How hard would it be to rank in G for this...

My ultimate goal is to be number 1 on G for "Boat Supplies" and "Boating Supplies" Can anyone tell me how hard they think this would be to get to the top.

Also I would love to know the methods that people use to determine how competitive a keyword is. Any help is appreciated.

 

On a scale from 1 to 10, they are both about 4.

 

Thanks Paul, how are you figuring this?

 

For a first impression, I go here:
http://www.seologs.com/keyword-difficulty.html
Then I analyze the top 10 sites and that's when time starts slipping away

 

1. allintitle:keyword
- This will show you only the pages in google with that keyword or keyphrase in there title, this way you can see your real competition.

2. trends.google.com
- This is a great way to compare search trends from different keywords and phrases, even better when you rank high for a keyword or phrase already and can compare them.

Maybe someone else can give you some better methods.

 

What better ways than analyzing the quality of the top 10 sites for the respective keywords? Because that's what you are competing against, isn't it?

 

Thank you both for those tools. They are both awsome.

If you have any other advise keep it comming.

I seem to be stuck with two of my keywords that I'm going for now.

"towables" and "towables tubes" I'm on the 2nd page for both of those. I have'nt moved in awhile.

 

Check your PM please.

 

nice advice. gonna check out the trends

 

Boat Supplies has an intitle competition of about 11,600 sites, with about 1200 searches per month per KeyWord Discovery.

Boating Supplies is at 15,200 intitle competition with 1200 searches. What that tells me it that it wouldn't be impossible to get on the first page of Google, but it's not going to be real easy. You've got some large scale boating stores at the top spot, and the big guys can be hard to bump.

To get your front page to the top for those keyphrases, you better get the phrases in the title of your page to start with. You will also need to build text and descriptions on the page that uses those keywords. Get some links on your main page that use the anchor text "boating supplies" & "boat supplies', and have them link to a page in your site. Get creative so they are incorporated into the layout of the page. Start building backlinks wherever you can using those phrases as anchor text. Find boating blogs, or forums where you can set up a signature line or post links to your site...once again, using those phrases as the anchor.

See in your signature where it says "boating supplies"??? Make that a link to your site...that's good anchor text you have sitting there doing nothing.

 

The allintitle: is a powerful tool. Use it to find the true competition levels for the keyword, and to identify main competitors for the targeted phrase.

If your rankings have not moved from page 2 in quite sometime, start thinking about adding fresh content to your home page and adding a few powerful inbound links. RSS feeds and powerful directories (index-it.net) are good places to start.


One more thing: - check your domain history; adding a few years to it is always a good idea.

 

I'm telling you http://trends.google.com is the tool to use to compare search result history compared to keywords you have data for.

 

Yes, thats why I always recommend it when this type of question comes up.

I'm wondering what your quick method to add a few years to your domain name is

 

You can't do anything about when the domain is registered. But if the domain expires soon....Register it for a few more years.......

Hey....I guess that dosn't help the history of the domain. I hate it when i shoot my self in the foot. Especially when I wear my good shoes

 

You really didn't catch on to the sarcasm did you.

 

IMO it would be great hurdles to get rank for that two keywords. i check your site for "towables" and "towables tubes" and your site rank lower than a site that its offpage optimization is on "FacePlant WaterToys". from scale 1-10 i would say 8 unless those site backlink are paid links and google would catch them someday.

 

It can be done, at least top 5, i have cracked worse cases in the past.

Experiment with page title on home apge, then just get many links with anchor Boat Supplies

google is mostly about anchor, yahoo will accept everything and msn is a garbage can

 

I see you ranking 9 for towables. If you want to get some rank on boating supplies get the phrase on your home page somewhere, along with the getting the term boating supplies in your title on your home page. Don't see one instance of these two words together anywhere on your homepage, for someone whose goal it is to rank number 1 for the term "boating supplies". You're making it that much harder to rank for the term when it is nowhere to be found on the page. Imagine adding the term on the home page and in the title as indicated above and waking up three days from now and seeing your site actually ranking for this term....

That about explains it...

 

Hey Kraven,

I noticed a few technical errors in your home page which you can correct easily.
Mind you these are only on-page requirements to score highly on G

1. None of your targeted keywords is in the title
2. None of your targeted keywords is in the URL
3. No targeted KWs in the meta tags
4. Many of your alt tags don't contain keywords (you could put those words into tool tips instead of alt)
5. You don't have h1 and h2 tags at all
6. Your h3 tag doesn't contain your keyword
7. Your first text (HOME on navigation) doesn't contain KWs either thru alt or title
8. No site map; no about us

This is only my first impression plus, I am not an expert. But I believe these are elementary and essential.

Hope this helps a bit

 

like everyone else is saying you don't even have your targetted phrase on your homepage (much less the title, alt tags, etc). heck, the word 'supplies' isn't even on the page by itself.