Keyword Difficulty Analysis: A Beginner's Guide

Keyword difficulty analysis is a crucial step in SEO that can make or break your content's success. A high difficulty score doesn't necessarily mean a keyword is impossible to rank for.

Most keyword difficulty analysis tools use a score out of 100, with higher scores indicating a more competitive landscape. A score above 60 is generally considered high difficulty.

To give you a better idea, a score of 80 or above is often associated with long-tail keywords, while scores below 20 are typically reserved for very niche or low-traffic keywords.

Keyword difficulty is a metric that estimates how hard it is to earn a prominent position in search results for a given keyword.

A keyword difficulty score is a percentage between one and a hundred, with a higher score indicating a more competitive keyword.

The Keyword Difficulty score is not an official Google metric, but is provided by many SEO analytics tools.

A Keyword Difficulty score of 100% means it's extremely challenging to outrank highly relevant search results from authoritative sites, like Apple for the keyword "iPhone".

Keyword difficulty is a metric that estimates how hard it is to earn a prominent position in the search results for a given keyword.

A high difficulty score means it's challenging to outrank highly relevant, high-quality search results from authoritative sites.

The Semrush tool expresses Keyword Difficulty as a percentage, with 100% being the hardest to rank for and 0% the easiest.

For example, the keyword "iPhone" has a very high difficulty score because it's extremely challenging to outrank Apple's highly relevant and high-quality search results.

This means that if you're trying to rank for a very competitive keyword like "iPhone", you'll need to put in extra effort to create high-quality content that can compete with established brands.

The Personal Keyword Difficulty (PKD) score is a game-changer in SEO. It's a metric offered by Semrush that takes into account your website's authority and helps you determine how challenging it would be to rank for a particular keyword.

A high PKD score means it's harder to reach the top 10 search results for a keyword, but Semrush's PKD score reveals opportunities that might be achievable for your website.

Knowing your PKD score is more valuable than relying solely on the general Keyword Difficulty score.

Keyword difficulty analysis is a crucial step in search engine optimization (SEO). It helps you identify search terms you have the potential to rank highly for in the organic listings of the search engine results pages (SERPs).

By understanding which keywords you can rank for, you can invest more resources into content that will likely generate more traffic from search engines to your website. This leads to more clicks, which can translate to more website conversions and better business results.

Keyword difficulty guides your keyword selection process, helping you take a quantitative approach to selecting keywords. This makes it easier to make an educated decision on which keywords to prioritize.

A high difficulty score signifies a fiercely competitive environment, while a low difficulty score represents an opportunity for quick wins. This helps you allocate resources effectively and set achievable targets.

Here's a rough guide to keyword difficulty scores:

By considering keyword difficulty, you can build a data-driven SEO strategy that targets keywords your website can realistically rank for. This optimizes your in-house resources and helps you achieve results.

Keyword difficulty is determined by several key factors, including the authority of competitors already ranking for a specific keyword.

The authority of competitors is a major factor, and it's measured by analyzing Google's top 10 organic results. This means that if a competitor has a high authority score, it will be harder to outrank them.

Content quality and relevance to search intent are also crucial factors. If your content is high-quality and relevant to what users are searching for, it will increase your chances of ranking higher.

The number and authority score of backlinks also play a significant role in determining keyword difficulty. Semrush's formula considers two main backlink metrics: the median number of referring domains and the median ratio of follow to nofollow links.

Here are the two main backlink metrics considered by Semrush:

Your website's domain and topical authority are also taken into account when calculating keyword difficulty. The higher your domain authority, the more a site is considered an expert content provider in the industry.

Your ranking potential is influenced by several key factors. These are the same factors considered when calculating keyword difficulty.

The authority of your competitors already ranking for a specific keyword plays a significant role. If they have high authority, it will be harder to outrank them.

Content quality and its relevance to search intent also matter. If your content is high-quality and relevant, you'll have a better chance of ranking.

The number and authority score of backlinks are also important. If a top-ranking site has many high-authority backlinks, the keyword difficulty score will likely be higher.

Your website's domain and topical authority are also crucial. If your domain has high authority, it will be easier to rank for keywords related to your topic.

Here's a breakdown of the key factors affecting your ranking potential:

Targeting keywords with a high search volume is crucial because it ensures the target keyword will draw enough traffic.

