52 replies to this topic

[DanThies]

What you are saying about marketing is basically my opinion too. Educated guess or informed decision,.. too me that is the same thing,... (Which one will be the better key phrase to use?  )

Too funny. Maybe we should set up a split test on Adwords.

[Jill]

The problem is number of searches and number of sites have no business being in the same formula as far as I can tell!

Actually, that part does make sense to me. After all, if a certain phrase gets tons and tons of searches, it is one often worth optimizing for. And then if the competition reports or KEI had real numbers that actually meant what people think they mean, this info would be useful. But since the competition reports really aren't telling you how many competing sites there are, the info is practically useless.

I say practically, because there's certainly some stuff you can extrapolate from it, but it's not what they tell you it is.

Jill

[Mel]

HI Jill;
I believe that the WT competition reports do have the number of results that appear for that term, but by strict definition not all are competitors.

[Jill]

I believe that the WT competition reports do have the number of competitors that appear for that term.

Yes, that's ALL they have. The number of sites where that phrase appears on the page.

Some people seem to think that the competition reports tell you how many searches the keyword phrase gets on Google. But it doesn't.
Jill

[Mel]

You're right Jill the number of searches in the competition results is just an estimate of the searches on a particular search engine based on a database of a few hundred million searches on Metacrawlers and the market share of the SE in question.

That said however when you check the results with Adwords the general trends are the same, but the surprises that crop up make you realize that estimates are just not good enough.

[Ron Carnell]

But since the competition reports really aren't telling you how many competing sites there are, the info is practically useless.

The guy on page 768, even if he's selling the same item as me, to the same customers as me, isn't currently any competition to me in terms of the SERPs. He'll never be found. That seem so self-evident to me, I can't imagine using site #768 in any reasonable calculation.

What about site #31? If my goal is to be on the first three returned pages, then I maintain that #31 isn't currently (slightly more emphasis this time) any more competition to me in the SERPs than was #768. The only sites I need to worry about are the first thirty. If I can do better than one or more of them, site #31 will become site #32 and be even less of a concern.

In business, we rarely go out and "discover" our competition. Rather, I think, we define our competition by our own expectations and approach. As Mark, Dan, Mel and others have said, there is no quasi-mathematical substitute for studying the current leaders.

[Mel]

There is one other aspect of competition that maybe we should touch on. Sometimes its more important to be ahead of a particular company's site who is stiff sales competition to you, than to rank in any particular position.

Get me on the first two pages yes, but get me ahead of such and such a site by all means.

[denver]

Get me on the first two pages yes, but get me ahead of such and such a site by all means.

This is a good point. Where I'm engaged at the moment we have one or two major competitors and a host of lesser concerns.

It just so happens that for us to be ahead of those major competitors means to be #1, but I could certainly envisage a situation where that wasn't necessarily so.

For example, the sort of terms that get used to find us are usually (80% or more) quite technical and quite specific, so they're vitally important to us. But more general terms wouldn't worry us as much, as long as we ranked ahead of our serious competitors within our niche market for those terms. (That would cover the 20%)

Thanks Mel; you're a star.