Ranking for 3 word phrase is easier than 2

[member22]

In about 2 month I managed to get easily on the first page of google on a 3 keyword expression but I still can't get on a 2 keyword ? at least I still don't see my website there

it seems that 2 keywords are a lot harder to get ? has anyone expercienced this ? does anyone know why or how long it could take ?

[Kristos]

welcome member 22!
always start with 4 word terms and then over the months work your way up to the three & two word terms. g likes that and has for years.

[Lts95]

It's all about competition on the different phrases. Obscure Widget would likely be far easier to rank for than Cheap Blue Widget, but Cheap Blue Widget would in general be less competitive than Blue Widget.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

It's actually all down to numbers. If you do a search for red car you will get more than 20 million results. Do a search for large red car and you will get one or two million so clearly there is less competition for three word phrases.

[Hissingsid]

Hi,

I don't see competition as a function of the numbers of results returned. Competition is all about how hard 20, or so, webmasters want a particular term.

Competition is when you have been #1 for years and then a new kid on the block finds a way to knock you off.

My advice is to analyse what the top 10 in the 2 word terms you want are doing and try and find a way to do more, but not too much. Use keyword tools to analyse their pages, use Yahoo siteexplorer to identify backlinks etc etc. Then you will start to understand what you have to do to get those terms. If you don't understand, find someone who does.

Cheers

Sid

PS And remember "building sites for users", "content is king" etc. are important but they are secondary to ranking. If you are not on page one no one will see your wonderful user site with fantastic content.