The count number of pages with your keyword is not too important. The number of searches made for that keyword is the important thing. Example: - I have a page ranked #1 on Google for a two word keyword, and there are 80+ million other pages, and I get "only" 1,000 visitors last 30 days. - However a have a page ranked #2 on Google for another two word keyword, and there are only 226,000 other pages, and I get 4,000+ visitors on last 30 days.
Well, it's been going about a year and a bit, but mostof that was swapping 5 links a day on linkmarket. As for traffic, we rank pretty highly for a completely different product, and a number of (seemingly) popular longtail keywords.
I think the important thing is to have a competitive keyword and work for that to be on at least first page of result in every search engine
We only get a trickle from search engines. Actually, about 80 uniques a day in total, half of that from search engines. Working on it though. We started out being number 1 for "cheap salvia divinorum extract", now we're #1 for "cheap salvia extract" and "cheap salvia" too. As of this afternoon, we're also pushing the "buy" keywords, so we shall see how we do on them after I get back off holiday.