Measuring competition

I'm working on keyword research and number of searches V competition at the moment.

I've read a lot of articles that say less than 25,000 competing pages is desirable but how do you measure the competition for a keyword?

I've found many examples and keyword analysis apps which generate figures that don't seem to match what I see in Google so when you're looking for competing pages do you search for the phrase match (i.e. your keywords in quotes) or not? and do you use Google.com or your own local Google or a combination of both?

 

Check out the websites which currently rank for the terms you are working on and see how their websites are build, where they are getting backlinks from. This should give you a general idea about your direct competition.

 

I agree and if you are doing keyword research then you need to concentrate on building backlinks with that anchor text you are targetting. By checking on your competitors your are just seeing how much work you need to do.

 

Thanks guys,

I'm happy with analysing back links but the number of competitors reported by different apps and sites seems to vary and there doesn't seem to be a standard way of measuring - should I be worried about the number of competitors for my keywords or the number of competitors for "my keywords"?

So let's say the top 10 sites for a certain keyword all have less than 50 backlinks, have a pagerank or 3 or less and most of them are missing the keywords in the title, H1, descriptions and domain name. Should I be worried that there's over 2,000,000 search results for that keyword (without quotes) and if so is there a certain number of competing sites (for this scenario) that would make you think 'no way!'?

 

If you quote the keyword it will show the exact comptetion for your website.If you want to promote your website locally you can check comptetion on local google and if you want promote globally check on google.com.Hosting of your website has also effects the website searches or ranking in google local and global both.The comptetion also varies from google server.If you check comptetion from different ip or at different moment on same ip it may vary.You can use google trends to see the searching trends according the region and year wise to choose the best suitable keyword for your website.

 

In the comptetior analysis you can check the backlinks of comptetior website and try to get the backlinks of your website their if your website don't have link from that website. Google ranking and PR depends on so many other factors like unique content on your website, domain age, how much relevant is your link according to your website theme,keyword placements,
and so on.Proper analysis and submission is done by only the seo experts so that you can achieve your target.

 

type the keyword in Google and see number of websites listed in the result page

 

Usually, you need to check 3 type of competition analysis:

1. Competing pages
The higher number of competing pages in search results, the tougher will be the competition. Selecting keywords that have low number of competing pages in search results will give smoother and faster rank climb for your website.

2. Average monthly search volume
Using free tools like adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal will give an idea of average monthly search volume. You can also select local TLD (google) to check local volumes. The higher number of average volume, the competition will be high too. It will be easy if you target long tail and more specific keyword phrase for your business that will have higher potential in converting.

3. Competitors
Usually, aged domains with strong back links profile and keywords scattered in meta title, descriptions and contents tend to get top ranking. You need to be patient and consistent in building more high quality relevant back links to your site and your ranking will slowly gets its position in higher SERP.

The same applies for local search engines where you need to target in local language and back links from local sites.

 

Thanks guys.

Is there a specific level of competition you look when you're researching or will you take on anyone of you think you can rank well for that keyword?

 

I agree with @atniz on this one too, well said. I find anything under 600k easy to rank for as pie though.