Lately, I have been hearing from a lot of people who are struggling with getting higher search engine rankings. Mainly this is happening to them because while they find highly searched for keywords, they are not evaluating the competition correctly. Any Internet marketing campaign starts with keyword research, but doing the proper evaluation of competing sites for those keywords is crucial for rank success.

In a nutshell if you want higher search engine rankings you need to identify the competition for respective keywords in the right way as part of an overall keyword research strategy.

It is not a crap shoot and luck has nothing to do with it. It is true that higher search engine rankings depend a lot on keyword anchor text backlinks, but higher search engine rankings are also closely related to the proper gaging of competition for those keywords.

Higher Search Engine Rankings with Keyword Research

Once you find a keyword, you must look at the competition in two steps, both of which are crucial for higher search engine ranks.

1. Google that keyword like this: allintitle:”keyword”. Many people are not doing this, they just search for keyword, this is a mistake.

Searching with the allintitle “keyword” gives you much more precise results of the true competition for the keyword, because it only includes those sites that are trying to rank for those keywords and the results show you those sites that have the keyword in their header/meta/title tag.

But when you search for just the keyword alone then you get all the sites that just mention that keyword on their site in some way and they are not using it site-wide as their main keyword. Those sites that just mention the keyword are easily overcome, as the SE’s, and especially Google will give your site much more relevance and weight as your site uses the keyword site-wide.

So those sites that just mention the keywords will not be your true competition. The allintitle:”keyword”, will show you the true competitors for those keywords that you will need to overcome for higher search engine ranks.

Example:

laptop = 202,000,000
vs.
allintitle:”laptop” = 18,300,000

Big difference there that can make or break the decision to use a certain keyword and how easy it will be to rank for it.

2. Look at websites on the 1st page results. Many avoid doing this, another mistake! See what sites are sitting on page 1 of SERPS and specifically their Page Rank. If they are mostly PR0 – PR3 then the job to get to page 1 and achieve higher search engine ranks will not be very difficult. But, if page 1 is full of PR4, PR5 + sites then it will be difficult to outrank these sites.

First, time is on their side, they are aged and have authority and logistically it will be difficult to catch up. Second, it will take tons more effort and many more backlinks to get to page 1 because you will have to outrank those those sites. I am not saying it can’t be done, but, it is very hard and any seasoned honest SEO will tell you to look elsewhere.

Also, look at their Yahoo backlinks, age of domain and number of indexed pages, all are good indicators of their strength and how difficult it would be to out rank them.

If you look at page 1 results for allintitle:”laptop”, you will see that it’s all authority sites and no way that a small niche site could ever get to page 1 for that keyword.

These steps should be taken not only for your site-wide keywords, but also for the keywords you will use on your inner and sub pages, that is if you want higher search engine rankings for all your website/blog pages.

Tools for Evaluating Page 1 Results

There are two great browser add-ons that will give you all necessary information to evaluate those sites on page 1 directly from the SERPS. These tools are also vital for any Internet marketer to have because they show all possible information about any websites on the web, including your own.

SEO Toolbar for Firefox – Aaron Wall’s (of SEOBook) SEO Toolbar for Firefox browser shows all pertinent info for whatever site you are viewing, like highlighting no-follow links and pages, page rank, number of index pages in major search engines, site age, Alexa, DMOZ listed, Yahoo backlinks, MSN links and lots, lots more. Must Have!

SEO Quake Toolbar – Similar to the Firefox SEO Toolbar, shows pertinent SEO and Internet Marketing information for any website but this one is available for both Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Both of these when enabled (one click on their icons from the browser status bar) will show all selected information in SERP results under each website listing.

They are both similar, however you really need both, because only the SEO Toolbar highlights all no-follow links in red on any website. And, only Seo Quake places the information toolbar at the top of any website page you are visiting and not just in the SERPS so you can view all those stats on a page by page basis.

Make sure once you installed these, to activate them by clicking their icons in the browser bottom status bar, when they are on they will be in color, when off, they are black and white.

Now go get some higher search engine ranks!