Large websites are generally not concerned with keyword competition. But for new websites, this is mandatory.
This reason is:
New websites that are under 3-6 months old usually won’t be able to get high rankings when competing with websites that are over that age. Because Google is not sure about us yet.
That’s why we should look for keywords with low competition first, so that we get quite a lot of visitors without having to wait long. That way, our reputation on Google will also be formed. These are the steps you have to take to evaluate keyword competition in SEO.
… one thing you need to understand
There is a misunderstanding that is always made by people who are new to SEO and keyword research. Don’t let yourself get trapped.
If you have ever opened Google Keyword Planner, you must have seen a column called “Competition” similar to this picture:
Watch out…
…this not related to with SEO. Google Keyword Planner is a tool for AdWords. So the competition referred to here is the difficulty level of AdWords ads. High offers in these keywords lots of ads, while low means little or no ads.
Don’t use it as a benchmark for SEO.
OK, continue…
1. Install MozBar or SEOQuake
When we want to identify the difficulty level of a keyword, it means we have to know whether the websites on page 1 are big websites or not. For that, we need this tool.
Install only one, not both:
I personally prefer MozBar to SEOQuake because the numbers shown are less than SEOQuake. Only numbers matter. So if you want something easy, choose MozBar…
…if you want something really complete, go for SEOQuake.
Both are free and we can use them to do keyword competition analysis. There is no dilemma which one you choose.
After installation, try to do a search on Google. If not, try restarting the browser you are using, activating the extension that was just installed, or clicking the relevant button at the top right of the browser (Chrome).
If so, let’s continue.
There are TONS of numbers and symbols in those search results. Especially on SEOQuake. In order not to get dizzy, I will explain one by one.
2. Look at the PageRank (PR) or PA & DA numbers
First meaning:
PageRank or PR is a number from 0-10 which shows how high the website’s reputation is based on an algorithm officially created by Google. N/A indicates that the website does not yet have a PageRank.
But unfortunately the PR figures are now no longer updated. PA (Page Authority) is a number generated by Moz from 0-100 which shows how high the reputation of a website page is. Not an official number from Google, but the algorithm is made to be close.
Whereas DA (Domain Authority) is similar to PA but for the entire domain. Not per page. So the higher the PR, PA, and DA, the more difficult the competition.
Conversely, keywords that generate websites with low PR, PA, and DA numbers usually have easy competition. Usually, what is said to be “easy” is those whose PA and DA are below 25.
But that’s not enough…
…we evaluate further with other figures.
3. Look at the number and quality of backlinks
We know that backlinks are one of the biggest factors that affect a website’s ranking in search engines. Backlinks also affect the PA, DA, and PR numbers. Therefore, more backlinks means more difficult competition.
This is for SEOQuake:
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- L: number of backlinks to that page
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- LD: the number of backlinks to the entire domain
And this is for MozBar, as shown above there are 2 parts:
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- Left: number of pages offering backlinks to that page
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- Right: number of pages showing backlinks to the entire domain
While RDs (root domains) means the number of domains that provide backlinks.
But the amount is not enough.
In fact, there are also many websites that use black hat SEO techniques so that they have lots of backlinks and large PA/DA. Therefore, click on the number to see the backlinks.
If there are a lot of them but it turns out that most of the topics don’t relate to the page, this might be relatively easy.
4. Look at the title and topic of the content
Relevance is number one. That is, the match between what people are looking for through these keywords with the results displayed by Google. As a search engine, Google definitely wants to show the right results.
But there are also keywords that are not yet available related content.
5. See for yourself the quality of the content and website
Actually, this is the easiest and most accurate way.Just like method number 4 above, we can do this without using any tools.The logic is this:
Google will always try to show websites with the best content in the top positions, the reason is that people will be satisfied if they are given the best content.
Therefore, the main key is quality.
To find out the quality of a website and its content, visit each one on the first page. If it turns out not good, it means easy. Even if the PA/DA is big and there are lots of backlinks, but if the content is bad then you can definitely rank 1.
So, it depends. If you feel you can create better content than them, it means this keyword is easy. If you can’t, it means it’s hard.
Analysis of many keywords at once
If you follow steps from the previous section in the keyword research guide, you will have hundreds or even thousands of keywords. Because of that, it would be a hassle to analyze one by one.
Therefore, use it Term Explorer .
Although not 100% accurate, we can use Term Explorer as an example to eliminate keywords that are too difficult.
Like this:
The scale is from 1-10. From just this one click, we’ve got 2 keywords with very easy competition (even though one of them is inappropriate). Apart from checking competition, Term Explorer can also be used to find new keywords and search volume per month. Like Google Keyword Planner.
If you want to try, please list the free model. Those are all the steps we can take to do a keyword competition analysis. Next, we will talk more about Long Tail Keywords.
