Keyword difficulty explained
Keyword difficulty is essentially a score based on how much competition there is for a specific word/s, measuring how difficult it is for you to rank on a scale of 1 to 100.
The higher the competition, the more difficult it is to rank for that keyword. A lot of SEO analytics tools provide this metric, but this is rarely the same across multiple different tools because they all calculate the score in their own way.
Why is the keyword difficulty important?
Simply put: It’s an extremely important part of the keyword research process.
Along with monthly search volume and a few other factors, keyword difficulty helps you choose the best keywords for your SEO.
The only issue is that every tool measures keyword difficulty differently so when comparing KD scores make sure you’re using the same tool to produce the scores.
How to use keyword difficulty to improve your SEO strategy
You can plan out your campaigns and set priorities with the difficulty score. Here’s a few things that can help you rank for a highly competitive keyword. Concentrate on better output if the keyword you are targetting has a high score!
- Outstanding content
- Topical relevance
- Quality backlinks with the keyword as the anchor text
What is a good keyword difficulty?
The scores fall into the following categories. A keyword might have a low score because there is low search volume, too!
For this reason, you should always look at search volume too but Moderate Difficulty Keywords (falling between 5% and 25%) tend to be the best. These will typically have decent search volumes yet not much competition, meaning that you have a realistic chance to rank highly for them.
- 00 – 04 = Fairly Easy
- 05 – 24 = Medium
- 25 -64 = Competitive
- 65 – 100 = Almost Impossible
Keyword difficulty vs keyword competition
Keyword competition shows you how many sites are in the search results for a given keyword. Keyword difficulty shows you how hard it is to rank for that keyword in an organic search.
Important Note: Always try to use the same keyword research tool when comparing the score across multiple keywords because they rarely output the same score as one another!
In summary: The Keyword Difficulty Score is an important marker in SEO and one that is often forgotten. By using the Keyword Difficulty score you will be able to make better decisions about your SEO strategy
