Keyword Difficulty: What it is and Why it’s Important in SEO
everybody is aware that a keyword search volume
is a critical seo metric however it is critical to understand what it takes to rank for that
keyword that is why each keyword research tool employs a metric known as keyword difficulty
we'll take a closer look at what it is how it's calculated and why it's critical while
conducting keyword research in this tutorial what is keyword difficulty keyword difficulty a
keyword competition or seo difficulty is a search engine optimization metric that indicates how
difficult it is to rank for a particular keyword the more difficult the keyword the tougher it is
to rank on the first serp due to the significant rivalry among ranking websites numerous factors
both external and internal contribute to the level of keyword difficulty including the quality of
your competitors pages and the quality of your own typically the term is used in two slightly
distinct ways one the difficulty of a keyword as a metric on a scale of zero to one hundred
two keyword difficulty is a general term taking into account all the aspects both internal and
external now let us discuss each one in detail keyword difficulty is a metric frequently the term
keyword difficulty refers to the metric used in seo tools to quantify the difficulty of ranking
for each keyword on a scale of 0 to 100 the formula is straightforward the higher the score
the more difficult it is to rank for the keyword in kw finder for example the difficulty scores
are additionally color coded to assist you in navigating through the list of keywords how is
keyword difficulty calculated when converting a keywords competition into a statistic only one
aspect of the website's quality is considered the backlink profile each website that appears on
the first serp is assigned a score depending on the quality and quantity of backlinks your
competitor's authority can be quantified in a variety of ways the link profile strength
statistic in kw finder estimates the quality of a website's link profile the computation
is based on the metrics chosen by moz majestic and other expertise specifically domain
authority page authority citation flow trust flow following that the average score is calculated to
get a single final result indicating how difficult it is for a website to rank in the first serp for
this term keyword difficulty as a general term when evaluating how difficult it will be for
you to rank for a particular keyword there are a few aspects to consider both internal and
external the most critical factors are as follows one your competitors seo is all about outranking
your competitors thus examining rival websites is one of the most effective methods for
estimating the difficulty of ranking for a term you should place a premium on the following
content quality on page optimization and backlinks backlinks remain a significant ranking factor
and hence provide an accurate estimate of how difficult it will be to rank for a keyword
additionally it is the sole element that can be quantified and converted to a metric that is why
determining the keyword difficulty is sometimes reduced to determining your competitor's authority
as measured by their link profile the greater the authority of the website's ranking for a keyword
the more difficult it will be to outrank them 2.
Authority of your website apart from your
competition the authority of your website plays a role in determining your potential to rank for a
keyword this is especially critical if you have a new website even if the competition for a keyword
is minimal and you publish an excellent piece of content your brand new site with no backlinks
is unlikely to rank bear in mind that they are not used by google in any manner and are provided
only for your convenience ensure that you compare data inside a single metric three quality of
your content there is another side to the coin your website's authority will be useless if the
quality of your content cannot compete with the pages ranking in the first serp you should
consider the following how difficult will it be for me to create content that is on a par
with or better than that of the competitors pages can i match my competitors level of expertise is
there any advantage i can supply my readers with over my competitors all of these are subjective
criteria that contribute to the overall difficulty of your particular term 4.
Search intent finally
and maybe most importantly you should evaluate the search intent underlying the search query in other
words what type of content are people looking for when they search a particular keyword there are
four fundamental categories of search intent so how can we ascertain the keyword search intent
the simplest method is to reverse engineer it by examining the search results and determining
the types of pages that rank for the phrase why should you care about the difficulty of
a keyword numerous inexperienced bloggers select a keyword compose compelling content and
optimize the website just to discover that they do not rank at all the most frequently cited
explanation is that competition is too intense this is why your keyword research should
always take keyword difficulty into account by monitoring keyword difficulty you'll get a
decent sense of which keywords are hot and which players are huge in your niche you'll be able
to uncover more keywords in your niche for which you have a legitimate possibility of ranking
you'll save a lot of time by concentrating on keywords that will generate results even if your
website does not currently have a lot of authority how to use keyword difficulty in your seo strategy one take a step back and consider the big
picture the difficulty of the keyword is merely one factor to consider while conducting
keyword research the other two critical factors are the keywords popularity and relevancy if the
term has a low difficulty but no search volume you will receive no traffic on the other side without
relevance even if the difficulty measure is low you will not rank for the keyword because the
search intent does not match your type of content 2.
Analyze the serp results never rely on a single
keyword tools output the keyword difficulty metric is intended to provide a fast snapshot it is not
intended to replace competitor research in other words serp analysis is an indispensable component
of seo apart from the difficulty metric constantly keep an eye on the serps and the real websites
that rank for the phrase you'll learn a great deal more about search intent the type of content
that ranks for the phrase and the extent to which your competitors cover the subject additionally
you may note that the top places are occupied by major brands with a high authority which may
not be reflected in the 0 to 100 score but will impact your ability to rank for the phrase at the
top 3.
Do not be afraid of challenging situations the keyword difficulty metric should not be used
in isolation to dissuade you from attempting to rank for a term with medium or high difficulty
it's more about gaining a general understanding of the competition and determining what has to
be done to make your page a credible contender several factors can assist you in ranking for a
highly competitive keyword outstanding content you can outrank highly respected competitors by
creating high quality content that demonstrates greater expertise and delves far deeper into
the subject topical relevance having a tightly focused website with high quality internal links
can help you out rank authoritative websites that cover the issue infrequently and are ranked
mostly based on their overall brand authority backlinks of high quality a large number of good
quality backlinks to a single page will help you rank for that page even if your domain authority
is lower overall four contrast the values contained within a single tool there are numerous
keyword research tools available and each may utilize a different backlink database or calculate
keyword difficulty differently as a result keyword difficulty scores may vary between tools and it's
critical to compare values within a single tool conclusion i hope this video has helped
you know what keyword difficulty is and why it is important in seo and how you can
use it in your seo plan thanks for watching you
