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How does everybody in this forum decide/define a "competitive" KW phrase?
Eg. When would an "average" webmaster/SEO optimiser decide that it isn't worth spending too much time on a particular KW phrase because it was too difficult to rank high enough in SERPS?
Would it be when "allintitle" is above a certain number? What number?
Would it be when "allinanchor" is above a certain number? What number?
What other considerations do people give?
Thanks.
There might only be 100 pages in a sector, but if they're all PR10 and SEO'd to perfection with a million anchor text inbounds, you have a lot of work to do to get to up from position 101.
Big exaggeration, but you get the picture.
TJ
As the other posters have said, there's no hard and fast rule - it really is a gut feel... but allinanchor does provide some guidance.
allinanchor is typically what I use as a gauge.
Allinanchor on it's own will not show you the sometimes massive gulf between the various pages listed top 10. No matter how many results it returns.
Organic links naturally follow top 10 SERPS result pages for competitive terms in my experience. Often getting to #9 with a really decent site is all you need to do. Then wait.
So relying on allinanchor, seeing a high number of returns and quiting the game, could be a mistake as the #9 or #10 spot is actually there for the taking with only a little legwork.
That, imo, is where the gut instinct part must come into it in order to make an informed decision.
TJ
0-1,000 = easy
1,000-5,000 = medium
Something like that, I have no clue...
Anyone want to post a little guide that we can somewhat go by. Obviously things like PR of the top pages will also be another factor, but maybe this can give us a general outlook.
Can anyone classify the competitiveness for allinanchor results, such as
0-1,000 = easy
1,000-5,000 = medium
under 10K: easy -1
under ~50K: easy
under ~100K: easy +1
under ~500K: medium -1
under ~1 million: medium +1
~2 million - 5 million: hard -1
~5 - 10 million: hard +1
~10 million and higher: extremely competitive.
no - not really.
Myself personally if I see anything under 100K search results (not allinanchor results) - I pretty much consider that fair game, open territory, virgin market - whatever you want to call it.
Myself, I am a very poor SEO and I am finding it difficult to get in the Top 20 for ANY of my pages. Even the KWs that have less than 500 in allintitle and allinanchor, I still rank in the 100's.
Up till now, I have only used allintitle and allinanchor to gauge the competition but since this thread I have looked at the PR and backlinks of my competitors who are in the top 20. But now my confidence has been hit even more coz they have less backlinks and a lower PR!
Gee whizz I must be doing something seriously wrong so I think I might give up being a web-beginner and take up crochet instead (apologies to any crochet webdesigners out there).
Definitely use yahoo or alltheweb to check backlinks as many are no longer showing in google. It's selective.
Also, quantity doesn't always beat quality so do some investigation.
Focus on structure, linking and good content. There isn't much you can't do with those three factors so long as you don't blatently break any rules. Your site also won't do well generally for 2-3 months if it's brand new. Do a search for "sandbox" for more on that.
