In our last post, we mentioned that there are two things to consider when identifying your SEO keywords. In today’s update, we cover the second half of the keyword identification process: competition analysis.

Competition for the keyword: When dealing with search engine marketing, you’ll want to ask yourself how many other sites are competing to be noticed for your target keyword. It’s not surprising that is a lot more competition for the keywords “bakery nyc” than there are for “bakery union square nyc.” If at all possible, you should target the smaller market because you will have a better chance of standing out among the crowd of listings. It’s the equivalent of holding up a sign at a rally of 300 people versus holding up a sign at a rally of only 30 people. In the first scenario, you are exerting a lot of energy to be heard, but the sheer mass of people you are competing has the power of diluting even your mightiest efforts. On the other hand, in the second scenario, you don’t have to exert as much energy, yet you will still have a better chance of being noticed.

The best SEO keywords are the ones that are popular and have a low rate of competition. As a result, doing prior research before embedding keywords into the various pages of your website is critical and can save you a lot of time/resources. Read more …