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Went Hot: April 14, 2008 - 3:36 pm
Posted By: TheNanny612 145 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.seodesignsolutions.com)
Category: SEO
The Advantages and Disadvantages of Competitive Keywords.
12 Comments
Comments
We may need to redefine the term "long-tail" if we're going to talk about targeting long-tail keyword phrases. To me, the long-tail consists of terms you don't actually optimize for -- they're not competitive, so just having them on a page should suffice. You find your long-tail phrases not by picking them in advance, but by looking at searches that are bringing in just a few readers. You may choose at that point to push the phrase a bit more, but I still wouldn't go so far as to call that "targeting" the phrase.
If you're actually targeting a phrase, intentionally creating content to rank for it, no matter how long, specific and non-competitive it might be, I don't think you should call describe it as "long-tail."
There's a pretty wide area between a niche's top keywords and the long-tail, and the phrases that sit in that area are certainly worth planning and optimizing for.
The most stupid thing SEOs say most often: ... The process (of getting Top 10 rankings for competitive keywords) could take up to a year to achieve saturation due to competition...
The process could take up to a year? Really? And what if the website now at # 10 gains relevance score at a pace that is higher than the pace at which your site, already at # 11, is gaining relevance score? You'll obviously never catch up.
@Querty:
I agree, if the post was elusive, I am referring to was less competitive phrases that still fall into a competitive category, 75K - 250K "results in Google in quotes" for example.
In reference to pushing the phrase a bit more, I optimize for semantic root phrases often so that any range of modifiers are included as a relevant result, but I see your point, but fail to see how the use of the word targeting can be intepreted out of context.
@emanuelh:
I have to disagree with you on this one. So, here we are basing opinions on heuristic trial and error, but to go so far as to make it a personal statement and call it stupid, I simply cannot follow you on that one.
Throughout the process of optimization, optimizing for anything less than top 10 placement is a waste. I know that I started building links in April of 07 for our site and we are ranking quite nicely. So, if you can rank for the one word "SEO" in one year (like we have) then we can talk about throwing the word stupid and top 10 rankings around in the same sentence.
The gist was competition, relevance and trust which was also mentioned...
:-)
http://www.seodesignsolutions.com ranks indeed # 2 for SEO in AltaVista but not in the Top one hundred results of google.com or any other local google, except google.in where it ranks # 17. Hardly something to brag about, considering the poor popularity of AltaVista nowadays.
The second most stupid thing SEOs say most often is that the number of pages relevant for a given search query is relative to the level of competitiveness to be encountered while optimizing for that search query.
Suppose you're already # 11 for a number of search queries, and your temporary goal is to be # 10 for as many of them as possible within a month and a definite budget.
Obviously the level of competitiveness of each search query is determined by the relevance score gap between your page at # 11 and the page at the target ranking of 10. It has nothing practical to do with the number of relevant pages for each of those search queries, and even less with which one has 75K - 250K "results in Google in quotes"
Emanuelh:
First or all. Check your stats, www.seodesignsolutions.com DOES rank in the top 100 in www.google.com between to 40s and the 70's in Google for "SEO" in the US, in the 30's -40 for additional modifiers SEO Expert, SEO Consulting, SEO Company, Top 10 for SEO Web Design, Etc. The point here is, here we have one person who wants to pick apart a blog post (YOU), why I have no idea. Frankly if that is your thing, then by all means enjoy it, personally I find your comments way out of left field anyway.
First comment from you: "The process could take up to a year? Really? And what if the website now at # 10 gains relevance score at a pace that is higher than the pace at which your site, already at # 11, is gaining relevance score? You'll obviously never catch up".
My reply: "Talking about relevance and relevance score, if you were at #11 then obviously you have already optimized the content, then just giving the links, allinanchor, allintitle and allintext time to pass their respective litmus tests would suggest to add a link from the top 10 or just give it time to break the barrier to entry and hit the top 10.
Assumption#1 from you: Obviously the level of competitiveness of each search query is determined by the relevance score gap between your page at # 11
This is your argument? Seriously, if this is your point, maybe it is you who should not be throwing the word stupid and SEO around so much. You take one component out of hundreds and dare to pick it apart to make this your theory of the day?
