But definitely something to check.

After identifying your competitor, it is good to check how strong are those ones by checking their page rank. You can install SEO for Firefox in order to see this info very easy.

The advice to follow is to avoid results where most of the competitor in the first page of results have and avergare page rank above 3. If the avg pr is below 3, it will be easy to beat them.

In order to find out the average just sum the page rang of the ten pages and divide this number between 10.

Thanks for the post!

Keyword research is almost a religion to some people and the method I outline about is just one in many. The truth be told you will never really know until to try to get the ranking but you can make some qualified guesses.

From what I understand you method would be just fine because as I see it you are really just doing the same thing in reverse (kind of). The only real and true answer will come when you make a go at it.

Mikael

However, there is a different view that I have begun to think about in talking to other marketers. I would love your opinion on it.

The way I have been looking at competition lately is that my only real competitors are the top ten positions on google page one, no matter how small or how large the search number is. For example, 3000-1 million+, whatever the numbers, only the top ten matter.

Then I examine the top ten in detail looking at all the common factors to judge just how competitive it will be. This is based solely on the top ten websites themselves, not the search count displayed from google.

I have my own baseline in determining what I will pursue or pass on. I’ve really just begun to start looking at keyword research and competition in this manner.

I would love to hear your thoughts about it. Thank you.

First of all welcome to the blog and thank you for posting such an excellent question.

I’ll try to answer the best I can but it is actually a really though one to answer.

The reason is that basically there is no keywords that are “too competitive” if you have enough time, skills, persistence and money. You can beat everyone if you want it bad enough.

BUT…. and this is the deal breaker. Whether something is “too competitive” is determined by the individual. If you are just starting out, don’t know much, don’t have much time and want fast results in order to keep your motivation high, then I would say to go for something like the thing in my example.

But if you would ask someone like me, I would have no problem going for keywords with 10,000 – 30,000 (or more) competitors because I know (from experience) that I can beat them if I put in the effort, time and money + accept the fact that it will take time (months or years).

So for people just starting out I would say to go for something below 100. The fewer competitors, the easier the task will be.

I know you probably wanted a fixed number but I am not sure I can give you one since I don’t know you

Mikael

Forgive me if I’m just not getting it – How many pages need to show up before it becomes too competitive? I see the steps on finding the amount of competition, but when is it too much?

Thanks,

-Tourq

The answer is quite simple but probably not very useful to you.

Because the answer to your first questions is “yes” and to your second “enough”.

It is POSSIBLE to rank a website quickly but there are no GUARANTEES. The best thing to do is to go for it and see what happens.