How to determine competitiveness of Keywords?

[CafeMonkey]

I'm looking at setting up another site, but I'd like to pick keywords that aren't at the top of the stack.

Obviously "Virginia Real Estate" would be really competitive, but if I wanted to check out a certain city, or other combination of words...

I would like to find some kind of ratio to say "High number of searches / Low amount of competition" or some other way to determine how competitive a certain keyword is...

How do you guys pick your keywords?

[kyle422]

here is one
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

and another on seo guy's site
http://www.seo-guy.com/seo-tools/

and a free program that has a lot of other cool features at
http://www.webceo.com/

[CafeMonkey]

Thanks for finding those links, but that's not what I'm looking for... At least not from what I see...

Those are "How many people are searching for seraphim proudleduck" tools.

I'm looking for something to say " 'seraphim proudleduck' has 500 really well optimized websites". That way, I could test " 'seraphim website' has 200 really well optimized websites", and determine that it would be easy to get higher rankings for that term...

I mean... How do you KNOW that "Real Estate" is a tough term to compete for? What about "California Real Estate" or "Gooseneck Gap Real Estate"?

[kyle422]

Oh, sorry I misunderstood.
I think that Webceo has something like that. Did you download it? It at least tells you how many are competing for that phrase.

[webmaster]

Webceo does report the KEI but that isnt to great of a measure of competion.

What I look for is

Decent # of searches (Not high # or will be competitive)
Low cost per click (If few people are bidding up the price likely few people know about it *Warning might just be that many have tested the phrase and it doesnt convert)
Low # of sites in google when typing in the allinanchor:kw
Low # of sites in google when typing the allintitle:kw
Low # of sites in google when searching the kw itself.

[webmaster]

Dan Theis is a well known figure in keyword research might be worth hitting up his $99 services as well http://www.seoresearchlabs.com/keyword-research.php