The so-called keyword difficulty (Keyword Difficulty), that is, according to the fierce competition of keywords, the degree of difficulty to obtain the keyword ranking from search engine search results is also different.
understands the definition and importance of keyword difficulty, which can help webmasters to better select keyword lists that are more in line with their own situation, and optimize them reasonably to get more natural search engine traffic.
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what is keyword difficulty?
keyword difficulty (also known as “SEO difficulty” or “keyword competition”) is the process of assessing the difficulty of ranking specific terms in Google’s natural search results. The difficulty of keywords depends on many different factors, including domain permissions, page permissions, and content quality.
Why is keyword difficulty important?
in short: it is a very important part of keyword research. With monthly searches and other factors, keyword difficulty can help you choose the best keywords for SEO. The only problem with
is that each tool measures the difficulty of keywords differently.
in fact, our recent analysis of popular keyword tools found that their difficulty scores are everywhere. This is true even for the same keyword.
therefore, if you want to really understand the difficulty of keyword rankings, you need to dig deeper than the numbers spit out by the tool.
has this, here is how to calculate the REAL keyword difficulty of a term:
step 1: install MozBar
there is a free browser toolbar to evaluate keyword difficulty faster and easier: MozBar.
here is how to install and set it up:
goes to this page. Then click the big yellow button:
and install MozBar on your Chrome browser.
now, whenever you search in Google, you should see information from MozBar in SERP:
now that you have set up MozBar, it’s time to evaluate competition based on some different factors. Step 2 of
: check page weights
has an old SEO motto: “Google does not rank websites.” It ranks the page. “
although the domain name authority and brand image of the website play an important role, the first factor of page ranking in Google is the weight of the page.
, so this old adage has a lot of truth. The best measure of
page authority is the page weight of Moz.
(you can easily check the page weight by looking at the “PA” number in the MozBar SERP overlay:)
SERP has some high PA results on the first page. This is the case with most medium or high-capacity keywords. The important thing about
is to pay attention to low-PA pages. These pages are mature and can be knocked down by your new, optimized pages. If you see a lot of these, consider giving the green light for that particular keyword. Step 3 of
: check out the reference domain
. The core of Google is a poll collection engine. The more “votes” a
page gets (in the form of backlinks), the higher its ranking.
(think links are no longer important? The search engine ranking factor study found that, compared with other factors, the number of citation domains has a higher correlation with higher rankings).
this means that the number of referenced domains is a 100% indicator of concern. Because
has several link analysis tools, there is no shortage of conflicting data about how many links to a page point to it.
so you have two choices: you can use MozBar. Or you can use Semrush.
generally speaking, the link index of Moz is not as good as Semrush. But MozBar is a convenient way to assess the overall difficulty of the target keyword because it displays the data to you in SERP.
here is how to use both:
if you have a professional account, you can check the number of referenced domains from MozBar:
you can also use tools such as Semrush to see how many referenced domains point to specific pages.
only needs to get URL from the home page of Google.
… Then put it into the Semrush.
this tool will show you the number of reference fields linked to the page: the
process takes longer than using Moz’s toolbar. But the advantage is that data from Semrush tend to be much more accurate. Step 4 of
: check the domain weight
. I don’t need to tell you that Google likes to rank pages from major high-weight sites such as Wikipedia and Amazon.
of course, some pages of these sites rank in terms of page permissions and content quality.
but most of the pages on authoritative sites have been hit hard by the simple fact that they are in high-weight domains.
this means that-when you evaluate keyword competition-you also want to see the site you are competing for (not just pages). Fortunately for
, MozBar displays domain weights on SERP overlays: generally speaking,
is highly competitive with high PA and DA results.
as you might expect, you want to see lower PA and DA in many of the top 10 results. These are keywords that you can easily rank.
in other words, the weight of the page is the most important. But you also need to consider DA.