Seriously, spare me your sarcasm, it is a blog post. If it bothers you that much, then just don't read it. There are far more constructive ways to enjoy a Monday morning.
It's amazing how SEO workers survive and even thrive with no idea of the fundamental notions of this profession:
What barrier is there at # 10 to be broken? There's a web page just like yours unto which SEO work is done too, in order to make it # 9 or at least to maintain the gap between it and yours.
The consolidated relevance score calculated by Google's algorithm for every Web page and for
every search query is not one component out of many (many what?) but the sum of all.
I am aware of relevance score, so then what you are saying is that competition for a keyword has nothing to do with ranking.
What you fail to realize is the context of what you are arguing. Let's just go back to basics. I challenge you to pick a competitive phrase with over 1MM competing pages (referencing allinanchor results) and hit the top 10 starting from scratch, that was the context.
So I suppose having a top 5 position in Yahoo UK for the root keyword SEO is nothing to take note of either (for a site barely over 1 year old), surely there is nobody in the UK targeting that phrase right? Don't be krass!
Emanuelh, your argument is petty, show me your site so I can shoot holes in it or rather see the gems of your expert SEO strategy. Either that or come down off your soap box and quit talking down to people like they are your subjects.
This entire contingent harboring on word choice and mere descepencies in volcabulary and definition. Can you read between the lines or is everything you read broken asunder in bite sized chunks so you can piece it back together just to gain satisfaction?
Seriously, before you go spouting about SEO's not knowing their techniques from a hole in the ground. You should have a stable foundation yourself. I have heard you now in an insulting tone state the same thing. We understand what relevance is, but do you? and how this applies to the post in question? at this point, I firmly doubt it, but I do know that you the type of personality that likes to have the last word and something this ridiculous count drag out indefinitely.
Let's just agree to disagree and call it a wrap. Otherwise your personal statements you throw around so loosely could be taken as insulting. Which unfortunately would be a shame over stating that competition for a keyword has an affect on rankings.
In the ideal dreamworld most SEO workers believe they live in nobody else optimizes his web pages but you. There are barriers to be broken by hard work but it is unimaginable that the guy above you in the SERP takes the barrier with him while he runs up the relevance score hill. As you do in fact to the guy just below you. The question who runs faster is determined of course by the effectiveness of the SEO techniques employed and the amount of work invested, which is determined in turn by the size of the SEO budget.
Think dynamically: saying that within a year or so you'll be number 1, or whatever ranking you target, amounts to believing that you are able to keep all your competitors idle, or to sabotage their efforts effectively, or to ensure that your client provides you with such a large SEO budget that you will gain relevance score at a pace that will always be higher than anyone else's and yet one year will be sufficient to close the gap between you and those who started years before you.
In many cases this exactly happens and you're # 1 within the promised time interval. Meaning that your competitors were lazy, ineffective or constricted by an SEO budget allocated to the firm that presented the lowest price quote. So what? You couldn't know it in advance. And therefore these are happy circumstances and not the foundations of a theory of how things work in SEO.
What you propose is accounted for in the strategies we utlize to optimize. We understand that is is about engagement, relevance, link popularity, thematic site structure, consistent updates but all to what end? The end result of our stratgies are to gain authority, which is one metric that is not as easy to put finger on. I do not assume that the competition is going to hand over the keys to to their keywords.
Budget is one consideration, but not the crowning achievement. You make a good point in the last comment, but the statement was not saying that an exact time frame as a blanket statement. It was designed to indicate that it is hard work and don't just expect competitive keywords to fall in line just because you want them.
It's like the 10 page website that wants to rank for terms that are barely on the page. The page is merely a guidepost of what business owners should prepare themselves for. A battle, not just with competition but more importantly with the algorithm to give it what it needs to preclude the other several million competing websites.
An estimated time frame (or cost or both) for reaching a target ranking is 100% imaginary. Even if you already are # 11 you can have no idea whether the relevance score gap between the page at # 10 and yours is one point or ten thousand points, and whether the page at # 10 is gaining one point a month or ten thousand.
You know nothing about the relevance scores of your pages either. Simply because the search engines do not want to let you know. So you are left with looking at the rankings, which only show the descending order of the relevance scores of all those pages. This is SEO theory in a nutshell.
Good discussion here. Thanks for the shared knowledge on competitive keywords and how to make it to the search engines.