Now that you’ve analyzed search volume, check out the competition for your search terms first hand. Type each of your search phrases into Google and look at the first ten results. The following characteristics make your competitors more difficult to unseat:

1) The age of their domain

In other words, how long ago the domain was registered. Find out by typing their domain into a WhoIs search. Older domains are generally more authoritative

2) The number of backlinks they have

Sign up for a Yahoo account and use their Site Explorer tool to check the number of inlinks to the site (inlinks=backlinks). The more inlinks the more competitive.

3) The quality of backlinks they have

When you examine their inlinks in Yahoo’s site explorer tool, look at some of the top ones—are they from authoritative .gov or .edu sites? Are they from other authoritative .com sites? Authoritative backlinks make your competitors more authoritative as well.

4) Their Google PageRank

Download the Google toolbar to see each website’s PageRank. PageRank is a score of 1-10 assigned to each website that has been indexed by Google (1 being the least authoritative, 10 being the most). Higher PageRank = a more competitive site.