Competitive terms - Trumpet blowing!

Only a half million results, but the term 'Search Engine Workshop' is very
competitive. Especially so on a google.com search.
I reckon a page 1 listing isn't bad going, especially as the page looks like
its built for humans rather than robots!

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&i...ngine+workshop

--
Andy
www.RuntimeUK.com


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The Smiths wrote:

Only a half million results, but the term 'Search Engine Workshop' is
very competitive.

....err, sorry to rain on your parade, why do you think this phrases is very
competitive? Judging by
http://inventory.overture.com/d/sear...ry/suggestion/
the relative importances (judged by number of searches in September 2003)
were:

"Search engine" - 747674 searches
"SEO" - 101543 searches
and then
"Search Engine Workshop" - 78 searches

Doesn't really strike me as a highly competitive phrase on that basis....
;-)

Especially so on a google.com search.
I reckon a page 1 listing isn't bad going, especially as the page
looks like its built for humans rather than robots!

There appear to be more matches for the phrase "search engine james" than
for your phrase "search engine workshop".

http://www.google.com/search?q=search+engine+workshop
1 060 000 results

http://www.google.com/search?q=search+engine+james
1 810 000 results

I get the feeling it wouldn't be *that* hard to get in the top ten for
"search engine james".... and I don't think it would do me much good either
;-)

James

The Smiths wrote:

Only a half million results, but the term 'Search Engine Workshop' is
very competitive. Especially so on a google.com search.
I reckon a page 1 listing isn't bad going, especially as the page
looks like its built for humans rather than robots!

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&i...earch+engine+w
orkshop

I only get one-thousand pages listed for the phrase "Search Engine
Workshop". If you just enter the single words, Search Engine Workshop,
then that's totally meaningless when it comes to counting the results.
You can replace "Workshop" by "test" or "testing" and you get much more
pages. No, it's not a highly competitive term at all.

--
Google Blogoscoped
http://blog.outer-court.com

"Philipp Lenssen" <info (AT) outer-court (DOT) com> wrote

The Smiths wrote:

Only a half million results, but the term 'Search Engine Workshop' is
very competitive. Especially so on a google.com search.
I reckon a page 1 listing isn't bad going, especially as the page
looks like its built for humans rather than robots!

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&i...earch+engine+w
orkshop

I only get one-thousand pages listed for the phrase "Search Engine
Workshop". If you just enter the single words, Search Engine Workshop,
then that's totally meaningless when it comes to counting the results.
You can replace "Workshop" by "test" or "testing" and you get much more
pages. No, it's not a highly competitive term at all.

--
Google Blogoscoped
http://blog.outer-court.com

Its not about numbers, its about how hard the other sites are trying. Any
search term with 'search engine' in is going to be highly contested, and by
people who know what they are doing.

--
Andy


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"James" <james (AT) exim (DOT) dyndns.org> wrote

The Smiths wrote:
Only a half million results, but the term 'Search Engine Workshop' is
very competitive.

...err, sorry to rain on your parade, why do you think this phrases is
very
competitive? Judging by
http://inventory.overture.com/d/sear...ry/suggestion/
the relative importances (judged by number of searches in September 2003)
were:

"Search engine" - 747674 searches
"SEO" - 101543 searches
and then
"Search Engine Workshop" - 78 searches

Doesn't really strike me as a highly competitive phrase on that basis....
;-)

Especially so on a google.com search.
I reckon a page 1 listing isn't bad going, especially as the page
looks like its built for humans rather than robots!

There appear to be more matches for the phrase "search engine james" than
for your phrase "search engine workshop".

http://www.google.com/search?q=search+engine+workshop
1 060 000 results

http://www.google.com/search?q=search+engine+james
1 810 000 results

I get the feeling it wouldn't be *that* hard to get in the top ten for
"search engine james".... and I don't think it would do me much good
either
;-)

James

Hmmm - I'm sure that 'Search Engine James' would be a poor choice to get in

the top 10 for!

From overture:
"Search engine" - 747674 searches > What do you think the searchers are
actually looking for?
"SEO" - 101543 searches > Yup. Thats a good one to target.
"Search Engine Workshop" - 78 searches > What do you think they are looking
for?

It doesn't matter how many people search - its how many people *buy* thats
important. Give me 1 visitor who searches on 'buy widgets' over a 1000
visitors who search for 'widgets' any day of the week.


--
Andy




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Hi Andy,

You may find the following recent Q&A from our SEO Column useful in
determining the competitiveness of your keyword phrases.

