Competiiton Data for Publishers

[gm10]

Is there a way to find out competition for certain keywords among publishers?

It's a general rule for publishers to find keywords with low competition among publishers. I searched multiple forums and found that many posters recommend using Google's keyword tool to find low competition keywords. It appears to be wrong. Google's keyword tool is an advertiser tool. Low competition among advertisers is not good a sign for a publisher.

Is there information on competition between publishers on certain keywords? I know, there are keyword tools like Wordtracker, Wordstream, Trillium, etc available. They do provide information on competition. How do I know that this is publisher information data? They all probably scoop up Google's information anyway, and Google's competition information is available for advertisers only.

Your help is much appreciated in advance.

[martinibuster]

I know this is going to sound primitive, but I just run keyword phrases in the search engines (not just Google) and see who's ranking in the first twenty SERPs, evaluate the quality of the information, evaluate the backlinks, and estimate how high the barrier to entry is by considering how much time, money and content I will need to compete effectively. Included is considering ways to differentiate my site over the competition and if the differences are enough to convince others to link to it.

[gm10]

martinibuster, thank you very much for stopping by.

I was hoping that someone would prove me wrong. :(

[martinibuster]

How do I know that this is publisher information data? They all probably scoop up Google's information anyway

Years ago, not sure about nowadays, wordtracker used to get their data from smaller meta search engines and then use a proprietary process to extrapolate that data to represent trends on Google, Yahoo, etc.

I'm not a fan of SEO software because it constricts me to the inherent limitations of the software's capabilities.

[gm10]

>proprietary process to extrapolate that data to represent trends on Google, Yahoo, etc.

Good thing I asked my question before wasting months on building useless sites.

Thanks a lot.