In Fundamentals Lesson 3, the concept of acceptable levels of competition was introduced but without saying how to measure acceptable. You can find out fairly quickly that a web site built around “Harry Potter” is likely to face unacceptable competition, but at what point does it become acceptable? The real answer to this is: it depends. It depends on time and money. With enough time and enough money you can be on page 1 of Google for anything.

To determine what we consider to be an acceptable level of competition we need to be scientific.

Google Keyword Tool

Type Keyword Tool into Google to go to Googles Keyword Tool site. The tool is designed to identify keywords that Google users use to find information. It allows advertisers to target their advertising to attract visitors.  The really important information it gives from an SEO point of view is the volume of traffic for a given keyword and the competition for that keyword. The competition indicates the number of advertisers competing for those keywords which in turn is a good indication of the number of internet sites optimized for those keywords.

Type Harry Potter Movies Cast into the tool and study the results.

There are 5 columns (Google regularly enhances this tool and what you see may differ slightly) The first column is a set of keywords (and phrases) related to Harry Potter Movies Cast. The third, fourth and fifth column show the number of searches per month for each keyword locally (to where you are) and globally as well as the trend over the last 12 months. The second column is the really useful one. This gives the relative competition for these keywords.

The best keywords are this with high traffic and low competition. Generally, the lower the competition, the lower the traffic, but occassionally you will see a keyword that has very low competition but an attractive level of traffic. This is where to aim.

There is a problem with Googles Keyword tool. It doesn’t (easily) quantify the level of competition. You can go a long way with the tool but for serious SEO, this is where a specialist tool can really make a difference.

The SEO Lesson

Googles Keyword Tool is a great foirst step in identifying a selection of keyword within a particular niche. It gives accurate and current data about search volumes. It also gives a good indication of the competition for keywords. And, it’s free.

So Google’s keyword tool is great but to really be scientific about Search Engine Optimization, you need a specialist tool and you will need to pay for it.  There are several good SEO research tools available and in Fundamentals Lesson 6, we look at one of them – Market Samurai.