Recently I received an email from someone asking the following question:

“I have followed the tips given in your e-book, and have implemented all the keyword strategies, however we are still not ranking in the top 10 for the keywords we need to rank for.  What are we doing wrong?”.

I thought I would answer that question here on my blog, as I’m sure others have asked this same question (I know I have).  I have tried ranking for certain keywords that I *really* wanted to rank for, have optimized the hell out of a page, have linked to that page using the appropriate anchor text, etc., etc. And still I don’t rank for that keyword or term.

There are a few reasons why this may happen, but here is the most common reason:

The keywords you have chosen may simply be too competitive.

1. By competitive, I mean that there are many, many other pages trying to rank for that same keyword.  Go to Google and do a search for the keyword you are targeting.  For instance, let’s say you own a web design firm. Try Googling ‘web design’.  383,000,000 results. What do you think your chances are of ever ranking for that term?

2. Another way of telling how competitive the term is is checking out who is currently ranking for that term. For the term ‘web design’, for instance, the top 3 ranking websites are the Wikipedia entry for web design (pagerank of 7), NVI Solutions (pagerank of 5), and WebDesign.org (pagerank of 6; and obviously has that key term in it’s url) . Now ask yourself, how does my site compare in terms of relative pagerank, and number and quality of backlinks? Is it worth my time, money, and effort to target that term, when there are likely other, related terms I could more easily rank for? For instance, many sites that rank for highly competitive terms like ‘web design’, likely have paid inclusion into large, well respected directories like Yahoo. Are you willing to pay the $299 USD per year to be included in that directory?  (and that is no guarantee that you will rank highly…it just ups the odds).

3. Another good, easy (and free) way to check how competitive a term is is to use the Google Keyword Tool. Type your keyword or term into the search box, and then look below to see a) how many searches are performed each month for that term (be sure to use ‘exact match’ or ‘phrase’ under ‘match type’ for more accurate numbers), and how many other sites are bidding on that keyword, by looking at the green box (a fully filled in green box means highly competitive, half full means moderately competitive, no green means no or very little competition).  Keep in mind that using the Google tool for competitive analysis will give you a general idea of how competitive that term is, but can also be off.

4. Use a keyword difficulty tool, like the one below. Type your keyword into the tool, and it will give you a general idea of how hard it will be to rank for that term (a higher % means it will be more difficult, a lower % will mean it will be easier to rank for).

Keyword Difficulty Check Tool © SEO Chat™ Keyword Enter a keyword or keyword phrase Enter Captcha To Continue To prevent spamming, please enter in the numbers and letters in the box below Report Problem with Tool.

5. Trial and Error is the only surefire way to know how hard it will be to rank for a given term. Do your best to choose highly relevant terms that appear to have low competition. Optimize your page(s) as best you can, and get as many links to that page as possible (preferably with that term as the anchor text). If, after several months, you are still not ranking for that term, it may be time to rethink your keyword choice, and try something else.

My general rule is to choose low competition terms, and therefore not have to work as hard for them. This way I can spend my time creating valuable content, rather than spending it trying (often fruitlessly) to rank for more difficult terms.

What do you think? Would you rather target more difficult terms and work harder on on-page optimization and trying to get inbound links, or choose easier, longer-tail terms, and simply work at adding more content?