High-volume keywords have the potential to drive more traffic to a website.

You can find keywords, their search volumes, and their difficulty scores in Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool.

Keywords with search volumes of 100,001 or higher have an average Keyword Difficulty score of 76%.

Keywords with volumes from 11-100 have an average Keyword Difficulty score of 39%.

Achieving a high search volume is more challenging with higher-volume keywords, but it's worth the effort.

Calculating keyword difficulty is a complex process, and different tools use various methods to determine it. Ahrefs, for example, considers the number of referring domains the top 10 ranking pages have.

Moz's Keyword Explorer tool, on the other hand, takes an average of the PA of the top 10 search results, but also factors in DA, homepages, query term use, and projected CTR.

Semrush uses a combination of metrics, including the median number of referring domains, median ratio of dofollow and nofollow links, and median Authority Score of top-ranking domains.

Mangools/KWFinder calculates the overall Link Profile Strength (LPS) for every website that ranks on page one of the SERPs, using metrics selected by Moz and Majestic.

MarketMuse's formula includes topical authority and competitive advantage, which is relative to Google's content-specific ranking factors.

Other tools, like Semrush and Moz, also consider search intent and the relevance of content to what searchers are looking for.

Here's a breakdown of the different methods used by popular tools to calculate keyword difficulty:

Keep in mind that each tool uses a different algorithm, so there's no one "accurate" score. It's recommended to manually check keyword difficulty based on your personalized metric.

Checking keyword difficulty is a crucial step in SEO, and fortunately, it's easier than you think. You can use tools like Keyword Overview to get keyword difficulty scores in the dashboard by typing in your keyword(s).

Joshua Hardwick, Head of Content at Ahrefs, recommends manually reviewing the top-ranking pages before creating content to accurately determine how much effort it would take to get into the top ten search results.

To check keyword difficulty manually, follow this simple checklist: you can assess the competition by looking at the number of links pointing to the top-ranking pages, their domain authority, and the search traffic they receive.

Prioritize keywords that drive business value, generate substantial traffic, and strike a balance between being competitive and realistic. This will help you make the most of your time and resources.

You can also use the Personal Keyword Difficulty (PKD) score, which is easy to get by entering your domain in the Keyword Overview tool. This score will give you valuable insights into your topical authority, potential SERP positions, and current keyword rankings.

To get a better understanding of your keyword competition, open a new tab and search for your keyword. Take note of metrics like PA, Links, Links Analysis, and search traffic per month.

Here's a breakdown of how keyword difficulty scores work:

Remember, ranking is relative, and no keyword difficulty score takes everything into account. So, it's essential to manually review the top-ranking pages and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Analyzing top-ranking organic results is a crucial step in keyword difficulty analysis.

The top-ranking pages for your target keyword can give you valuable insights into the competition.

For example, if your target keyword is "vegan beauty products", you'll see that the overall domain authority is high, but the page's authority is much lower.

This means you have a chance to beat this competitor on a page level.

To accurately determine how much effort it would take to get into the top ten search results, you should manually review the top-ranking pages before creating content.

No keyword difficulty score takes everything that affects competition into account, so it's essential to consider multiple angles.

According to Joshua Hardwick, Head of Content at Ahrefs, "Ranking is relative".

Keyword difficulty scores are a crucial metric in SEO analysis. They measure how competitive a keyword is, with higher scores indicating steeper competition.

The keyword difficulty score is a percentage between 1 and 100. The higher the score, the more competitive the keyword.

A high keyword difficulty score, often above 70, indicates steep competition. Ranking for such terms usually requires substantial resources, including high-quality content and strong inbound links.

To improve rankings for high keyword difficulty search terms, you'll need to invest time and money in extensive SEO and link-building.

A good keyword difficulty score is relative to your site. Keyword difficulty depends heavily on your site's backlink profile, which is why websites with stronger backlink profiles can target keywords with greater difficulties.

Here's a rough guide to categorizing target keywords into tiers based on difficulty:

Tier 1 keywords have a high search volume and are exceedingly high difficulty. These are moonshot targets. Tier 2 keywords contain medium-difficulty mid-tail keywords with decent organic traffic potential, which are more attainable goals. Tier 3 keywords focus on the long-tail, hyper-specific keywords and are the easiest to rank for.

