Many companies seek to record high conversion rates on their digital marketing campaigns. They do this by adopting top SEO practices to optimize digital content for search engines. As you know, keyword selection can be tricky. Many digital marketers easily get overwhelmed when selecting keywords. When choosing keywords, you must factor in CPC, search volume, search intent, and keyword difficulty. Keyword difficulty is an essential SEO metric used to optimize content strategy. Continue reading to learn all you need to know about keyword difficulty.
What is keyword difficulty?
If you’re one of those with the question “what is keyword difficulty?” you’d discover that the answer isn’t far-fetched. Keyword difficulty (KD) is an essential metric used in SEO to determine how a page ranks for SEO keywords and is often interchanged with keyword competition and SEO difficulty. Keyword competition shows the number of advertisers bidding on Google ads in organic search results for a particular keyword and is a metric found in Google Keyword Planner.
A high KD score is indicative of how difficult it would be to display relevant keywords on the first page of SERPs. A high metric score shows there’s much competition for a particular keyword. In contrast, a lower keyword difficulty means it’ll be easier to achieve good SERP results with a given keyword. In other words, low KD entails less competition for an organic keyword.
Why is it important?
The importance of keyword difficulty (KD) can’t be overemphasized. As mentioned earlier, KD is an important metric for performing keyword research. A higher difficulty makes it harder for your content to compete with others containing that keyword. Conversely, low KD gives your content higher chances of ranking on top of SERP.
Many SEO experts rely on keyword difficulty when conducting keyword research and the overall level of keyword difficulty determines how a page ranks on top of the SERP. KD plays an integral role in the SERP analysis of a list of keywords and allows you to rank keywords on the first page of Google. This invariably drives organic traffic and increased conversions. The KD score helps you avoid high-competition keywords and you can choose easily choose a low-competition keyword.
How is the keyword difficulty calculated?
To find low competition keywords, you must determine your site’s competitive power. All websites have varying chances of ranking on Google’s first page and focusing your SEO efforts on low competition keywords is the best way to achieve SEO success.
There are different tools for calculating a keyword difficulty score and each uses a different method of calculating KD scores. When selecting the best keyword difficulty tool appropriate for your SEO needs, opt for a keyword overview with an intuitive user interface. In addition to keyword difficulty, the tool should display search volume, KW competitors, and PPC. If you want to rank a given keyword, you need to ensure the quality of your content stacks up favorably against similar content on the web. You have to go beyond what’s currently on the SERP to rank high.
An SEO tool may leverage the website’s domain rating that ranks for the keyword to calculate the KD metric. Domain rating is computed using the number and quality of backlinks linking to a specific website. You can find the logarithmic scale below the specific keyword you’re researching using a keyword research tool.
With the right keyword, you can take an underperforming and undiscoverable piece of content to Google’s first page of search results. Generally, common contributing factors to a keyword’s ranking difficulty include content quality, backlink profile, and domain authority. Take the initiative and adopt a robust tool to calculate your keyword difficulty score.
