I would like to start a website about jack russell terriers. I am going to use this website to work on my seo skills. I would like to know how hard on a scale of 1-10 it would be to rank this website in the 10 ten using the keywords - jack russell terrier Also, I would like to know how to gauge the keyword competition.
Well, it's likely to be much more competitive than 'dog obedience training'. There is software available that claims to analyze the results. Usually sold as "keyword effectiveness" or "niche finder" software. I don't use any of those but I think other will chime in. The first thing I look at is just the total number of pages that Google found. For 'jack russel terrier', Google finds "about 3,390,000 for jack russell terrier". Compare that to 'dog obedience training': "about 753,000 for Dog Obedience Training." The total pages found is only a weak indicator because not every webmaster that has 'jack', 'russel', and 'terrier' on one of their pages is actually TRYING to rank for "jack russell terrier". To get a better indicator, I put quotes around the phrase. This sort of tells me how many pages are trying to rank for the exact phrase. about 3,340,000 for "jack russell terrier" In this case, the number is about the same; that's a sign of extreme competition in my book. I also notice if the Titles in the top ten results include the exact phrase and if they begin with the exact phrase. In this case, 9 of 10 START WITH the exact phrase. That's another sign of high competition in my book. Lastly, I click a few of the top sites, visit their homepage and note their PR. Sometimes I also use Yahoo Explorer to note the quantity of their backlinks. Let's see what other forum members have to say on this. Bompa
I used the intitle function: intitle: Dog Obedience Training - 593,000 Results intitle: Jack Russell Terrier - 250,000
On the other hand, I have seen small niches with less than 100,000 results that are extremely competitive, so really, the best way would be to check out the sites in the top ten. Are they great or are they shit?
Well, junkpedia.org is number three in the results so you decide. Seriously though, when I see a result with the pedia coming in the top of the results, I don't see a real problem in overtaking that page. Just create a quality, very informative site, get the links and you'll be right above them in less than a year if you put your mind to it. Looks like that term could use some good competition anyhow.