21 Jul 10 1:21 pm
Hi Tonyguitar
I think most tools, including Traffictravis, use the same basic principals or checks to establish how strong the competition is for any given keyword phrase.
Firstly, how many results show for the phrased keyword. Go to Google and search exactly like this (eg):
"how to loose more weight". Any number of results under 50000 gives you a chance. Then search exactly like this in Google (eg): allintitle: "how to loose more weight". If the results are under 5000 you should be in with a chance to get to the first page, depending on the 3rd check here under.
Thirdly, download the nifty little "SEOquake" tool. With this you can establish the two most important things. What the page ranks are of the top results and how many backlinks they have to their sites. If the average pagerank of the top ten is 2,5 and the average backlinks are less than 20 (my criteria), you can beat them.
Of course, if you are prepared to spend some money, Mark Ling has done all the work for you with his new product Affilojetpack. Clue...just check my link :-)
Hope this helps
William