A good rule of thumb for competition and local searches when selecting keywords
-
I'm doing keyword research in the Google Keyword Tool and was looking and spending a lot of time looking at keyword competition and local searches. I'm trying to determine what is a good rule of thumb for what level of competition and local searches people have used when selecting the keywords they will optimize for. I've currently been trying to find ones that have less than 50% (moderate) competition and less than 1,000 monthly searches.
Also, which do you put more weight on the competition or the number of searches.
-
I don't know if you saw this. Its very good timing that Rand wrote a blog post about this very subject!
Check it out, as always its a worthwhile read.
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-places-citations-5-tactics-to-earn-links-for-your-local-business
-
Eric,
Let me add that the keyword difficulty tool doesn't necessaraly apply to local search. A LOT of other stuff is looked at as far as local SEO.
You should check out David Mihm's bolg. It is one of the BEST resources available in local search.
-
That helps. thanks.
-
Citations are the "link" equivalent for local search. If you go to your places page, there is a section that says "more about this place" That is info google has scraped from other local sources that mention your businesses. They may or may not contain a link.
Looking at your citations and your competitors is a good area to work on improving your listing in Google Places.
Heres an image of a citation section.
-
Hi Roger,
What is a citation? What constitutes a strong or a weak constitute citation?
-
Oh and a strong listing you would be more focused on number of searches if you feel it's realistic you could rank for it.
-
Oh and a strong listing you would be more focused on number of searches if you feel it's realistic you could rank for it.
-
It depends how strong your citations are. If your new or ave a weak listing I'd pay more attention to competition?
-
Hi Pashmina,
For the total results, do you put each term into Google individually to find this result, or is there a tool where you can run multiple keywords at a time?
Eric
-
I would use more than the above two factors for selecting keywords. I think of the various research tools and metrics I pull from them as varying sieves to filter and boil down a list.
I'll start with hundreds, if not thousands of words and then narrow my list by adjusting the thresholds for each factor until I get a nice list. Along with monthly searches and competition, I'd immediately add the total number of search results for that keyword. For example maybe you start with a threshold of less than 5,000 monthly, 80% competition and less than 600K total results. And if you still have too many keywords you adjust your thresholds and tweak according to what makes sense for your market/audience and goals.
And go deeper and add more factor, like estimated CPC, SEO Moz difficulty score, or # of competitors and factors you can pull from other keyword research tools.
-
Don't fear competition because where there is competition there is also (usually) a lot of search volume and a lot of money changing hands. Instead attack with long, diverse copy to pull in the long tail queries.
-
I try not to take that into account when choosing keywords to optimize for organic. The competition may correlate to organic efforts but you can't let that dictate your optimization. You have to optimize for what your audience/clients are searching for. IMO.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Homepage keyword changing strategy
Hi! We're a spanish construction company and we've been positioning our home with the keyword "wooden homes". We also have a specific landing page positioned with that same keyword. Right now we are getting out of a penguin and panda penalization and we're doing well. As part of a rebranding strategy we are thinking of changing our homepage keyword to "luxury homes". We are still going to hace the "wooden houses" landing page but this keyword is just going to be present in its own landing. The new keyword has much more volume of search than the one we have right now. Is there a strategy you can recomend us for this rebranding? Thanks
Keyword Research | | Canexel0 -
How to do keyword research for a specific webpage
Kindly let me know how to do keyword research for a specific webpage and what is the process.
Keyword Research | | AlexanderWhite0 -
Need a keyword tool for the whole company
I alone cannot do keyword research on all of the online content that my company produces. There are about 10 publishing support teams who could do this research themselves, once trained, but I don't know which tool to suggest they use since they can't all use my MOZ login. Right now, those who do any research at all are using Google Trends. Wrong answer, but of course they are used to Trends for their social campaigns. Has your company dealt with this situation? I've looked at a few free keyword tools...each seems to have its plusses and minusses. **What would you recommend...either as a free tool or possible other workaround? **
Keyword Research | | Jen_Floyd0 -
Optimize the ranking with the right keyword
Hi, I would like to know the processs if i want use in the same time 2 keywords. "géolocalisation véhicule" and " geolocalisation vehicule " As you can see the diffence is just the accent and i would like have the same ranking for both Thank for your help Steve
Keyword Research | | fleurya1 -
Keywords google takes into account
hello MOzzers, I know some words are not as important whenGoogle indexes or crawls ex the word "the" etc. I am curios what weightage google places on the word " google" when people search. Silly question?? maybe hee hee, but I would like to know. Its been bugging me. Thank you so much, V
Keyword Research | | vijayvasu0 -
Keyword Difficulty Score Assesment
What is a good keyword difficulty score to pursue when deciding which keywords to try and rank on? I'm in a very competitive field and I am currently in the process of doing keyword research to look for the low hanging fruit.
Keyword Research | | 13375auc30 -
Google Keyword Estimator
Hello Does the Google traffic estimator include the impact of instant? For example, if I type the phrase "London restaurant", instant may provide a list of search results for the phrase "London restaurant guide" prior to me confirming whether or not I just want to search using the phrase "London restaurant". Is this registered in any way as a search for the phrase "London restaurant guide" (i.e. does Instant impact upon the search volumes presented in the Google traffic estimator)? In addition, is there any up to date assessment on how reliable the revised traffic estimator is? The tool currently suggests that for a well known brand we are working for does not have any search volume (over a whole year) for the brand keyphrase when used in isolation (there is traffic for various combinations of the brand and a generic term). However, as one would expect, our analytics data is showing that there are in excess of 1 million annual visitors that use the brand keyphrase in isolation to access the website via natural search and nearly 1.5 million via PPC. Is anyone else getting these problems? Thanks in advance for any assistance. Rgds Neil
Keyword Research | | mccormackmorrison1 -
Keyword Traffic Estimator Tools
Hello, I'm relatively new to SEO and looking to find a good tool for estimating the search traffic volume of different keywords in order to focus efforts on higher yielding terms. Right now I'm using Google's traffic estimator but it doesn't seem to have much data for long-tail keywords. Is anything else out there better or more accurate? Thank you!
Keyword Research | | rawberg0