How to use Keyword Difficulty in your SEO estimations – State-Journal.com

Search optimization involves much content creation around target keywords. But how do you know which keywords are your best choice? Can you predict if the optimization is worth the investment?

Yes, you can, and there are metrics and tools to walk you through the tasks confidently. Let’s see how you evaluate the potential of your keywords, and what search metrics you should consider to have the best results.

How Keyword Difficulty can help sort out keywords.

First of all, if you own a website with decent search history, you will already have the basic stats to initiate your keyword research. You will see the most important data in Google tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console.

In the Console > Search results, you will see the keywords that your site already ranks for. Below the main dashboard with search and click graphs, you will see the list of top queries, alongside the impressions they get on the web and clicks they bring to your site.

Let’s say, you want to expand your list of target queries and create optimized pages for them. With a keyword research tool, you can find more keywords that match the searcher intent and the purpose of the page.

Practice shows that any automatic tool will suggest hundreds or even thousands of keywords that suit your area. So how do you choose from any of them? Let’s see how you filter and sort out keywords with the help of the keyword difficulty tool in Rank Tracker.

Rank Tracker’s Keyword Difficulty metric provides a forecast on how hard it will be for the page to rank in the top 10 on Google SERP (or for any alternative or localized version of your target search engine).

The algorithm behind the SEO difficulty value is pretty simple. To calculate the average Keyword Difficulty score, Rank Tracker analyzes the top-ranking pages on the SERP for the SEO keyword and important ranking factors, such as domain authority, backlinks referring to  each page and domain, on-page optimization rate, etc.

You need to compare the Keyword Difficulty value in combination with the search volume, competition, and keyword effectiveness index (KEI). This way, you will be able to prioritize the right keywords based on how much effort it will take to rank for them. The keywords with lower keyword difficulty, lower competition, and higher KEI will bring you more traffic at the lowest costs.

Phrases with keyword difficulty below 60 are the rarest to find but the easiest to rank for. The lucky finds are low-competition keywords with large search volumes. They become perfect keywords to optimize your pages for.

Usually, high-volume keywords are represented with higher competition. Such keywords are typically harder to rank. To compete for those keywords, you will need to create outstanding content plus build a lot of backlinks.

Keywords with low search volume are usually long-tail keywords that hardly anyone knows of. They will not bring much traffic. However, long-tails get a higher click-through rate from organic search. Besides, there is not so much competition for them (although, it’s not a strict rule). Such keywords are perfect for websites that recently launched and need to show up in the organic quickly.

How to use Keyword Difficulty metric

The Keyword Difficulty metric helps you make an informed decision whether the keyword is worth the efforts in your SEO or PPC campaign. These are major use cases how to analyze the potential of your keywords. 

Tip #1: Check keyword difficulty for one keyword instantly.

This feature checks keyword difficulty one by one for 50 ranking competitors. Launch the Rank Tracker, paste the URL of the website you are optimizing, and your new project will be created. Then switch to the SERP Analysis module and simply add your target keyword to the search bar. The keyword tool will analyze the top 50 ranking pages for the number of backlinks, the number of rankings keywords, page strength, and page experience score.

The tool calculates the average keyword difficulty and finds if there is any correlation between the page’s ranking position and the ranking factor (you can select each factor from the drop-down menu above the histogram). This way, you know not only the keyword difficulty but also which ranking factor probably needs more investment for better ranking opportunities. The details of each competitor are shown in the lower part of the workspace.

Tip #2: Check the keyword difficulty for keywords you are already tracking.

These are top keywords from your Search Console. You will first need to import them from the Console, either manually or by integrating the Console keys into Rank Tracker. Alternatively, let the tool discover your ranking keywords, and make sure they all appear in the Rank Tracking module, under your Target Keywords. Next, go to see the keyword difficulty estimations.

1. In the Target Keyword module, switch to the Keyword Map submodule.

2. In the central workspace, switch tothe Keyword Difficulty tab.

3. Select the keywords you want to check and hit the Update Keyword Difficulty button above the workspace.

You will get the average score for the whole list of keywords in each folder or on each landing page. This way you will get an estimation of how hard it will be to rank for your target landing pages. The nearby SEO and PPC analysis tabs will give you a clue about how effective the keywords might be, and how to redistribute your budget between SEO and PPC campaigns.

At this step, it makes sense to eliminate competitors that outperform you significantly and to focus on the lower-hanging fruit. Or prioritize your SEO efforts and split the competitors into groups: those to go after first and those to compete with later.

Use the Keyword Difficulty metric for competition analysis. Rank Tracker will compare the top 10 ranking competitors’ pages for every SEO keyword to help you determine how strong they are.

1. In the Rank Tracking module, pick a keyword and switch to the Keyword Difficulty tab in the lower screen

2. Hit the Update button to have SEO difficulty calculated.

You will get an instant picture of the keyword competition. Pay attention to how many linking sites each of the ranking pages has, and what’s the general strength of the domain. Such rating estimates how much effort it will take to occupy a ranking position in the top 10.

Tip #4. Bulk estimation of keyword optimization costs 

In the same way, you will have an estimation of the keyword difficulty of all discovered keywords in Rank Tracker’s Keyword Research module. Going through each of the research method, you will have all keyword variants collected in the Keyword Sandbox. The research tool distributes the collected words into keyword groups (you can move them and regroup easily). You will have the keyword difficulty value next to each keyword, as well as for the whole group in the upper dashboard.

Tip #5. Monitor SEO competition through automatic checks of your SEO/PPC data.

With an extremely changeable competition landscape, SEO data needs to be constantly monitored. The good news is, Rank Tracker can get your scores calculated automatically with predefined autopilot check-ups.

1. In your project, move to Preferences > Scheduler and Alerts.

2. Click on the Add button, check to Update keyword data, and hit Next.

3. Choose to update SEO and PPC data that will check the competition; among many metrics, this can be Keyword Difficulty as well.

4. Choose your project, set the time and periodicity of your checks, and name the scheduled task.

The tool will run the task in a stand-by mode and will deliver the SEO keyword ranking report through your preferred publishing profile. This can be sending the report to an email, storing to your hard drive, or sharing by an URL in-cloud. You set the profile through Preferences > Publishing Profiles.

That’s it! Hope these tips will help you make the right choice for your keyword optimization strategy.

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