A low keyword difficulty score, generally below 30, signifies fewer hurdles to ranking well but may indicate lower search volume. It offers a more straightforward pathway to visibility on search engines.

In general, it's best to focus on keywords with lower difficulty to start, especially if you have a lower Authority Score and weaker backlinks than your competitors.

Improving keyword difficulty requires a strategic approach. According to Joshua Hardwick, Head of Content at Ahrefs, ranking is relative because no keyword difficulty score takes everything into account.

To improve your chances of ranking, you should manually review the top-ranking pages before creating content. This allows you to accurately determine how much effort it would take to get into the top ten search results.

High-difficulty keywords can be daunting, but they're not out of reach. The payoff is substantial increases in traffic and conversions.

To prioritize keywords effectively, focus on the lowest-hanging fruit, keywords that drive business value, and ones that can generate a substantial amount of traffic.

SEO browser extensions like MozBar (free) and Keywords Everywhere ($1.25/mo) give you access to keyword and site data, such as search volume, Cost per Click (CPC), and related SEO keywords.

These tools will also allow you to explore beyond the first page of Google, which is useful for assessing your potential to beat top-ranking sites.

Analyzing top-ranking pages and their on-page SEO can help you understand the keyword's competitiveness, especially if the pages aren't optimized for the specific keyword or show poor SEO.

Areas to check for SEO include the title tag, meta description, keyword insertion, and keyword targeting.

A website's Authority Score, measured by Semrush, is based on three main factors: link power, organic traffic, and natural profile.

The higher the top-ranking sites' Authority Scores, the higher the keyword difficulty will be.

You can find your site's Authority Score with the Backlink Analytics tool, and compare it to your competitors' scores to see how you stack up.

Here are some SEO tools and metrics to keep in mind:

Keyword difficulty is a crucial aspect of a successful SEO strategy. It helps you build a data-driven approach by targeting keywords your website can realistically rank for.

Analyzing top-ranking pages and their on-page SEO can give you a baseline for a keyword's competitiveness. You can check areas such as title tags, meta descriptions, keyword insertion, and keyword targeting to see how well optimized the page is.

A good starting point is to check the keyword difficulty against domain authority to see the likelihood of achieving a meaningful rank. This will give you an idea of whether snagging a spot on the first page of SERPs is feasible.

Here's a rough guide to help you understand the relationship between keyword difficulty and domain authority:

By considering keyword difficulty and domain authority, you can set realistic goals for your content approach and understand how much effort to dedicate to smaller projects.

Authority vs. Difficulty is a crucial factor in determining the feasibility of achieving a meaningful rank on search engine results pages (SERPs). The higher the domain authority of top-ranking sites, the higher the keyword difficulty will be.

The Authority Score, measured by Semrush, is based on three main factors: link power, organic traffic, and natural profile. A higher Authority Score indicates a website's SEO ranking ability.

To calculate keyword difficulty, domain authority of websites that use the target keyword is taken into account. This means that if your main competitors for a keyword are well-established with high authority, it will be harder to unseat them from the top spots.

A new site with low authority can find it challenging to show search engines that its content is better and more reliable than the competition. To overcome this, adopting patience and creating authoritative content is key.

Here's a breakdown of the factors that affect Authority Scores:

By understanding the relationship between authority and difficulty, you can develop a more effective SEO strategy that takes into account the strengths and weaknesses of your competition.

SEO is a crucial aspect of keyword difficulty, and it's essential to understand how it affects your website's ranking. Quality of the content is one of the most important search engine ranking factors, and it's considered while calculating keyword difficulty.

To create rankable content, you must efficiently and effectively satisfy search intent. This means creating unique content that addresses the user's reason for searching.

Analyzing the top-ranking pages and their on-page SEO can help you better understand the keyword's competitiveness. You can check for SEO in areas such as title tag, meta description, keyword insertion, and keyword targeting.

Here are some key elements to check:

Domain authority is like a website's reputation in terms of how relevant and useful its content is for a particular subject or industry. Websites with high domain authority rank higher for the keywords that they target, making these keywords have a high difficulty score.

It's essential to adopt patience and keep plugging away at making authoritative content, as it should be thorough, well-written, helpful, and clear.