30 Second SEO Competitive Assessment

As a Denver search engine expert, I’m often asked “How hard will it be for my website to rank for blank?” When I say “rank,” I’m talking about appearing in the natural or organic search engine results (here’s an explanation of natural/organic results vs. paid placement). “Blank” can be anything – from “blog writing service” to “Denver home theater.”

Whatever “blank” is, the level of competition is usually the determining factor. More competition means more difficulty ranking for that term, and whenever I come up with an SEO estimate I need to have a good idea of the competitiveness to see if the term is something I can deliver.

Here’s how I make an educated assessment about the relative competitiveness of a search term in 30 seconds or less:

1) SEO Quake toolbar. The SEO Quake toolbar from SEM Rush is incredibly useful for SEO – I use it constantly. Whenever I’m asked about a search term, I rely upon this toolbar to give me almost all the info I need. If you want to assess the competition yourself, you need this toolbar installed first (more on how to use it below).

2) Google it. If you’re logged into a Google account, you need to log out first so you can make certain that Google doesn’t show you customized search results that could effect accuracy. Next, punch in your search term and look at the results.

3) What kind of sites rank? If you’re seeing that directory listings, articles, or press releases compose most of the top 10 search results, the search term probably isn’t too competitive. However, if you looking at search engine results from major brands like Edmunds.com, Amazon.com, CNN.com, etc., you could be looking at a battle. Branded sites almost always represent big competition. Finally, if you’re looking at websites dedicated to the search topic, you’re definitely looking at competition.

4) Link depth. Look carefully at the search results that Google shows – are the links to the results deep (i.e. stuck way down in a website) or are they main page or home page links? Deep links aren’t always a sign of weak competition, but combined with some of the other information you’ll gather deep links could confirm low competition.

5) Eyeball test. It’s time to open up the top three results (each in their own browser tab) and give them the old eyeball. Does the site look nice and modern, or does it look like 1997 all over again? Has the copyright been updated in a while? This is a subjective test, but if you look at a lot of websites you can usually spot the ones that are older and/or maintained by less savvy webmasters. Less savvy webmasters usually means less competition.

6) SEO Quake toolbar results. Once you have the top 3 results open (each in their own browser tab), it’s time to look at some hard numbers:

• Google pagerank – Google’s pagerank (abbreviated PR) is a good rough indicator of site quality and trust (and therefore competitive level). If all three of the top results are PR 5 or higher, you’re looking at some competition. PR 3-4 is likely competitive. PR3 or lower is usually inconclusive.
• Yahoo linkdomain – This is the number of links pointing to a particular site as measured by Yahoo. BIG sites, like CNN.com, might have 20 million links pointing to their domain name. New and/or beginning sites might only have 100 links. The bigger this number, the more competitive.

7) SEO Chat difficulty tool. It’s not 100% accurate (no simple test could be), but SEO Chat’s difficulty tool is a decent and free option. Searching for “keyword difficulty tool” will net a few other options as well.

This is a quick and dirty test only. Until you start to really research each website, all the inbound links for each site, the anchor text for each link, etc. this is nothing more than a rough guess. Still, if you’re new to SEO (or if you’re a business owner trying to get an idea), this is a nice and easy way to learn a little about SEO and the competitiveness of a particular search term.