Keyword Research
Have you ever wondered why so many people rely on Google Keywords Tool for their SEO campaign keyword research? The Google’s tool is for Adwords users and rightfully so provides the advertiser competition for the keywords. The advertiser competition of the keywords may not be in tandem with the SEO competition. Though this tool can greatly help find keyword ideas with their corresponding keyword search volume. This can give you good insight into the achievable ROI on your SEO campaign. This post deals with what the tin says: Finding the SEO Keyword Competition using the Google SE method.
This should not come as a surprise that Google Search Engine is the best tool to find the keyword competition for SEO. This is like going out to the battlefield to find how many soldiers were killed instead of asking the soldiers of the enemy how well they fought to guess how many of your soldiers were killed!
Let’s get to the point:
Question 1: How do I know much is the general competition for my keywords? How big is the battle field?
Answer: Just punch your keywords into the Google SE and note down the number of results found. The larger the number the larger the battle field but note that this is not your competition.This leads us to the next question.
Question 2: What is my exact “SEO” competition (not advertiser competition) for my keywords?
Answer: Just punch in this into Google search box: intitle:”Your Keyword Phrase”. This gives you the first accurate view of how many sites are doing SEO for the same keywords. Just note down the result volume. Now we are zooming in. This will give you keyword SEO-competition. So now you know 292 sites are fighting with you on the SEO battle. Can you fight with them and reach to the top? Yes, but you need to do further analysis. Before moving to that note that you can also use inurl to get some more ideas but it is a limited way.
Question 3: How much effort my keywords need to get above my competition?
Answer: This is indeed an interesting question and the answer is as interesting as well. For each of your top 10 competitors found in the above step, note down the results count for: link:competitositeurl.com. This query gives you the number of back links to their site. Create an excel sheet with these metrics for all your top 10 competitors. Now to estimate how much link building efforts you need just remember the simple formula. Just exceed the number of backlinks from your largest competitor by at least one! This is simple said but another factor that comes into play is the PR of the linking sites. You need to note them down as well into your excel sheet and then compete on backlinks in quantity and quality.A word of caution, this answer assumes you have good on page artifacts in place already.
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A brilliant post, I say. We do things but feel reluctant to find out why we do. The three answers to the three questions give a clear concept of keyword competition and how and what exactly to do to come out with the best keywords and stay ahead of the tough competition. Thanks to Google SE for providing effective ways.
The answer to the question: “How much effort my keywords need to get above my competition” – is no doubt a perfect one. Back links can do wonder but need the best and relevant one. Thanks to provide some hidden ways.
I agree when you say, “The advertiser competition of the keywords may not be in tandem with the SEO competition. Though this tool can greatly help find keyword ideas with their corresponding keyword search volume. This can give you good insight into the achievable ROI on your SEO campaign.” Being an SEO specialist, I have been using Google keyword research tool for long and experience its instant reliable results.
As an SEO specialist, I have used Google Keywords Tool for SEO campaign keyword research. In fact, I want to say that without this great tool, my work will stop. You exactly have shown the reasons. All three questions and answers are valuable for SEOs.
It’s a helpful post. Google SE method beats all other tools in finding the SEO keyword competition. And maximum SEOs use it. But your writing with that terrific example of the battle field has made it clearer.