Why I prefer supply and demand to keyword KEI

by Dr. Andy Williams, 2/17/2007

I had an email this week from someone who asked me why I chose to use supply and demand, rather than KEI when deciding the best keywords to optimize for. I thought some may be interested in my reply. I am sure it will spark some debate, so I have my flame-proof jacket on :O)

Here it is:

"Yes, KEI is a formula built from supply and demand - the exact same parameters I prefer to use individually.

Let me ask you a question.If you had to write an article on one of the two phrases, which one would you pick and why:

Phrase 1 - "reviews eddie bauer elite car seat"
Phrase 2 - "eddie bauer cosco high back booster 22-859"

Both have a KEI of 25, so both should be equally profitable if you trust the KEI figure.

You see, my problem is that I just don't have enough information to answer that question. I want to see how many times each are searched for, and how much competition each phrase has.

As it happens, phrase 1 is searched for 3 times a day, phrase 2 is searched for 12 times a day. Sure, the competition of phrase 2 must be higher to mean they both have the same KEI, but the competition for phrase 2 is still only 16 compared to the phrase 1, single page competition.

To me, 16 pages to compete against, is not that much different to 1 page to compete against (because of the way SEO has evolved). It is no longer good enough to just include your phrase on a page and guarantee a top listing even if there is only one competing page.

Do the optimization right, and get the off-page optimization right, and there really isn't a significant difference in those two competition figures. I would expect to be #1 for both if I tried, and they would both take a similar effort to achieve.

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