Keyword Research - How much does competition matter?

Here is the scenario

• 2 keywords: keyword A and keyword B
• Both have 30,000 or some number "x" monthly searches
• Keyword A has 1 million pages competition or some number "y"
• Keyword B has 1.5 million pages competition or 1.5*y

Question: Is it a guarantee that it will be easier to place in the first page for Keyword A than for Keyword B if all SEO work is kept the same for both keywords?

If yes, then ok thanks.

If no, then what can I use to determine which Keyword to go after? Is there a third variable (besides 1. Search Volume and 2. Competition) that exists to determine which keywords to choose?

Thanks.

umairsheikh2002 said:

OMG ranking depend on many factors, you must understand the on page and off page SEO. There is no real way quick assess your competition.

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i understand that. i'm saying all on and off site SEO kept constant, is there a third variable I am missing?

jayabraham said:

i understand that. i'm saying all on and off site SEO kept constant, is there a third variable I am missing?

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All other things being equal, of course competition matters.

jayabraham said:

i understand that. i'm saying all on and off site SEO kept constant, is there a third variable I am missing?

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you should also analyze the TOP results to see the info on them... this way you would be able to find out which one to go after... one might get more results and yet be easier to be out ranked...

DamageX said:

All other things being equal, of course competition matters.

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i meant if all other things in my control are kept equal. what about the extent of some one else's seo efforts who figures in the top 10/20 results for the keywords. how can i value that?

competition matters. search volume matters. does anything else matter? what if the first 20 results on Google for a keyword are heavy duty pages. i.e. its easy to reach spot 21, but very hard to break into top 20 for Keyword A but for Keyword B, even though there is more competition in terms of search results, it is easier to break into the top 20. or is there nothing of sorts?

competition is quantifiable in terms of number of pages for a keyword search, search volume is quantifiable in terms of searches per month. am i missing something else that is quantifiable? google page rank maybe (which is on a scale of 1-10)?

im new to this.

you should check how many backlinks the top competitors have...
check out on those backlinks how many authority sites are linking to them...
check out the PR of the websites linking to them...

When I start a new site I take a massive list of keywords that I have relevant for my site and find the allintitle: "keyword" for each keyword. The lower the number, the less people that know BASIC BASIC about SEO. After I have this list I pick keywords from my massive list with under 2000 allintitle and run them through the competition checker on Market Samuri (free for 40 days on this forum)

Next I look at the top 5 results on market samuri, if any of these top 5 results have a PR of 3, or more than 1000 backlinks to the PAGE, I skip the keyword and come back to it after I've built more authority with other easier keywords for my site.

Search volume does not really enter into the competition side of the equation. Search volume tells you whether or not a keyword might be profitable not how hard it will be to rank for. Now chances are a higher volume means more competition but not always.

And as always make sure you are using exact match search numbers.

Those numbers of competing pages mean absolutely nothing. Google is never gong to show that many results anyway so who cares.

Very few searchers leave the first page so the only competition that matters is the competition on the first page, look at the competition at the #10, #5, #3, and #1 spots. Then you ask yourself two questions. First can you beat any of those sites? Second, is the time, energy and money it is going to take to beat those site going to give you enough of a return? This second question is where the search volume comes in.


If the answer to either question is no then you move on, if the answer to both is yes then you go for it.

jayabraham said:

Here is the scenario

• 2 keywords: keyword A and keyword B
• Both have 30,000 or some number "x" monthly searches
• Keyword A has 1 million pages competition or some number "y"
• Keyword B has 1.5 million pages competition or 1.5*y

Question: Is it a guarantee that it will be easier to place in the first page for Keyword A than for Keyword B if all SEO work is kept the same for both keywords?

If yes, then ok thanks.

If no, then what can I use to determine which Keyword to go after? Is there a third variable (besides 1. Search Volume and 2. Competition) that exists to determine which keywords to choose?

Thanks.

