On page Keyword Optimization vs. Links questions...

[SEE12]

Looking for more feedback based on experiences.

I'll just pick a random example.

Hypotheticcal PLRPro subject is... cave diving.

So, I've got 40 articles on cave diving.

Staying with the hypothetical... one of the articles
is "Best locations for cave diving". Of course, this article
will be rewitten by a minimum of 25%. And the title changed
before being used. That's a given...

Here's the question: As you all well know, and I'd imagine
most pursuing this type of work know, there are a number of
software products that will allow the user to enter the
keyword phrase and analyse whether the top websites
for that term are optimised for the keyword and/or phrase.

Here is something I am seeing that is fairly common. If I were
to enter the phrase that the article is optimised for,
in this example "Best locations for cave diving", and find the
following results.

Searches: 1,200 (in the last 365 days)
Results: 2,100,000

The initial thought is that the number of results would suggest
that this keyword is too competitive. And the common suggestion
from your material, and most others, is to look for high searches
and low results... ex. less than 500 results.

Side note: the problem with that is that those low result phrases
are often things like: "dive cave best costa rica north". Not easy
to blend into an article and not look keyword stuffed.

Back to the questions at hand...

Upon closer inspection, the top ten websites for the hypthetical
KW phrase "Best locations for cave diving" have a PR of between
1-6 but have not been optimised for the phrase at all. As in;
KW not in title, not in H1, not in bold, not in italics, not underlined,
not in Meta and often KW density is zero and/or less than 2%.

My first thought is that I don't want to change that title too much
because none of the sites have optimised for it. But I suppose
that doesn't work too well with a number of PLRPro members
working with the same article.

My core question is this... When finding these high results,
what matters most... the number of results or the level
of optimization? Will the number of results make it too difficult
to end up in the top 20 or upon finding these phrases that are not
optimised, will the onsite and/or article optimization matter?

Or will it be the offsite, (i.e. links) that will determine the SERPs?

Bottom line: is it worth going after these high result phrases, that
have not been optimised for by the top ten, by optimising our
articles and content? Or, when seeing results that big, is
it not worth the effort because the links rule and it will take too
long for us to compete?

Thanks in advance for the reply.

Sam

[Marc]

Interesting question Sam,

As a general rule of thumb it is both.

And a better way to check the keyword is to type in the keyword including ""

So "cave diving etcetc"

This will tell you specifically who has it as a keyword. And then even further would be to do an allintitle: cave diving etc etc

And that would tell you who is at least doing on-page optimization for it.

In short, you will find that those results will give you a truer indication of who is trying to optimize for it.

I would say you could rank for the keyword you gave as an example very easily as it wouldn't be 2.1 million in true competition.

Use a bit of research and you will know after a while what is a good keyword and what is not.

But first thing, search with quotations then allintitle.

then go from there, if it looks easy, hit it. If it looks harder, re-evaluate the traffic pay off and go from there.

Regards
Marc