Part 1: Choosing the Right Keywords to Target – Keyword Competition

Competition

Everybody wants to be Number One on Google, but the big question is, Number One for what? When you do      a search on Google, you search by keywords or phrases and, based on your query, Google ranks pages it thinks are most relevant to your search. With many possible combinations, how do you decide what keywords or phrases you wish to target for which to be Number One?

Of course the easy answer is all of them, but in reality this is not achievable; you need to choose the keywords and terms you think will bring in the most targeted traffic to your site. When working up a keyword list, there are a few steps you can take to determine the best list for your site:

1/ Keyword competition

When talking about website competition you are referring to that keyword/phrase on Google. For every search query, Google references its database and determines from a list what pages should rank 1 etc. For every query you can see how large the reference list is, and, in very broad terms, the higher the number, the more competitive the term. In the example below, for “economical SEO NSW”, Google referenced over 73.9 million pages to get it listed, which is considered a high level of competition. Obviously, the lower the competition, the easier the keyword would be to rank.

2/ Website competition

For every query, you are competing with other websites for the top spot. Google first generates a list of potential pages, then ranks them according to how relevant it thinks it is to the query. The higher the authority a site has, the higher it will rank, so you not only need to consider the number of pages Google is referencing, but the quality of the pages that appear. Are the first few pages of listing taken up by .gov sites, or sites like wiki etc? If so, especially for a new site, it will take time and effort to gain enough authority to outrank the established sites. You may need to consider other variations of the terms of the keywords/phrases that you wish to target for queries that are not as populated as such high authority sites.

There are of course many variables to consider when working up a keyword list, and in Part Two we will look at short and long term keywords and what it means, and how best to determine which keywords to target. If you are unable to wait, or need expert advice, feel free to contact us for a free website & keyword analysis.