Did some Analysis on SEOmoz's competitive index scores, to be honest I do not think these are very good for the AU market but it is an indication of competition rates within a search term.

Also as a note: A score of 70 = Very High Competition.
A Score of 50 = Competitive
A score of 30 = Medium to lower

Poker comes out on top from this analysis:

SEO - 72/100
Life Insurance - 71/100
Car Insurance - 71/100
Travel Insurance - 64/100
Poker - 85/100
Credit Card - 65/100
Credit Cards - 65/100
Home Loan - 67/100
Online Education - 62/100
MBA - 61/100
debt consolidation - 59/100
Lawyer - 60/100
Real Estate - 75/100
Insurance - 71/100
Tax - 65/100
Superannuation - 66/100

This was taken looking at the .com.au (Google) market.

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Interesting info James. How does "web design" rate?

69/100 ...

I do not think these index scores are that great but they are a good overview imo.

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I'd have to agree. Not the easiest to rank highly.

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Great analysis James. Perhaps I might get some more bids now http://www.dntrade.com.au/selling-pa...38.html?t=4538

I owe you

This ones good too :

http://www.wordstream.com/images/whe...-its-money.png


But the thing is Poker is one of the highest paying affiliate areas for example, but Google does not offer PPC, you can only do SEO, hence why it is so competitive.

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I think that would be pretty close. I think Online Education has a massive tail which makes it easier to carve a niche into and I don't think the MBA demand is as high in Oz as elsewhere.

Apart from that though, it's pretty much on the money. The only missing verticals I see is travel. Cheap Flights, Cheap Hotels... I think there's much more competition there then perhaps the Tax/Lawyer area, if only because the online market it much more mature.