Click to expand...

after you find the keyword than look your competitor look at the top 5 results google, if any of these top 5 results have more than pr3 and have more thousand backlink. Better you pass it. you can use traffic travis to looks your competitor

There are many factors to keep in mind when assessing the competition. It's not only the search volume and the amount of competing websites that you should keep in mind. For example if you try to rank for an seo related keyword with 100k competitors you can be sure that it will be much harder than a kids toy related keyword with 1 million competitors. The industry really matters. When analyzing your competition, have a look at their site structure and onsite seo, what meta tags they include and what keywords they are trying to rank for. Look at the amount of backlinks they have and expect to have to beat that number or use very high quality high PR linkbuilding services.

thanks a lot guys. thats a lot of useful information

notes that i take are that the following aspects are important in deciding which keywords to target:

• only top 5-10 results matter
• check the backlinks (quantity and quality) for the top 10 results
• check the PR for the top 10 results

andyreza said:

after you find the keyword than look your competitor look at the top 5 results google, if any of these top 5 results have more than pr3 and have more thousand backlink. Better you pass it. you can use traffic travis to looks your competitor

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are these numbers accurate enough to live by? or does it depend on the quality of the backlinks as well and hence its not a hard and fast rule?

If it's PR3 already than they likely have some quality backlinks. If they have more than 1000 backlinks with a PR1-2 they may just be in the waiting period for the next PR update. Hence, they are doing SEO... stay away.

No, that numbers are not accurate enough because everyone, who is doing SEO should decide by himself, if it is worth it to rank for a particular keyword.

More competition means that you will have to spend more money on backlinks and that project will also need more time, however, almost all high traffic (30 000+ exact searches per month) keywords have at least medium competition, but nobody is saying that these keywords are not worth effort because that 30k keyword might still cost you less than ranking on 30 various micro niches keywords

jayabraham said:

Here is the scenario

• 2 keywords: keyword A and keyword B
• Both have 30,000 or some number "x" monthly searches
• Keyword A has 1 million pages competition or some number "y"
• Keyword B has 1.5 million pages competition or 1.5*y

Question: Is it a guarantee that it will be easier to place in the first page for Keyword A than for Keyword B if all SEO work is kept the same for both keywords?

Click to expand...

No - only way you can determine the competition is to look at every website on page 1 (and maybe page 2). If you cant beat the ones on page two, then move on.

Your no above doesn't matter at all!

andyreza said:

after you find the keyword than look your competitor look at the top 5 results google, if any of these top 5 results have more than pr3 and have more thousand backlink. Better you pass it. you can use traffic travis to looks your competitor

Click to expand...

daveguy said:

If it's PR3 already than they likely have some quality backlinks. If they have more than 1000 backlinks with a PR1-2 they may just be in the waiting period for the next PR update. Hence, they are doing SEO... stay away.

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Maybe for you......There are no hard and fast rules......

What is competitive is going to be different for everyone and will change as you learn more. My definition of competitive is different now than it was 18 months ago and I imagine as I keep improving my skills and resources it will be different 18 months from now.

There is also the matter of balancing how competitive a keyword is against how much money you think it will make you. Always think about the ROI of your time and money. I have looked at plenty of keywords that I could have ranked for but walked away because the return would not have been worth the work it would have taken.

you are missing the point on HOW to measure competition...

number of competing pages is worthless

how competitive the top20 or top10 or top3 sites for your keyword is crucial (depending on how high you want to rank)

It doesn't matter if the search term returns 100 results or 100 million results....if you can't beat the top10 and get on that first page, what's the point?

So, use a tool that analyzed the top 10 sites, like traffic travis or market samuria. Or just go to google and see what the top sites are with an addon like seomoz that gives you PR and backlinks for each site.

The only question now is, even if they are competitive sites, are they competitive for that keyword specifically? Amazon has a huge PR and tons of links, but it may not be optimized for that specific keyword, so it's competitiveness can be miss leading.

What is ONE SINGLE NUMBER I can use to measure the competitiveness of the top 5 results for a keyword?

I want to aggregate the individual scores (PR, backlinks, etc.) into a single metric.

Once you understand what you are doing, competition isn't really a factor.

sometimes there is luck, its also a factor