It's been rewritten to reflect your keyword phrase.



SEO The Write Way (Search Engine Optimization Q&A)
Sharon and Roy Montero - http://www.iwon.net/seo/
Free SEO Consultation - 760-378-2539 (Pacific Time)

=========================================
Things Your Mom May Not Have Taught You About SEO
=========================================


Question: How Do I Best Determine The
Competitiveness Of A Keyword Phrase At A Glance?

While I certainly realize that the actual amount of the total
competing pages for the Top 10 rankings on Google for any keyword
phrase is only 10, is there a way that I can quickly discern a
total number for the "overall" competition for any keyword phrase?

Answer: Yes. One way is to use this syntax ...

allintitle:"keyword phrase"

The reason this is one of the most accurate ways to determine the
"overall" competition level of any keyword phrase on Google is
because every competent SEO will tell you that you must include the
keyword phrase you are optimizing for in the HTML Title Element.
Therefore a quick look at the number of pages who meet this
criteria will certainly be an excellent measure of the amount of
competing pages for any given keyword phrase.

Then on a side note, this is one of the major flaws we find with
Wordtracker, since they use the "EXACT PHRASE" syntax, (i.e.,
"keyword phrase") for their total number of competing pages for any
given keyword phrase.

Compare the number of competing pages for the following queries.

..............................
::: Date: 11/11/03 :::
..............................

search engine workshop
http://www.google.com/search?q=search+engine+workshop
915,000 competing pages found

"search engine workshop"
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22se...ne+workshop%22
1,650 competing pages found

allintitle:"search engine workshop"
http://www.google.com/search?q=allin...ne+workshop%22
37 competing pages found
..............................


SEO TIP: Of course it is important to keep in mind that not every
page optimized for this specific keyword phrase (or any keyword
phrase) will have this keyword phrase included in the HTML Title
Element, so the actual number of pages and the actual pages
themselves will not be 100% accurate or all inclusive. So what does
that mean exactly? Well, as in this case, the #1 ranked page for
.... search engine workshop < searchengineworkshops.com > ... does
not include that keyword phrase, (i.e., as the singular form) in
the HTML Title Element, but they do include the plural form of the
keyword phrase.

As a search engine optimization student, you will do well to
remember that SEO is NOT an exact science. But there are certain
formulas that can be used to give you an edge into knowing which
keyword phrases are the easiest or least difficult to optimize for.
In other words, those keyword phrases that have little or no
competing pages, optimally speaking, of course.


Compare the number of competing pages for the plural form.


..............................
::: Date: 11/11/03 :::
..............................

search engine workshops
http://www.google.com/search?q=search+engine+workshops
471,000 competing pages found

"search engine workshops"
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22se...kshops%222,880
competing pages found

allintitle:"search engine workshops"
http://www.google.com/search?q=allin...workshops%2 2
46 competing pages found
..............................


Here are the current Wordtracker numbers.


..............................
::: Date: 11/11/03 :::
Total Number Of Daily Searches
..............................

search engine workshop = 0

search engine workshops = 2
..............................


Your Friends,

Sharon and Roy Montero - FREE Consultation 760-378-2539 (Pacific Time)
Want To Learn All About Search Engine Optimization? We Teach A 6 Week
Online SEO Class - Learn SEO The Write Way - There Is So Much More To
SEO Than Just Meta Tags ::: http://www.iwon.net/seo/class-description/

Andy Smith wrote:

Its not about numbers, its about how hard the other sites are trying.
Any search term with 'search engine' in is going to be highly
contested, and by people who know what they are doing.

That's wrong. It would be easy to get high-rankings for your
any-term-in-combination approach. It's totally useless if the term
added is not competitive in that combination. I'm not saying "Search
Engine Workshop" is totally bad to be at number 1. It's actually good
and will get some visitors. I just don't see it as any great
money-maker, benefit, or ahead-of-the-competition kind of situation.
Just fire up Google AdWords and you can check the results for phrases
like "Search Engine Optimization" (45 clicks-per-day) vs "Search Engine
Workshop" (0,2 clicks- per-day ).

On Tue, 11 Nov 2003 17:09:20 -0000, "Andy Smith" <andy (AT) runtimeuk (DOT) com>
wrote:

"SEO" - 101543 searches > Yup. Thats a good one to target.

I currently have 37th position for SEO for the site in the sig :-)) Up
over 100 places over the last few days.

David
_
Free Search Engine Optimization, SEO and
Search Engine Placement Tips (updated 10/10/2003)
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ooar123...-optimization/