Professional tip: beware of big brands
Brand signal is an underestimated part of determining the difficulty of keywords. What is the brand signal? They are a signal to search engines that websites are big brands. And these signals are becoming more and more important in Google’s algorithm.
means that when it comes to keyword difficulty, you also need to consider the size of the brand. For example, sites such as Amazon, ESPN.com and YouTube have an advantage in small brand search results. Even if these small brands have similar page weights and domain weights.
step 5: evaluate the link profile
if you have been working in the SEO game for some time, you will know that link metrics can be very misleading.
sites with spam link profiles sometimes have higher DA and PA. But because they use junk links, in the long run, they won’t stay on the home page.
so, if there is a keyword that looks particularly competitive, but your hunch is that there are a lot of black hat SEO behind it, please spot-check the top 10 link profiles.
you may also want to see if there are any links in the top 10 that are very difficult for you to obtain (for example, media references on major news websites).
either way, if you want to put a lot of effort into keyword ranking, it makes sense to understand how each site cracked the first page. The best way is to look at their link profile.
first, copy the URL of one of the top 10 results and paste the URL into Semrush:
Click backlink Analysis in the sidebar, and then click the Backlink tab:
, which displays all external links to the page.
finally, take a look at the top 10-25 links in their link profile:
you can usually tell in a few seconds whether the page uses a black hat SEO.
links from these places often represent black hat link profiles:
- low-quality network directories
- articles directories
- blogs network
- spam blog comments
also pay attention to keyword optimized anchor text from external links. This is another sign that the page is ranking using black hat link construction.
, on the other hand, if a page has a lot of such links, beating them may be more competitive than PA and DA numbers suggest:
- links from news sites, such as NYTimes.com
- editing links from high-weight websites in your industry,
- links from popular blogs
, the point here is not to indulge in their link profiles. This is just another layer of information to help you make informed decisions. Step 6 of
: check their content optimization
you already know that page search engine optimization can achieve or destroy a site’s ranking ability.
this is why you should pay attention to the page SEO of potential competitors in the top 10 results.
, for example, suppose you want to rank gluten-free biscuits.
well, you might want to see the title tag of the page on the first page of Google.
(title tags are blue links in search results)
these two results use exact keywords or tight variants of keywords in their headings.
, so I think these two pages are well optimized. For
to dig deeper, click one of the results. Next, click the Page Analysis icon in MozBar:
, which displays information about the basic page properties of the page:
, if the keyword is included in the H1/H2 tag and URL, the page is considered optimized.
, on the other hand, if a page has inert page SEO, it can easily rank above that content. Even if it has good access. Step 7 of
: find “simple goal” results
when you see one or more Easy Target results in the top 10, it’s time to celebrate. You have just found a low-competitive keyword.
the following results often show that the competition for very low keywords:
- comes with the page
- Yahoo! Answer
- eBay
- puzzle
- central page
- eBay
- Blogspot (or other free blogs)
- press release site
below is an example of keywords with Easy Target results:
also has a:
step 8: evaluate content quality
in assessing the difficulty of keywords, backlinks and page SEO are important indicators.
absolutely.
in fact, most SEO tools only look at these two indicators to calculate their keyword difficulty scores.
but don’t forget that the quality of your content is an important part of your ability to make it into the top 10.
in other words, if you want to rank for competitive keywords, be prepared to match (or exceed) the quality of the top 10 results.
although this process is subjective, you can usually dig for a minute or two to figure out what type of content you must bring to the desktop. What about
?
only needs to search for your keywords and read the top 10 results.
shows us a sample keyword “the health benefits of garlic”.
‘s first result from Healthline is a high-quality article written by legal nutrition experts: the
article also cites several scientific studies to make this content more credible.
in other words, you need some very good content to beat the number one result.
lets take a look at another content that ranks much lower in the results. The first thing I noticed about WHFoods:
is that the layout and design are really out of date. This could damage the site’s ability to get links and social sharing. So you immediately know that content design is a way to stand out from what is already ranked.
, however, the content itself is excellent. It has charts:
Cooking tips:
and scientific reference list:
makes the page rank higher because of its outdated design and page search engine optimization. The title tag of the
page is “garlic”. And it is not well optimized for the keyword “health benefits of garlic”.
otherwise, the content itself is very good, but it can be beat.
finally, let’s take a look at another result of NDTV Food on the home page. Unlike HealthLine’s article,
is not written by a certified expert (the author is anonymous) and does not cite any research. This is good news: it means that this content should be easy to beat!
