HOW TO determine Easy/Medium/Low Competition??

MPJHorner

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I am new to BHW and somewhat SEO. I am reading through a lot of articles referencing competition levels. I understand this is key to success (Too hard = setup for failure).

I'm familiar with some of google's tools and more recently Moz toolbar.

Moz for instance typical rates with:

PA - Page Authoriry
DA - Domain Authority

Both on a scale of 1-100.

I've already read some threads on PA vs PR (Google PageRank) and it seems both are good indicators.

Now, lets look at PA/DA for now. For experienced people yourselves what ratings would you consider EASY/MEDIUM/HARD?

*Sorry i have got some abbreviations wrong I put the context next to them to check i am referring to the correct thing!
 
I think there is nore to it than just DA and PA

For example, the first few positions could include sites with DA 78, 83 and 75 (for example) but that doesn't mean it's difficult to outrank because they could be ranking for that keyword indirectly, based purely on their authority.

If a website with DA of say 40 came along, and optimised for that keyword directly, they would probably outrank them.

So my answer is, it depends. You will have to have a look at the top 10 positions to see if they are directly optimising for that keyword. Also, look at their backlink portfolio to see what sort of backlinks that page has
 
I think there is nore to it than just DA and PA

For example, the first few positions could include sites with DA 78, 83 and 75 (for example) but that doesn't mean it's difficult to outrank because they could be ranking for that keyword indirectly, based purely on their authority.

If a website with DA of say 40 came along, and optimised for that keyword directly, they would probably outrank them.

So my answer is, it depends. You will have to have a look at the top 10 positions to see if they are directly optimising for that keyword. Also, look at their backlink portfolio to see what sort of backlinks that page has

This is useful and makes total sense, are there toolbars or other programs that can say 'rank' a site with its PA/DA with the keyword optimisation or formula that could be followed?

I assume low keyword optimisatin with very high PA/DA will trump high optimisation with rubbish PA/DA. (I assume?)
 
Again, it completely depends mate.

The most important step in this case is the on-site optimisation.

1. Look at the content that is currently ranking. Make yours longer, and make yours better.

2. Make sure you put the target keyword in the Title of the page.

3. Make sure you put the target keyword in the meta description (download a plugin called Yoast. This will allow you to add titles and meta data very easily)

4. Make sure you use the target keyword several times in the content of the page. If you can add it to a H1 tag, thats even better.

From here, you need to start building backlinks. You can either learn from here how to build them yourself, or go to the marketplace and start shopping

Good luck :)
 
Again, it completely depends mate.

The most important step in this case is the on-site optimisation.

1. Look at the content that is currently ranking. Make yours longer, and make yours better.

2. Make sure you put the target keyword in the Title of the page.

3. Make sure you put the target keyword in the meta description (download a plugin called Yoast. This will allow you to add titles and meta data very easily)

4. Make sure you use the target keyword several times in the content of the page. If you can add it to a H1 tag, thats even better.

From here, you need to start building backlinks. You can either learn from here how to build them yourself, or go to the marketplace and start shopping

Good luck :)

That's really useful!

In a nutshell the page you want to rank for is your actual site, then your PBN is to provide you with backlinks?

The backlinks have to have good anchors?
 
Payday loans = hard

Buy viagra = hard

Paris hotel = medium

cheap london escorts = mediu

Everything else is either medium or easy.
 
That's really useful!

In a nutshell the page you want to rank for is your actual site, then your PBN is to provide you with backlinks?

The backlinks have to have good anchors?

Yea, you are ranking the page on your money site .

A PBN is used to link back to your page to help it rank. The amount of PBN links you need to rank depends on the competition. Start with a few, track the rankings, and add more if you need to.

In terms of anchors, you can have a few exact match (the keyword you are trying to rank for), but the rest should be variations of the keyword, or your website name, or just the URL

Plenty of guides here on anchor text ratios
 
Payday loans = hard

Buy viagra = hard

Paris hotel = medium

cheap london escorts = mediu

Everything else is either medium or easy.

That's interesting point, with regards to rankings is anything under 40 considered pretty easy then? Or :/

Btw, very funny example!

Yea, you are ranking the page on your money site .

A PBN is used to link back to your page to help it rank. The amount of PBN links you need to rank depends on the competition. Start with a few, track the rankings, and add more if you need to.

