Web Design & Marketing Blog

Keyword Competition

Category: Blog

Written by Estevan Montoya

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) increases visitors

In the last few years Search Engine Optimization — or SEO — has become a phrase that is on the tip of the tongue for every website developer or website owner. And it’s not without good reason that the phrase and the concept have become ubiquitous and important in web-speak. In easily understandable terms, SEO is the process of making your website appear higher on a search results page, this increases accessibility which increases traffic. Or even more simply: SEO = More Traffic. As more and more people are catching on to SEO, it is becoming an increasingly necessary tool for maintaining your website’s relevance.

What is Keyword Competition?

One of the most important facets of Search Engine Optimization is keyword competition. The keyword is a word or phrase that a user is typing in to a search bar as they seek information on the web. The amount of websites that target that keyword is the competition aspect of the phrase. If more websites are targeting a certain keyword, then it will be less likely that your site will appear near the top of the search results. An easy metaphor for this concept is a raffle. If you buy a raffle ticket along with five other people, the chances are pretty good that you may win the prize. However, if you are in the raffle with 200 other people, well, then you might be going home empty-handed. Luckily, in the case of keyword competition, you don’t have to leave anything up to chance; there are tools available to let you know what you are competing against, and how to increase your chances.

Keyword Competition Tools

The first tool is Google Adwords  (www.google.com/adwords), here you will be able to type in the keyword that you wish to target, and you will find a shaded bar that is a general guide to how many sites are targeting that keyword. The more shaded the bar, the more competitive the keyword. The first step is considering whether or not there may be a keyword that is under-competed for, but that will still effectively direct people to your site. Perhaps this isn’t an option, there may be a specific keyword you want to target that is highly competitive. Even in this case, you don’t have to leave you’re results to chance, there are methods you can employ to increase you’re sites search-ability with that keyword.