Keyword Difficulty Check

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by donmakavely, Nov 10, 2008.

  1. #1
    Hello guys!

    I'm trying to calculate some keywords difficulty. I wonder what tool or calculations do you use to know how competitive is a keyword? i use the seochat tool, http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/keyword-difficulty/ but it's not very good because many times it gives 0% percentage..so what good tool or calculation do you guys have? :confused:
     
    donmakavely, Nov 10, 2008 IP
  2. T_Media

    T_Media Peon

    Messages:
    691
    Likes Received:
    13
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #2
    Get Firefox and download the SEO for Firefox Addon. Now search the keyword you want to rank for in Google. Underneath each listing you should see a whole bunch of interesting information loading for each domain.

    In particular look at the Y!Links stat, this shows you how many links are pointing to the domain according to Yahoo.

    Write down the Y!Links stat for the first 3 listings. For someone new to SEO, if most of the domains have over 4,000 links you'll have difficulty seeing any results from your efforts. But anything below that and you stand a chance if you use "exact matching anchor text links", i.e: Links that contain your exact keyphrase with the text.

    Just double check and click the Y!Links button to show up the sites that link to each listing, if they have lots of high PR websites linking to them (seo for firefox will show you this) or high authority .gov .edu sites linking to them, then consider targeting something else.

    That's pretty much how I gage the difficulty of a niche. Don't go on "how many results appear" alone, it's really not an accurate measure of how difficult a keyword will be to rank for.
     
    T_Media, Nov 10, 2008 IP
  3. catanich

    catanich Peon

    Messages:
    1,921
    Likes Received:
    40
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #3
    It is not the "keyword difficulty" you should worry about. The only thing to focus on is the Top 10 competitors returned for the keyword phrase.

    You need to match their On-Page SEO
    You need to get close to their traffic
    And beat them in Google Webmaster Tools reported links

    For On-Page SEO look into getting a copy of IBP-10. It will do the Top 10 comparisons for you.
    For Traffic, think about using a low cost Adwords PPC campaign to start.
    And start getting links from everywhere. Blogs, Forums, Directories, etc. To play in the Google SERPs, you need links.

    And it take time. Any short cut someone advises, will usually get you busted.
     
    catanich, Nov 10, 2008 IP
  4. abigail

    abigail Peon

    Messages:
    205
    Likes Received:
    1
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #4
    I used manual search command to calculate keyword difficulty eg:"keyword". Do not rely more on SEO Tool.:)
     
    abigail, Nov 11, 2008 IP
  5. monfis

    monfis Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    1,476
    Likes Received:
    31
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    160
    #5
    Well that's all theory, with good on page optimization you can beat the high backlinks sites.
    Just had a search: 528,000 for oil paintings occasions.

    # 1 - 53 for linkdomain:www.oilpaintingsartists.com -site:www.oilpaintingsartists.com
    # 2 - 207 for linkdomain:noriainternational.com -site:noriainternational.com
    # 3 - 123,000 for linkdomain:groups.google.es -site:groups.google.es

    How does a result like this fit in the common backlink theories?
     
    monfis, Nov 11, 2008 IP
  6. T_Media

    T_Media Peon

    Messages:
    691
    Likes Received:
    13
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #6
    oilpaintingartists in this case is the only site that bares true relevance to the search. Thus it wins despite having far less links than the others.

    But you cannot simply discard "backlink theories". I have worked with many a site and by far targeted backlinks are the most important aspect for gaining a rank.
     
    T_Media, Nov 11, 2008 IP
  7. SEO Positive

    SEO Positive Member

    Messages:
    56
    Likes Received:
    0
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    41
    #7
    Cheers for the info guys, it was something that I was going to ask.
     
    SEO Positive, Nov 11, 2008 IP
  8. donmakavely

    donmakavely Peon

    Messages:
    32
    Likes Received:
    0
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #8

    how do you do it manually? do you have a formula that you'll like to share?
     
    donmakavely, Nov 18, 2008 IP
  9. robertgallagher

    robertgallagher Banned

    Messages:
    215
    Likes Received:
    10
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #9
    i am using SEO Book Tool for key words research it shows the count over all as high count have obviously have strong competitions between them.
     
    robertgallagher, Nov 18, 2008 IP