If someone told you to use quotes to measure the competition they were dead wrong. Why do I say "dead wrong?" Because it is killing your business. In most cases what you're being told is leaving out a key step but in one case it is just wrong and a waste of your time. Quotes, have you been told to research what your keywords in quotes too measure the competition strength? Don't do it, it is a waste of your time. Don't even use quotes. You're target audience will not. The number of websites that display that keyword does not matter. It is totally usless information. You need to use exact keyword match when researching our keyword. Google the exact match you are interested in targeting and then analyze at the page authoity for that SERP. How many are in the race does not matter if they are all turtles. If only 20 are in the race and they are the best SEO "artist" on the planet with 10,000 backlinks you're doomed! If you were racing 100 VW Beatles and you're driving a Porche, who is going to win that race? If you're racing one forumla one driver in his favoirte forumla one car, who is going to win that race? See, it doesn't matter how many are in the race. The only thing that matters is can you beat the people you are racing against. How strong is their page authority. That is, how many backlinks, how old is the site and how good is their on page SEO. You need to consider this by looking at the same results for the keyword you are targeting. If you didn't use exact match when you started your search, then you're starting point was wrong and everything you did afterwards is a waste. I wrote more about this on my website. http://rustyfergusonmarketing.com/blog It really is worth your time and I'm not even selling anything in that article.
Correct me if I'm wrong: Exact Match number on Google's Keyword Tool will tell us the exact keyword phrase as it is inputted into search query. Of course those search 're done without using any quotes, but for SEO purpose we can use quote to get the figure of all websites using that keyword phrase on their meta tags. If you find this method is useless, it's your call. But if you find that this quotes are "killing our business" , I do not see it, how come?
Yes, you need to start with exact match in Google. Many say use broad but my article will explain why that is useless. When you type your keyword in Google, without quotes, that is already an exact match as it is counted in the Keyword Tool. If you use quotes, you're looking at websites that almost all searches are not going to be using. But the main point is, finding a number of 70,000 or whatever number someone tells you to use is worthless. All that really matters are the top 10 to start and can you beat them. Most of the keyword tools people are selling use broad match to return their keyword research. There is one tool out there, but it is not yet public that uses exact match and gives you graphic results of what you're competition is. It isn't my tool but I'm using it. I no longer use quotes. It provides bogus data. And yes, I know all the gurus teach it. At least a few will tell you that isn't enough. I have been seeing so much junk out the in promotions. One thing they like to do is show you how they ranked number one on some keyword with 3 million competing sites. What they don't tell you is they used broad match search to puff up their number count. They also don't tell you how weak the competition was to start with. The main point is, it doesn't matter how many people are in the race. What matters is how fast they have the potential of going. You can beat 10 million one legged men in a race if they are on foot and you're driving a formula one. But if you're in a Corvette racing a single Formula one driver in his favorite formula one car, who is going to win that race?
I'm not sure which meta tags you're speaking of. If you're talking keyword meta tags, Google has publicly said they ignore those because it has been so abused. One thing though, it appears to me that AdSense does not ignore them.
Hi there allthough i totally agree that it is just important to check the authority of the top 10 ranking when researching a keyword, I would like to add that MOST decent seo peeps will be doing this already, so although this is good for noobs, it certainly hasn't reinvented the wheel and phrase matching with a good examination of the top 10 ranking sites will get you the same results.
i would also like to add that if your research throws up a bunch of authority sites then its time to choose a new keyword, however if the top 10 has a few articles ranking your usually good to go!, I am in no way connected to google sniper but it has to be one of the best ebooks ever written, and it works!
I posted a question about this same topic about a year ago. That is why use the quotes and the number of pages. I ended up answering the question back then myself, that is checking the authority of those top sites. However, site authority is not as important as page authority. A site can have tremendous site authority and weak page authority and you can take it. But again, the point of the post was using quotes and the magical 70,000 number (insert the number "your" favorite mentor taught you) is a complete waste of time. It tells you nothing. If you're going to look at authority, you need too look at it how people are actually searching for it.