Is 11k-30k search traffic too high for a small blog with low domain authority to compete for? Is competition all that matters?
-
Trying to decide on a keyword phrase for my next post. One of the two phrases I'm deciding between has 100x more traffic but the priority is wayyy higher and the competition is just one point higher (54 vs 53). I'm hesitant to write on a post that gets 11k-30k monthly volume however b/c it just seems like too much traffic for a small blog with a domain authority of only 18 to compete with. But if the competition is nearly the same and the priority is higher, should I go for it anyway? I generally go for things with lower traffic thinking I will be able to better compete. Thanks!
-
Write the post. Get a couple of links into it. Look at where the competitors got their links into their competing page. Try to duplicate their best links.
Go after the primary keyword. Give it your best shot.
You might not rank on the first page after the first month. But, give it a year... and if your content is really better, I believe that you might move up.
** We can definitely write better content.** If your content is really better I think you will move up.
If you are targeting a high traffic, big money keyword, there will be lots of traffic and lots of money changing hands. You will get long tail traffic and long tail money. In time you might hit the big time.
It is a mistake not to try this a few times. You only need one to connect.
-
Thanks for the detailed response! My concern was that even if we wrote better content that we would not be able to climb the rankings past blogs or health care sites/major hospital systems that have a blog with much stronger domain authority. We can definitely write better content.
Thanks again for taking the time to respond. Very helpful.
-
You are asking a question of "philosophy" rather than "numbers". Before I get to the philosophy, here are some facts.
-
Your present domain authority means nothing. If you do a great job, your domain authority will grow.
-
The present size of your blog means nothing. If you work at it, it is going to grow.
What means something is your ability to produce competitive content and the amount of work you are going to put into your next post.
To determine your ability to be competitive, go search for that keyword phrase and look at the content in the top ten positions. Determine its quality. HOW GOOD IS IT? Then decide if you can beat it. Be honest. Can you write content that will be better than what is out there? Not a little better. A lot better.
If your answer is yes (meaing that you can beat their content). Then do not fear competition or traffic or any other metric. You should attack. Why? Because where there is competition, there is a lot of traffic and a lot of money changing hands. Even if you do not rank #1 you might connect with that traffic and with that money. Attack with the best content that you can produce, good enough that it is truly competitive.
If your answer is no (meaning that you can't beat their content). Then, you are not the person to compete here. Your prattle will not rank against the heavyweights. You need to pick a keyword phrase where you have the ability to compete. Attack there.
Can't find a place where you can compete? Hire someone who can. Get education and writing skill so you can compete. You will not get very far going into battle with a rubber sword.
-
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
-
Target Search Terms Changed - does this affect traffic?
We spent the last 12 months targeting a particular search term (mortgage broker) and have been ranking well for it consistently for about 6 months now. We have decided to change the target search term to something else (insurance broker) but noticed that our traffic has started to decline since we started doing this. We are still ranking well for the initial search term, and our ranking is slowly improving for the new targeted search term in SERPs but traffic is down about 60% from January. Is it normal/expected for this to happen?
Keyword Research | | monique-plaw1 -
Does the traffic that a page get affects the page ranking?
I am asking this as I would like to know if we can include this advice in our Search strategy. For instance, can we say for the keywords that has high business priority, but we are not currently rank above the fold we can boost the traffic and therefore the organic ranking by investing on these keywords on PPC.
Keyword Research | | aliki_rigopoulou0 -
Keyword Cannibalization and Targeting Similar Search Terms
My website is a collection of educational games for children. We are currently in the process of doing all the onsite page optimization for the individual game pages (they currently have no title tags, meta descriptions, H1, etc.) We created several different games to teach each particular skill. For example, there are 4 different games children can play to learn vowels. While offering several different games is good for the user, I am concerned as to how best to target a keyword for each particular game page without creating keyword cannibalization. Being new to SEO, I am not sure how targeting on each page different variations of related terms would affect SEO. For example, if one page were to target the term "vowel games", and another the term "learning the vowels" are these keywords similar enough to cause keyword cannibalization? If yes, would a proper solution be to use a canonical tag and designate one game as the "primary" game page for vowels? Ideally, I realize that the best SEO solution would be to have a landing page created just for "vowel games." Yet we created our landing pages based upon school level (preschool, kindergarten, first grade, etc) thinking of the user experience where a child only has to navigate to a single page to find all of the games for their age range. I greatly appreciate any help in better understanding the best way to avoid any potential problems with cannibalization.
Keyword Research | | bza1000 -
New domain name, better to put the activity in the domain ?
Hello, I'm working on a new dance school website. They already have their domain name .ae but the .com is not available. I was wondering in this case how could it would be to work on a domain like name-dance-school.com instead of name.ae In thie case .ae is very good as they just work on the uae. But I think that name-dance-school will definitely help them to rank better. Has anyone ever face this situation ? Best regards.
Keyword Research | | AymanH0 -
Competitive keyword ranking
Hi, I'm checking the SEOMoz keyword rankings report. I've set about 30 keywords and it's awesome to see how they rank and how many times they were clicked. However it would be interesting to see whether the keywords that I entered are competitive or not. It's not worth putting a lot of energy in making non competitive words rank higher I guess. So my question is: is it possible to see whether or not ranked keywords are competitive or not? Thanks!
Keyword Research | | webctp0 -
Have long tail searches increased or decreased?
Any stats about whether the number of long tail searches has been increasing or decreasing in the past year? Thanks!
Keyword Research | | theLotter0 -
Is it limiting to target low volume keywords for niche sites?
I run a Chicago Bears forum and my long-term goal to make it the most popular Bears forum on the internet (I know, huge goal). Because of that, I've been focusing on optimizing it for the keywords 'chicago bears forum'. However, being new to SEO, I only checked now and saw the search volume for those keywords is barely 2,000. My question is, and this is probably an an obvious one, should I be switching my focus to more popular keywords such as 'chicago bears news' if I want to increase traffic to my forum?
Keyword Research | | Xee0