest business credit card | NULL | 720 | | business credit card rewards | NULL | 1300 | | credit cards instant decision | NULL | 1000 | | credit cards applications | NULL | 2900 | | no fee balance transfer | NULL | 22200 | | guaranteed approval credit cards | NULL | 4400 | | corporate business credit card | NULL | 720 | | credit cards bad credit | NULL | 135000 | | credit card offers for bad credit | NULL | 2400 | | low interest business credit cards | NULL | 1900 | | online credit card application | NULL | 9900 | | low apr | NULL | 40500 | | rated best credit cards | NULL | -1 | | no fee balance transfers | NULL | 2400 | | instant approval credit cards business | NULL | -1 | | balance transfer | NULL | 165000 | | bad credit need credit card | NULL | 2400 | | students credit card | NULL | 8100 | | credit card software | NULL | 12100 | | business credit card applications | NULL | 880 | | unsecured credit cards | NULL | 27100 | | credit card for people with bad credit | NULL | 5400 | | business rewards credit cards | NULL | 1600 | | credit card rates | NULL | 40500 | | free balance transfer credit card | NULL | 880 | | 0 apr credit card offers | NULL | 1900 | | best credit card offers | NULL | 8100 | | balance transfer credit card | NULL | 49500 | | credit card deals | NULL | 49500 | | secured visa credit card | NULL | 1600 | | credit card rate | NULL | 60500 | +-----------------------------------------+-----------+--------------+
The best way to determine the effectiveness of a particular keyword is to calculate your KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index) which basically takes into consideration the monthly search volume for the particular keyword divided by the amount of competing sites. The higher your KEI the more effective the keyword..once you have a list of effective keywords, check your website content and tweak it appropriately.
You would be best to take out the most competitive keywords from that list. $600 a month is nowhere even close to enough to enable you to compete using an affiliate website. I doubt $6000 would be enough. You are not going to be able to get natural links with your current site, and will need to buy a major amount.
Just my two cents, but this thread is full of good advice...one of the better ones I've read lately. Perhaps I'm sensitive but I see a lot of people dispensing outdated 2004 SEO advice here that is next to useless. Thumbs up to the people who have responded!