subject: Keyword Ranking Tool - Golden Rule 3 - Competition [print this page] This article is the third of a four-part series which discusses the Four Golden Rules of Keyword Research and how they relate to the New Methodology of Keyword Research using the Market Samurai Keyword Tool (MSKRT).
Golden Rule 3 - Competition
Among the rules, this can be considered as the most critical. But is it also the most widely misunderstood? Many get confused on this. Thinking that if there are more web pages that use a chosen keyword, the better.
A jungle metaphor. Two hunters find themselves in front of a hungry lion; ready to pounce on them. Hunter 1's immediate response was to put his running shoes that he had in his backpack. Hunter 2 quickly tells him that his action is of no use, as there is no way they can ever outrun the lion. He responds, "My objective is not to outrun the lion, it is simply to outrun you!"
The message. To attain top Google ranking, your website need not be the best site. It just needs to be better than your competing websites.
While it is true that key phrases which are used in a large number of web pages are popular, too-high a count should actually be a clear-cut indicator to stay away from these. No matter how much we love them, the admonition is not to use them. Because their use has already reached a point of no return. Very much like what happens to words and phrases that become cliches due to overuse in the offline (real) world. The parallelism: stay way from cliches and highly-used keywords.
Under competition, therefore, the ideal is to find keywords that are not mentioned on the web too much.
There are two important facets that must be reconciled with:
Number - refers to the count of web pages that mention a specific keyword term; in the same word phrase order as per the Google index. This element is the only one which is considered under the SEOC - SEO Competition setting of the MSKRT. SEOC reports the number of web pages that mention a specific keyword.
Potency - is the quality of web pages when reconciled against a number of SEO considerations.
On-page Factors ask: is keyword in the page title?, is keyword in the URL?, is keyword in the page description?, is keyword in the page header tag?
Off-page Factors ask: how old is your domain?, does it rank high in Google?, does it have a good number of backlinks?, and others. Both on-page and off-page factor are eventually studied in the step that immediately follow the MSKRT-- which is the SEO Competition Tool.
MSKRT Recommended Setting to be in consonance with the Golden Rule 3 - Traffic: Set SEOC = 30000 competing web pages; maximum.