In terms of anchors, you can have a few exact match (the keyword you are trying to rank for), but the rest should be variations of the keyword, or your website name, or just the URL

Plenty of guides here on anchor text ratios

That's useful, i will try fish out those guides. With regards to PBN some articles have suggesting using 'Web 2.0' does this mean just free sites that you don't have to pay for domains etc you get subdomains and have no cost etc etc?
 
That's interesting point, with regards to rankings is anything under 40 considered pretty easy then? Or :/

Btw, very funny example!



That's useful, i will try fish out those guides. With regards to PBN some articles have suggesting using 'Web 2.0' does this mean just free sites that you don't have to pay for domains etc you get subdomains and have no cost etc etc?

Yea, they are free domains. You then build backlinks to those to 'power them up'
 
That's interesting point, with regards to rankings is anything under 40 considered pretty easy then? Or :/

Under 40 what? Years of age? I'd hit some 40+ cougars, not hard, no. I mean hard but it's not hard if you know what I mean.

But seriously, PA and DA don't tell me nuthin. I go to the SERPs and I feel the SERPs....the answer is right there, you don't need a million dollar tool.

Why is #1 ranking #1? Check his site. Is it fast? Is the HTML clean? Does it use https? How many times does the keyword appear? Write that down with pencil and paper.

Look at your own page. Is it as fast? Is your HTML clean or are you using Geocities spinning GIFs?What does their site do that yours doesn't? Do they use schema.org markup and you don't ? Stuff like that is SEO 101. Get the low hanging fruit first.

That's what competing in the SERPs is about, not what Moz or Majestic think about PA and DA....people are so immersed in these tools, they see the trees but not the forest.
 
Yea, they are free domains. You then build backlinks to those to 'power them up'

This is so useful, and when you say backlinks to these free domains are they more 'spammy' like ones, ie just hammering it to here there and everything where?
 
Under 40 what? Years of age? I'd hit some 40+ cougars, not hard, no. I mean hard but it's not hard if you know what I mean.

But seriously, PA and DA don't tell me nuthin. I go to the SERPs and I feel the SERPs....the answer is right there, you don't need a million dollar tool.

Why is #1 ranking #1? Check his site. Is it fast? Is the HTML clean? Does it use https? How many times does the keyword appear? Write that down with pencil and paper.

Look at your own page. Is it as fast? Is your HTML clean or are you using Geocities spinning GIFs?What does their site do that yours doesn't? Do they use schema.org markup and you don't ? Stuff like that is SEO 101. Get the low hanging fruit first.

That's what competing in the SERPs is about, not what Moz or Majestic think about PA and DA....people are so immersed in these tools, they see the trees but not the forest.

Some excellent points, I really think looking at the SERPs opposed to ratings is key as ultimately that is what we want to achieve.

That said, i want to try gain an understand about what is achievable as a newbie and what isn't.
 
Some excellent points, I really think looking at the SERPs opposed to ratings is key as ultimately that is what we want to achieve.

That is right. Go straight to the issue. You want to rank, the SERPs are real, they're there, they're where you wanna be. If the #1 site has DA and PA ZERO, like it often happens especially for new niches (new product releases and such), what does that tell you? The SERPs are what matter, not what these tools tell you.
 
Bring some keyword research tool ,you will get all lo/medium/high competition keywords,pA/DA which are easy to rank easy,hard and medium
 
That is right. Go straight to the issue. You want to rank, the SERPs are real, they're there, they're where you wanna be. If the #1 site has DA and PA ZERO, like it often happens especially for new niches (new product releases and such), what does that tell you? The SERPs are what matter, not what these tools tell you.

Thanks!

Bring some keyword research tool ,you will get all lo/medium/high competition keywords,pA/DA which are easy to rank easy,hard and medium

Do you recommend any?
 
Experience.
What hard for me might be easy for you.
Just track the first page and check how they rank, if they have 50 sites PBN and you don't then maybe pick another KW.
It's all about choosing your battles wisely.
Good luck.
 
There's plenty of options out there, you can either buy keywords from a service provider such as @Jayder if you're new or don't have time yourself.

Tools there are several I use as well as manually checking sites in the top 10.

Ahrefs,Semrush, Moz, KWfinder, Keyword Revealer, KeySearch etc.

Google is the obvious one but they changed now so you need to have Adwords campaign running to get exact figures.

Not sure if you've seen this guide;

https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/hekkes-keyword-research-guide-examples-included.839717/page-3
 
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