Analyzing the Competition on Google
Finding keywords is easy. Finding 'good' keywords however is a whole different ball game.
Unfortunately, most popular keywords inevitably end up having a lot of competition. After all - everyone wants to cash in on the most popular keywords out there, right? Certainly, it should come as no surprise to you that a keyword such as 'make money online' has tons and tons of competition.
However, even looking at the slightly less popular keywords, you'll find that there are a lot of them out there that have quite a bit of competition. What you need to realize though is that it doesn't really matter how much competition a certain keyword has.
What matters is the quality of that competition.
For example, if your competition is made up of 'high authority' websites such as those from government bodies, Wikipedia, and so on, then sure, you're probably going to never beat those websites.
On the flipside, some terms that have 500,000 results end up with a top result that really doesn't even match the keyword fully, doesn't have a high Page Rank, and isn't really all that great at all.
In such a situation, you'll undoubtedly be able to surpass that site with ease!
Being able to analyze the competition that you come up against on Google is going to be a very important asset as it will allow you to differentiate between the quality of the competition that you're up against, and determine how easily you could overcome them.
Whenever you're looking at the competition that you face, check out the top 5 or top 10 results. What do they consist of? Are there forum posts in there? Article directories? Or are most of the listings all from PR4 or higher websites?
If most of the listings are from high authority websites then you might want to just not bother. However, if there are a few 'lesser' listings there then you'll find that while getting the top spot might be impossible, you could still end up edging into the 9th or 10th place on the listings!
So long as you're on the front page, you're going to be getting a lot of exposure, and so 9th or 10th is really pretty good in the long run.
Keep looking at the competition for various keywords and soon enough you'll find that you develop a feel for this kind of thing. Once you reach that stage, you won't even have to consciously analyze the competition, but instead you'll find that you do it automatically every time you stare at Google's results.
Remember: There's no point trying to bite off more than you can chew! Keep your expectations reasonable, and be sure to capitalize on what you know you can!
|
