How to Analyze Your Keyword Competition for EHow Articles

This is part two of the tutorial that began with "How to Find Profitable Keywords for Your EHow Articles". However, this method can be used be anyone who wants to analyze their keyword competition, whether for a blog, niche site, or web articles. Once you have found a high traffic keyword with low competition and a high CPC (see previous article if you don't know what I'm talking about), then you're ready to begin analyzing.

Exact Phrase Search for Competitors

The very first thing you want to do, to properly analyze your keyword competition, is perform an exact phrase search in Google. The keyword I chose for this tutorial is "relieve sinus pressure". It has approximately 2,400 searches per month, high advertiser competition, and $1.40 CPC, according to Google Adwords. It meets all of our criteria, so now it's time to analyze our keyword competition.

Go to Google.com, or use your handy built-in browser search, and type in the keyword in quotation marks:

Next, we'll look at the results. We're going for less than 50,000 competing pages for this exact keyword phrase. However, the less the better. Some of my best eHow articles are those with less than 5,000 competitors, but this can be hard to come by.

TIP: It's okay if the keyword you want to use has less than 2,400 searches per month - IF the competition matches up. For example, if you found a keyword with only 1,000 searches per month, but it had only 250 competing pages - you could definitely get on the first page of Google search results, maybe even to position 1, and get all of those 1,000 visitors to your article. Keep things in perspective and you'll do fine.

On the results page of your exact phrase match, you'll see exactly how many pages have the exact phrase in their page somewhere. Let's take a look at "relieve sinus pressure" and see how we did:

Look for the words "Results 1-10 of about xxxx for your keyword phrase" which appear underneath and to the right of the search box. In the case of our example keyword, we can see that there are only 12,100 competing pages! This is great news, because we have a good chance of beating many of these pages with properly optimized articles.

UPDATE: Although looking at the number of competing pages through an exact phrase match search is helpful in analyzing keyword competition, it is not infallible. Checking the average page rank for the first page of results is a better indicator of how much competition you actually have. See update below.

Checking out Opitimization on Competing Pages

Now that we know we have a chance with this keyword, we can check out our competitors and see if we can, in fact, make it to the first page. The numbers above are a good indicator, but if the first page of search results is filled with highly ranked pages, we still may not make it.

So how do we know? Well, there are several things to consider. First, we'll look at the results on the first page and see how highly optimized they are for our keyword. Here are the things we'll look for:

• Is the keyword in the title?
• Is the keyword in the description?
• Is the keyword in the URL?

There are numerous results that appear to be optimized, but can we beat them? If we can get the keyword phrase into the title, description, and URL, we can definitely beat out some of these pages pretty quickly. Here's how we know:

1. The first result has the keyword in the title and in the description, but not in the URL.
2. The second result has the keyword in the title and URL, but not in the description.
3. The third result has the keyword in all three, and is highly optimized, meaning it might be hard to beat. But that's only 1 result. We still have a chance!
4. The fourth result has the keyword in the description, but not in the URL or Title, meaning we could probably make it to position four easily over time, if not higher.

TIP: This is where the importance of getting your keyword into the description as soon as possible comes into play. When you write an Ehow article, the introduction will be your description. Make sure you get your keyword phrase into that Intro as soon as you can. If it's not in the first 120 characters, it won't show up in the search results, and you won't be fully optimized.

If all the results on the first page were COMPLETELY optimized, meaning the keyword phrase appears in the title, URL, and description, it may be hard to get on the front page. If only very few are COMPLETELY optimized, you can beat out the slackers.

Checking Page Rank of Competitors

The next thing you want to check for, when you analyze your keyword competition, is the page rank of the competing pages. How do you do this? With a simple plug-in. Many of you may be familar with Search Status for Firefox. If not, download and install it now! It is a great help when doing competition analysis.

Once you've installed the add-on (which works in Firefox and Flock browsers), you'll need to set it up. You should see a small "@" at the bottom of your screen in your status bar. Right click, select "enable", and then select "Page Rank" and "Alexa Rank".

Now that it's all set up, You'll have two small bars in your status bar. These will tell you the Google Page Rank, and Alexa Rank, of each page you visit. Hovering over them with your mouse will display text. This is helpful in figuring out if we'll be able to beat keyword competition.

When your eHow article is published, it begins with a Google Page Rank of 0, and an Alexa Rank of 634. This is fantastic! As a comparison, my blog has an Alexa ranking of 491,648, and I've been working on it for months. EHow really helps you out here, so take advantage of it.

What do you need to do to make sure you can get on the first page? Let's take a look at our competitor's page rank. First, click the link for the very last result on the first page of Google. In this case, it's an article about natural remedies for sinus pressure. Wait a minute for your bars to populate and look at the results.

In my case, the page has a Google Page Rank of 1/10, and an Alexa Rank of 7,579. We already beat the Alexa Rank without doing anything! This is great news for our keyword.

A Google Page Rank of 1/10 is also VERY easy to beat. Most eHow articles will gain a Google Page Rank of 1/10, and many times 2/10 with little to no promotion, all on their own. This is because pages within eHow will link to the article (related articles section), and if you can get one or two more links outside eHow, such as on a blog, or forum, you're good to go!

TIP: If your keyword brings back results of most all pages with a Page Rank of 4 or above, chances are you won't beat them out, unless you want to do some SERIOUS promotion. It's not really worth it for an eHow article, so choose keywords with most first page competitors having a Page Rank of 3 or below, and an Alexa rank that's higher than 634.

UPDATE: This has become a very important part of my overall strategy. First, perform a regular search in Google for your keyword. Look at the page rank of each individual page in the first 10 results. SEO for Firefox makes this an easy task. Add up all of the page ranks for the first 10 results, and then divide this number by 10. If the number you get is under 2.9 - you can most likely get on the first page of Google or very close. If the number you get is above 2.9 - you don't have much of a shot with that keyword. Scrap it and find a new one.

Keyword Competition Conclusion

This keyword is a keeper! It meets the initial criteria of high searches, low competition, and high Cost per Click (CPC). Plus, the competition is easy to beat with low PR, Alexa ranking, and very few highly optimized results. This article WILL make money, but it takes time.

Remember, that you won't make a fortune overnight. It takes months before your article is fully indexed, and meets its full earnings potential. Write the article as soon as you find the keyword, and sit back and wait. You'll soon be on the first page of Google, with page views and earnings to match!

Other posts in the eHow tutorial series:

Part 1 - How to Choose Profitable Keywords for Your EHow Articles

Part 3 - How to Optimize Your EHow Articles for Maximum Profit

Part 4 - Using Images in Your EHow Articles

Part 5 - How to Improve Ad Alignment on EHow Articles

Part 6 - How to Add Amazon Affiliate Links to EHow Articles