Nashville Web Design | The Beautiful Mind of Keyword Sniping

The Beautiful Mind of Keyword Sniping

Posted on January 23, 2008
Filed Under Internet Marketing, SEO |

I’ve been following Courtney Tuttle’s site closely over the past month. I really enjoy his series on Keyword Sniping. One thing I noticed when hunting down his sites to watch what he was doing, was that I found some of his readers attempting to mimic his work. They picked the same keywords or similar keywords. I wanted to write an article to teach bloggers why this is a bad idea. By trying to compete directly with each other, we’re only hindering ourselves and our competition. We all have the same goals as bloggers, so let’s not get in each others way. I’d like to apply the concepts of basic economics to the concept of Keyword Sniping.

A few concepts to understand:

The Concept of Scarcity:

Basically, your resources are not unlimited. This issue of scarcity requires us to try to allocate our resources and time efficiently.

Diminishing Marginal Utility:

Utility in terms of economics is the benefit or enjoyment received for each additional unit. The idea is that as a unit increases, the utility it provides with each increase is less and less. For example, cake rocks, everyone loves cake, a 2nd piece of cake is good too, a 3rd piece is ok but its seems like a lot of sugar, 4th piece …err, 5th piece and you’re sick. Each time you got a new piece of cake, you enjoyed it less and less each time. It didn’t provide the same satisfaction as the first piece. That is the basics of this concept.

Ok, now what does this have to do with keyword sniping?

When you do research on keywords, you use sites like WordTracker or Wordze to determine search volume. They return some finite value. This finite value directly represents the concept of scarcity. All sites fighting for that keyword are fighting for those searches. If your competition’s site is good, those searches are lost to you the moment they visit their site, and they never turn back to Google for that keyword. When you win these searches, you are taking them away from someone else.

For you guys who are trying to directly compete with Courtney on a keyword:
Each time you win a search user, you are reducing the total number of users available to Courtney.

Now, for the concept of diminishing marginal utility.

Courtney, for example, selects a keyword that he believes he can be competitive with. He does so because the lack of competition using his techniques. Using Keyword Snipping has a GREAT advantage in the situations he picks. Now, when a blogger comes in trying to compete on this keyword they have less of an advantage, because they’re now competing head on with Courtney (and will probably lose). Now a third blogger (who is a dumbass) jumps on the bandwagon. He also steals Courtney’s ideas and targets his keywords. In this case, the advantage of Keyword Sniping is MUCH less. You are now going head to head with two blogs using the same techniques. Each time a new blog enters into the scene, the advantage (utility) is less and less.

Both of these concepts lead right into Comparative Advantage, which is a huge concept that can be related to Keyword Sniping.

The basic idea behind this is that not competing head on leads to a greater benefit than going alone.

I will quote an example directly from Wikipedia to explain this concept.

“Example 1

Two men live alone in an isolated island. To survive they must undertake a few basic economic activities like water carrying, fishing, cooking and shelter construction and maintenance. The first man is young, strong, and educated and is faster, better, more productive at everything. He has an absolute advantage in all activities. The second man is old, weak, and uneducated. He has an absolute disadvantage in all economic activities. In some activities the difference between the two is great; in others it is small

Is it in the interest of either of them to work in isolation? No, specialization and exchange (trade) can benefit both of them.

How should they divide the work? According to comparative, not absolute advantage: the young man must spend more time on the tasks in which he is much better and the old man must concentrate on the tasks in which he is only a little worse. Such an arrangement will increase total production and/or reduce total labour. It will make both of them richer”

In this example, the young strong man is Courtney. He’s the one teaching the rest of us what to do. He has more advanced skills than any of us beginners. He could compete and beat us on almost any niche he’d like to. He could follow our work, and out rank us across the board.

The main point to understand, is that he COULD do this, but he won’t. Why? Because directly or indirectly he understand the concept of Comparative Advantage.

He only has a limited amount of time. Each additional niche he takes on results in time lost on another niche. He gains the most benefit from selecting a few key niches at a time, and focusing strictly on them. He doesn’t spread himself too thin.

Now take this one step further, and we can start helping each other out. Court takes Colorado Lasik Surgery, and someone else can pick another state. Each can build their sites independently. Then since they’re on the same “general” niche they could benefit from a link trade with one another; maybe select a state neighboring Colorado.
This concept was also briefly discussed by Vic from Blogger Unleashed in a comment on Court’s site. He talked about link trading with competition, but instead of both chasing the same keyword, one picked Red Ants, and the other Blue Ants.

In Conclusion,
Use the basic concepts of economics to understands the benefits that can be received through dividing and conquering. DO NOT COMPETE HEAD ON WITH YOUR FELLOW KEYWORD SNIPERS. Select your own specialized niche. This will put you at a better advantage. Do not mimic someone else’s genre. Be more original.

Lastly, take the concepts of comparative advantage, and work together. Two people are stronger than one. Work together to target different but related niches. Share link juice. And in the end, you’ll both benefit more than if you went head to head.

Need one more example?

Watch this clip, it will explain this concept exactly
(Is also a GREAT movie)

A Beautiful Mind - Game Theory

“Best result comes from everyone in the group doing what’s best for himself. Incomplete. Incomplete. Because the best result will come when everyone in the group doing what’s best for himself and the group.”

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