Don’t attempt to optimize your site with keywords that have a lot of competition. For example, if you were to a search on Google for the keyword ÔÇ£SEOÔÇØ you would get a result of 716,000,000 pages. You don’t have to be a genius of marketing to know that there is too much competition for this specific keyword and that it will be very hard to rank well for this term. Therefore, besides concentrating efforts on on keywords that are easier and more attainable to rank for.

By now you most likely understand how important it is to do proper research of keywords. Therefore, you will probably want to know how you should do this. Well, it is very important that you point out that individuals have different tool and methods for achieving this search. In the initial instance, your primary goal will be finding and optimizing your site for keywords with low competition.

Keywords with low competition are the keywords that have a good search volume but very low competition. Good monthly search volume is classified as anything above 1,000 searches each month and most likely 3,000 searches. By having low competition, the sties that occupy the initial 10 pages on Google may be beaten.

Good monthly search volume + low amount of competition = success in SEO.

High search volume monthly + high amount of competition = failure in SEO.

Now will it be easy to find these keywords with low competition? No. The internet is very competitive, when other firms of SEO find these keywords with low competition they will take advantage of them for their clients. Although, that is not to say that you won’t be able to find a lot of great keywords that can still be found.

You need to start with understanding that the goal of keyword research is to find those keywords that have a good search volume each month and low competition. When looking for keyword research you should look at it as stages or processes.

First you will need to decide upon the business category or niche that you might want to get into, this might be something such as ÔÇ£home renovationÔÇØ or ÔÇ£NY commercial insuranceÔÇØ.

Second, you will need to use keyword research tools to make sure of the interest in the category or niche and look at the search volumes and keywords. Then look into the bigger picture, for example how much competition of the niche has for certain keywords.

Finally look at the top 10 websites and look at what the chances are that you can out-rank them. After all you goal will be to get ranked on the first page of Google, or even number one. Therefore, in reality the only true competition are the 10 websites that are taking up the first page on Google.

Stage 1 ÔÇô Determine Which Keyword Category You Want To Get Into

This is truly a decision that you need to make on your own. You might be compassionate about a certain business subject or sector. You will be surprised at what interests individuals share as well. One tip of advice is to look into Google trends. You may view what is currently popular and can see a chart of the popular topics. Initially, it won’t matter which category or niche you are choosing since you will find out if there is a market for the subject.

Stage 2 ÔÇô Determining If There’s A Market For Your Category

Once you have chosen the category that you would like, you need to make sure that there is a market for it. However, there are many methods to doing this but it’s easier using the free wordtracker keyword tool or the Google Keyword Tool. Use this tool to analyze the search volumes. As mentioned, if the search volume is more than 1,000 then this may be something you will want to get into. You will want to get a list of words that are related to your category for the next stage.

Stage 3 ÔÇô Looking At The Greater Picture

As soon as you have created your list of keywords, you will now need to look at the greater picture. This can help you get a clear idea of your ranking chances. This does take a lot of effort and time, however it will be worth it.

The information that you will now learn is how you will do your research for keywords. Take your keyword and type it into the Google search engine and do these next steps:

Step 1 ÔÇô General Search

Type your keyword into the search engine and take note of the results you get. There are no fast and hard rules, you must use your own judgment. If the search results are above 100,000,000 pages then it is possible that the keyword is too competitive. If the results are under 100,000,000 then it could be that the competition isn’t that bad. Use a general search to understand how much competition you are against.

Step 2 ÔÇô Perform ÔÇ£inanchorÔÇØ search

This step is the most important step that you will take. This inanchor search command will show you how many sites have this keyword as anchor text that is pointing back to their site. You may think that if they have this keyword pointing back to their site, that they have performed some kind of linking building campaign for this specific keyword. Therefore, it is logical to think that they are your competition. Generally a result that is under 1,000 is good.

Step 3 ÔÇô Perform ÔÇ£intitleÔÇØ search

The next step you need to take is performing the intitle search in google. This result will show you how many sites have this keyword in their tag. It is usually accepted by many professionals of SEO that the title tag is very important for their SEO, as it is one of the very first things that is looked at by the search engines. This command will also give you an approximate figure of how many websites are competing for this keyword.

Step 4 ÔÇô Perform ÔÇ£inanchorÔÇØ and ÔÇ£intitleÔÇØ Search

Now you will want to perform both of the search terms. This is going to give you the total amount of your serious competition. Smart marketers of SEO will usually have this keyword in their title tag along with building backlinks using the keyword. Therefore, this will give you a good idea of just how much competition you are against.

Stage 4 ÔÇô Analyze the Top 10 Sites for Your Keyword

This will conclude stage 3. Hopefully, by this time you have now selected a keyword that has good search volume and a low amount of link building competition. Although, you can’t quit here. You will now need to analyze the top 10 sites on the first page of Google. So far, you have only compared the competition. Basically, you will only need to try and beat the first 10 sites. After all, your main goal is being the first rank one Google or at least within the first page. Now you need to analyze just how strong these competitors are.

Step 1 ÔÇô Type Keyword Into Google

The initial step is very easy, type this keyword into Google and take note of the first 10 results.

Step 2 ÔÇô Take Each Site and Look At Backlinks

The second step is to look into the backlinks of each site. It is impossible that you are going an exact amount of results on the amount of backlinks that the site is pointing to, however you may still get a good idea. Try using One Utility or Yahoo Site Explorer. Enter the name of the domain and look at the amount of backlinks that the site is pointing to. The more backlinks means there is more backlink building competition.

Step 3 ÔÇô Look Age Domain Age

Most professionals of SEO believe that sites that are older are more trusted by the search engines. Take a moment to search the age of the domain.

Step 4 ÔÇô Look at the Onpage Optimization of All The Sites

For each site you will need to go to their homepage and then right click and select view source. This will let you see their source code. Look and see if you are able to see any of the following:

• ┬À┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á Keyword sprinkled through the page
• ┬À┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á Keyword in the h1 tags
• ┬À┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á Keyword in description tag
• ┬À┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á Keyword in the keyword tag
• ┬À┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á Keyword at beginning of title tag

With these being absent it might indicate that the website isn’t optimized correctly and that you are able to take advantage of this.

Step 5 ÔÇô Analyze if Sites Have Keyword In URL

The search engines will put some weight onto the keywords in the domain names. If one of the sites has the keyword that you would like to rank, then it may be more difficult for you to beat this.

Step 6 ÔÇô Check Rank of Domains

Page ranking is how Google shows how important they feel the site is. You will want to look at the rank of each site. Now it might be possible to outrank a site that is much higher than yours, although it is very useful to create an overall picture of the strength of the domain.

Step 7 ÔÇô Check For Web 2.0 Prominence Properties

Unless the web 2.0 properties have been backlinked heavily, then with your very own back linking tactics you will have a good chance of beating them.

When you perform all of these steps, you will be able to get a good feeling of what you need to do. This is quite a bit of information that you need to think about, especially if you are a beginner in SEO. Hopefully, now you are able to see how important it is.