Hello all, I have about 50 sites all targeting 1 keyword each. I have done the exact same amount of work on every site - both on page and off page. Some sites rank for their keyword and others don't. I think it's safe to assume that some keywords are easier than others. Here is where it gets more complicated though. I keep checking all the things I know about keyword research - results, allintitle, allinanchor, backlinks etc.... and they don't seem to add up. I find that in some cases, I have ranked for supposedly more "difficult" keywords and I am not even included in the search results for "easy" keywords. Can somebody tell me of a technique that they use to determine the difficulty of a keyword? I need to find a technique/formula to rank these keywords in terms of difficulty and have them make sense, so that I can use that same method to find my new keywords. Otherwise, it's all a waste of time... I know that when you are researching a keyword, you have to look at all the stats available to you, but how much does each of those numbers matter? Is allintitle more important than allinanchor? Are these two less important than the amount of links pointing to the first few results? Do you have any sort of a ranking system to score the difficulty of a certain keyword in relation to others? As I mentioned before, I know what to look out for, but I don't know how important each piece of information is. I still haven't figured out a way to rank my keywords in terms of difficulty (theoretically) and have them match what I see when I look at my sites' ranks (practically)... Any ideas? Thanks in advance to everyone!
You need to know, with big G everything concerning rankings is relative. Doing "the same" for all KWs won't lead you to anything. You have to optimize individually. What works for one ST wont work for another one. I "see the smart guys" everyday trying to find out why one of my sites ranks first page for "blog marketing" (without quotes) 0 links on Google and just 18 on Yahoo (discounting the internal ones) and Alexa. Nobody so far found out how I do this, but it's not a single result. Real SEO requires a bit more than to be a "wannabe".
Thanks for your reply monfis. I agree with what you are saying, but it's not really what I am asking. Of course every keyword is different, but someone can rank for an "easy" keyword without much work - that's common knowledge right? The harder the keyword - the more time and work you need to dedicate to it. My question is, is there some sort of generally accepted formula to rank the difficulty of a keyword? I need something like that in order to evaluate which keywords are more difficult than others. Any ideas?
What about the amount of results you get in search engines for that specific keyword? You can also check the popularity of the keyword using Google keyword tool. The more popular the more difficult it will be to promote it.
Yes there are formulas for determining the difficulty. It's based on your competition. That is a huge factor in the difficulty to rank for keywords. 1. Number of links 2. Pr of those links 3. Age of the domain 4. Activity Among others... So it's necessary to evaluate your competition. Best Wishes
One method to test the competitive nature of a keyword is to find what the average bidding price is on Adwords. Its not an exact science, but the most competitive keywords often have higher bids than the ones below them, that or they are simply more valuable.