Description
Trying to rank for the most “obvious keywords” in your niche (by dethroning the Kings and Queens in your industry with limitless SEO budgets) is no different to trying to park a vehicle in a parking lot that’s maxed out.
Why isn’t it a great idea to go after the most “obvious keywords” in your niche?
Put simply: they are what everyone is trying to rank for.
But the “size of competition” isn’t the real issue (since most people treat SEO as a “100 meter dash” as opposed to the “never-ending marathon” that it is).
Your true competition is with the sites/businesses who really have their “SEO ***t together”; i.e. the sites who’re currently sitting on the first page of Google for your “preferred keywords” (as they had done for many years). And since, these fine folks don’t have any plans of “stepping down” or “closing down” any time soon, the first page isn’t much of an option, even for the most savvy SEO experts.
How could these “industry giants” own one or more Google top spots just like they were prime real estate (that they own)?
In the SEO game, the odds are heavily stacked in favor of those who have been in business (and on online) the longest. And the ones who had been doing everything “SEO related” right from the get go.
Not only do these companies and conglomerates have limitless SEO budgets that enable them to acquire the highest quality backlinks from a multitude of platforms on a regular basis; they also make a considerable effort (on an ongoing basis) to patch up every conceivable SEO vulnerability on their website.
Essentially; If a site has ZERO SEO vulnerabilities, have tweaked their onpage metrics to near perfection, have a very high PageSpeed Insights score and a clean SEO profile comprising of nothing but the “good stuff”; it’s near enough impossible for it to be “dethroned” by a wannabe website with less “credibility”.
But there’s good news. Very good news in fact.
Every niche has potentially hundreds of lucrative keywords that often get overlooked by their respective “industry giants”.
Plus, a site (no matter how much they have going for them) can only be “SEO optimized” (or fortified) for a select few keywords at a time (at the root domain level).
So, whilst they will continue to dominate and remain invisible for those keywords (for the foreseeable future), they can be beaten and outranked for everything else (by just about anyone whose checking all the other SEO boxes).
Therefore, deciding on what keywords to go after is just as much of a process of identifying the vulnerabilities of those top ranking sites; as it is in finding “profitable keywords” with decent search volumes.
But this is only doable with the right tools and techniques.
So, let’s explore our options (starting with how most people pick their keywords):
Option number 1: Use “guesswork” to identify the most “obvious keywords”.
Anyone can fly past 99% of their competition with some good onpage SEO, a high PageSpeed score, and some high quality, consistent link building.
But when you reach the Top 20 (or thereabouts), you’ll forced to try and wrestle past the “big bad wolves” that have been holding onto those top spots for eons.
That’s pretty much a lost cause; because even if you were able to match their level of “onpage optimization”, and have just as good of a Pagespeed insights score; it’d be near enough impossible to outdo them in terms of domain age, budget or the quality of backlinks.
Option number 2: Use a free keyword tool like “Google AdWords Keyword Planner”
Many people wrongly assume that the “Google AdWords Keyword Planner” is a keyword tool intended for the “general public”. And that the “competition” column even tells them what keywords are easy or difficult to rank for (based on their level of competition).
But in reality, this tool is designed for “paid advertisers” looking to setup PPC (Pay per click) campaigns on Google. And the competition column merely gives them an overview of the number of people bidding/competing for those keywords within the paid advertising platform.
Plus, this tool (and other similar tools that use Google AdWords as their “core engine”) tend to overlook the smaller keywords (with fewer monthly search volumes) that don’t generate as much revenue for Google.
So, whilst this is a much better option than the “guesswork” route, it still won’t help you map a path to the first page of Google (that’s both attainable and profitable).
Option number 3: Use an Enterprise SEO tool like MOZ, SEMRush or Ahrefs
There are a number of (paid) Enterprise SEO tools out there that can help you with your keyword research. They all do a far better job than all of the previous options combined.
However, there isn’t a single tool out there (at present) that “can do it all”.
For instance, MOZ is considered the most accurate tool in determining the “competition strength” or “difficulty” level of a keyword. Accordingly to independent studies, it’s said to have accuracy rating of well over 85%.
But it doesn’t do that good of a job at generating “viable keywords”.
Then there are other tools (like Ahrefs) that are able to generate vast pools of keywords. But don’t do as good of a job as MOZ in determining “keyword difficulty”.
Having access to a plethora of keywords (whilst great on many levels) can be somewhat problematic too; because it does require some “sorting” and “weeding” just to identify the terms that are both “commercially viable” and “relevant”.
Lastly, there’s the price point to consider.
It’s impossible for anyone to do any kind of “effective keyword research”, without having access to at least two of these Enterprise tools at a minimum.
So, let’s say you picked MOZ and Ahrefs as your preferred “keyword research” partners.
MOZ charges $99 a month for its basic package (which gives you access to about the 10% of features as the premium package). This limitation unfortunately extends to all aspects of the tool (including the number of results produced per keyword query).
Ahrefs have a similar (updated) pricing model, with similar limitations applied on their to their “lite” package.
That means, you would be paying a combined a total of $198 just to have limited access for both of these tools for a brief period of 30 days.
If you weren’t able to come up with the right keywords for your campaign within that timeframe, or the results you were able to generate were subpar (both due to the learning curve involved, and the limitations on the package), much of that investment would go down the drain.
That brings us to Option number 4: which is to have us do ALL the work for you from:
- Generating a comprehensive list of keywords (pertaining to your niche or industry)
- Filtering out the ones that aren’t relevant or not commercially viable
- Individually checking the competition strength of the sites currently ranking in the Top 10 positions for EACH for each viable keyword.
- Presenting you with a list of keywords, each with monthly search volumes and “keyword difficulty” ratings
By getting us to do your keyword research, you’ll not only be receiving accurate reports; you’ll also be tapping into the decades of collective SEO experience (between me and my colleagues) that adds an extra level of assurance to the final product.
Plus you avoid the risk of “doing it all by yourself” and not getting it “just right”.
If you have read everything here; you would’ve come to the realization that the “keyword selection process” is not something you’d wanna gamble with.
In fact, I doubt anybody who’s ever ranked for a “worthwhile keyword” has done that.
So, give your site a real chance of ranking on the first page by hitting the “buy now” button and ordering this service.
After that; drop us a message with the following info so that we can formulate the keywords necessary to finally put you on that winning streak:
- Your website URL
- The seed keywords pertaining to your business or industry (along with a list of your main products and services),
- Your geographical coverage and
- A list of your “top competitors” (ideally 10)
