Keyword Research tool time-effort equivalent
-
SEOMoz's keyword research tool is awesome, but what does the competitiveness actually mean in terms of time/effort?
I've read the help file which is great but to get an idea, to rank for highly competitive keywords, is that 12 months of constant effort, link-building and keyword buying or more like 3 months? (how massive is massive?)
I know its a hard question to answer, but an idea would be awesome. Thanks to anyone that can answer in advance...
-
Thanks, hey, how do I get outta this friggin' cooler??? It's cold as well a freezer!!
-
Thank you Robert. I didn't post the question but loved your answer
-
Perfect - totally understand your response and this helps me alot; I wrote this question thinking highly competitive meant (typically) 10 years. Thanks again.
-
Hugh,
Just so I am not impaled by public opinion, I want to say again that this is a rough way of doing this. Looking at what you have, for me or me as my agency, I would say that I could pull off the above(what you have) 80% of the time or more.
There will always be factors that must be found and mitigated - the finding is where I see more failure than in mitigation. The reason IMO is that as SEO's we are prone to sight-blocking hubris. OK, sorry, I am prone to sight-blocking hubris and must be ever vigilant.
So, that said, I wish you the best and leave you with this: as to red and blue oceans remember the premise of the book; the effort is less and the payoff is higher in blue than in red oceans.
Best
-
Thanks for the answer Robert, this expands my thinking - I like the blue ocean/red ocean idea, and I understand the verticals concept (although I'm a newb when it comes to SEO).
So based on your thinking, would you say ballpark estimates for reaching top-3 in local searches (with consistent and expert SEO) would be:
-
around 3 months for highly competitive keywords,
-
1 month for a 'competitiveness' score of around 35?
... and multiply this by, say, 4 for global-dominant rankings...
For me so much in business planning comes down to gauging demand before developing products, and in this case I'm using keyword research to gauge market demand / competitiveness tradeoffs before I start...
-
-
Hello Hugh,
This is a very understandable question. I hope to provide you a small guide on this.
If you have a range of terms for more than one site and you have most entered into kw tool you will see that in some verticals you have a high difficulty and not a lot of searches. In others you can see high difficulty and many, many searches. That to me is one component.
The next is whether or not the search would be for a product or service that is perceived or marketed on a local basis. (A muffler shop comes to mind).
The next, which is very important is: Where are you starting from? So, for us as an agency if the client has a site and is already ranking in some areas, etc. it will provide a boost if we are helping them spread out. (making it easier even for a difficult term). But, if the client is going into unchartered waters or is essentially new to the space, it will mean having to build authority for site and pages while competing.
So, if I am looking at a global US search and have a new client with little they have done right on the Internet and we are going into what has been described as a "red ocean" in Blue Ocean Strategy, and, if the terms I am after are highly searched and difficult, page one could be 6 months or longer away.
Assuming the difficulty stays the same, but the search is now changed to be local and all else is the same, I think, I can begin to rank them for some of the terms within 3months plus or minus.
Then, if we go back to global but change them to having some Internet sophistication already, there is a significant increase in the speed with which we can help them rank. Change this to also include local and it gets faster. If, the search is a small number of searches monthly in local for any of the above, I find that it is easier to rank as less and less competitors focus on the longer tail or less familiar terms. NOTE: This is a major reason I do something I do not thoroughly enjoy: KW research.
So, I hope I have lessened your frustration to a degree,
All the best,
Robert
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Long tail keyword research
Hi guys, what is the best practice to find the long tail keywords, like Google Instant Suggestion, people also search, or moz keyword explorer I have experienced a lot in MOZ pro Keyword Planner, but now I want to know easiest way to find long tail keywords for my website olehana Makeup, still I'm using just 3 keyword that I already ranked in Google SERP top 3 positions now I also want that some long tail keywords also gets ranked.
Keyword Research | | daimon670 -
Proper use of location in keywords
¿If I want to track keywords in a specific location, do I need to write the keyword with the location or only the keyword? For example: If I want to track the results of the keyword "hair salon" in a specific city, should I write "Hair salon in (city chosen) or only hair salon.
Keyword Research | | reginadelafuente0 -
International Keyword Research
Good morning! I have a quick question about international keyword research. So, I created a keyword list full of terms that we want to analyze in Latin America. My question is around search results. For example, if the keyword I am analyzing in English is "apples" and I choose the region as Mexico, should I submit the keyword to be analyzed as "apples" or the Spanish translation "manzanas"? I am confused as to whether the results account for the translation of someone searching "manzanas" in Mexico to the English term "apples" and how that whole process works. Let me know if I need to elaborate because I understand that the whole question is super confusing haha. Thanks for any help you can give! 🙂
Keyword Research | | BlakeSmith31 -
Keyword Organising
Does anyone know of any tools to aid organising keywords? I'm currently using Excel extensively in an effort to bring some organisation, however it is very labour intensive.
Keyword Research | | seoman100 -
National keyword results v local keyword results
If the keyword contains the location term like "SEO company London" is it better to use the wider results over local? Additionally, some best practice examples of national v local result tracking would be great 🙂 Darren
Keyword Research | | SEODarren0 -
Keyword Density and ALL CAPS
Hello everyone, New member and first time asking a question! Having a disagreement about keyword stuffing on a home page. The client has 14 mentions of their brand all IN CAPS. So it's sentences like ... BRAND was established in 1968 and has become one of the biggest leaders in the donut industry. In fact, BRAND has created a strong BRAND community ... etc. [the lead paragraph is three sentences and four mentions of BRAND] A design agency that is also in the picture says that this is fine because the word appears naturally in the sentence. Can you either 1) tell me I'm wrong and explain why or 2) give me some ammo to give to my client to support my argument. Thanks! Lisa
Keyword Research | | ChristianRubio1 -
Accuracy of search volume for keyword planner v old keyword tool?
Hi there, I'm (logged into Google Adwords) and researching search volume for keywords but I'm seeing weird results. I know that the term "outage notification" had between 1000 and 5000 monthly global searches when I last looked (I know this because I add a search volume tag to the keywords I track ranking of via Moz). Yet, now when I check global search volume via keyword planner I'm seeing only 70 global searches per month (AND low competition which I know is not true). Is this perhaps because only the exact match is reported or is something else going on? Very frustrated as I have now lost faith in the keyword research process via Google keyword planner....not sure where to go from here!! Thanks very much
Keyword Research | | SnapComms1 -
Google Keyword Tool Regional?
If you use the Google keyword tool while logged in to your Google profile, will the keyword tool attempt to show you regional or local suggestions?
Keyword Research | | waynekolenchuk0