That is a question that many of us ask themselves quite often…
Too bad that many ask this question at the wrong time – after they have put great effort and time into ranking for a certain keyword and not reaching the desired goals.
Is there a way to estimate whether a given keyword is worth trying to rank for?
Here is what I do:
Do a google search for the keyword in question.
Take the URL of the number one search result (or number 3 or 10, depending wheth.er you want to see your chances for a lower rank, too).
Next head over to Yahoo and do a “link:competitorsurl.com” search.
Yahoo will then show the number of incoming links to that URL. Google has a “link:” command, too. But to be honest, forget it. They just don’t show what they know, Yahoo is by far more accurate.
You can switch the incoming links display to “except from this domain” to get a better idea of how much work is you’ll have to to ragarding building backlinks.
Of course you never know exactly whether Yahoo has indexed all backlinks that google has but on the other hand not all of the links will have your keyword as an anchor. So this method will give you a good Idea of how many backlinks you will need to reach your desired SERP position.
This method requires a little bit of work – if you are too lazy try SEO Elite, this fantastic piece of software will help you find out about your competion, can track your rankings and a lot more!

After you know the amount of backlinks necessary you can start building backlinks.  You can start out with commenting to do-follow blogs , and again, if you are too lazy try something automated, like building backlinks automatically with 3waylinks.

From my experience any site that shows up to 500 links can easily be beaten, for sites with more backlinks, often a little more dedication is needed. If you use 3waylinks in combination with other link building strategies and bring some patience with you, you can definitly reach your goals.

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