What does Competition or QSR mean to me?
There are always questions such as "What is QSR?" "How does QSR affect my keyword research?" "What is the ideal number that I should shoot for in the QSR column?" Let me try to explain my opinion on this topic.
First, QSR stands for Quoted Search Results. This is the number that of competing websites for that keyword. Carson wrote a blog on this last year. If you missed it, here it is:
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/carson/blog/jaaxy-com-keyword-data-explained
So how exactly does QSR affect my keyword research, and what is the "magic number" that I should go for? Well, there is no clear "magic number" when it comes to selecting your perfect keyword. Generally speaking, if there is more competition for a given keyword, it is generally more profitable. There are always exceptions to this rule.
I know, that's about as clear as mud. So what do I look for? I look for my strength of competition on the first page of Google. How many competing pages are not nearly as important as how strong the first page competition is. For example, I like to golf. I wish I could golf every day. The problem is, I suck at it. If my putting is on, I can't keep my drives in the fairway. If my driving is good, my short irons are suffering. So if I'm going to enter into a golf tournament, I may as well not enter if I'm going up against Tiger, Bubba, and Phil. I may have a good game for me, but if there are professionals in the tournament, I'm not going to waste my time.
The same goes for my IM endeavors. If the competition is too stiff on the first page, I am not even going to waste my time. Kyle recently wrote about this. He said that 91.5% of all Google searches end on the first page. If you missed that article, you can read it here:
So what I'm trying to say is that there is no magic number. You must evaluate the competition on the first page. Look at the SEO on those pages. Are the sites older and established? Does the site flow well? Are they considered "authority sites?" If you think you can beat out the competition and get on the first page, whether the QSR is 70 or 700, then go for it. But if the competition is strong, and the QSR is only 30, you may want to think twice about going for it.
Recent Comments
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Wow, this makes a lot more sense to me now. Very well written and real world stuff. There is an art to keyword research or their would not be thousands of print written about this topic I fell keyword research is a lot like golf, your game is always evolving but you never really master it.
I must of missed this post yesterday, very well said Keith and I agree although I don't always go looking at the competition strength as I'm often aiming to get a video thumbnail to appear.
I follow you on YouTube and enjoy your instruction videos very much. I do not do any video, I should learn a thing or two from you.
You raise a very good point regarding the strength of the competition on the first page. Really the QSR means very little to me, because if the first ten search results of a keyword are well-established, old domains with tons of authority, it is going to be very difficult to rank your website there.
Unfortunately, looking at the first ten search results is a little more complicated and time-intensive than looking at the QSR, but its WAY more accurate in terms of gauging the actual strength of the competition.
Yeah, the only reason I look at the QSR is just to make sure there is at least a few people searching for that term. I actually only use that category when comparing keywords, to see which keyword gets searched more often.
Important stuff! How do you look at the SEO of those other pages, how do you know if their older and established, what do you mean the site flows well, and how do I know if Google considers them an authority site.
You can either do your research, which may take a little time, or Jaaxy does help with determining the age and the SEO of a certain site. Also, a site flows well if it has a Site map, it has an easy menu to navigate, and has plenty of internal links.
As far as a site being an authority site, if you were to google "best kitchen appliances" you would probably see a couple of sites like consumer reports and good housekeeping show up in the search results. Both of those sites are not dedicated solely to kitchen appliances, but they both have a broad spectrum of physical products that they cover. Google considers them to be authority sites.
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Thx. Finding out the very cool keywords might not be as cool as I thought. Your article has added to that thinking