Let’s start with the basics of keyword difficulty
Among the various elements that determine “website optimization and its positioning in search engines, Keyword Difficulty (KD) has” vital importance.
Keywords are indeed a determining factor for every SEO strategy, and every online content must take into account the scores related to Keyword Difficulty.
Keyword research is a crucial activity for positioning content in the top results of the SERP (Search Engine Results Page, which is the list of results produced by a search engine query).
Knowing and being able to use the best tools to calculate Keyword Difficulty is therefore absolutely fundamental, because good use of keywords is what allows you to obtain top positions in the results pages and, consequently, increase website traffic.
But let’s see specifically what Keyword Difficulty is, what are the best tools to calculate it, and what strategies to adopt in case of high scores.
What is Keyword Difficulty? Continue reading
Keyword Difficulty refers to the metric that defines how difficult it is for a keyword to rank at the top of search engine SERPs.
In general, a low Keyword Difficulty score qualifies specific and rarely used keywords, which can therefore obtain a higher volume of traffic, because they have very limited competition, meaning they are used infrequently.
A high Keyword Difficulty score, on the other hand, indicates a widely used keyword, present in many other online contents and, consequently, it will be more difficult to obtain top positions on SERP pages using it.
However, a good web marketing strategy doesn’t always have to be based on using keywords with high scores. It depends on long-term goals.
While keywords with low scores allow you to climb the SERP in a very short time, those with high scores, if coupled with ad hoc SEO strategies, can still achieve excellent results, despite high competition.
What are the best tools to calculate Keyword Difficulty and keep track of competitors
There are numerous tools on the web for “analyzing Keyword Difficulty”.
Most platforms allow you to search for the Keyword and perform a detailed analysis through various parameters.
Here’s a list of the most used ones.
SEMrush, one of the giants
SEMrush is a powerful analysis tool, with many features, capable of covering the most varied SEO needs, such as keyword research, analysis of various competitors, social media, and much more.
It allows you to start a digital marketing strategy by providing a 360-degree overview of the potential and flaws of a website and its content.
Founded in 2008, this platform has now become an industry standard for anyone involved in online marketing.
Specifically, it allows you to discover how Google indexes the site under examination, that is, its positioning in the SERP, while also allowing you to analyze the keywords most searched by users who navigate it.
Its peculiarity consists in having developed its own formula to calculate Keyword Difficulty as accurately as possible, namely by examining the first 20 domains that appear in the SERP and evaluating how much a certain Keyword is used.
What emerges from the “analysis is a percentage, which determines the” insertion of the keyword into 5 possible categories.
The lower the percentage, the less competition, and therefore it will be easier to obtain a high ranking.
The tool has a free version, which allows you to analyze 100 keywords at a time.
Moz SEO, the Other Giant
Moz SEO is one of the most used platforms for “keyword analysis, and among its various features, Keyword Explorer stands out, which was developed with the” specific intent of analyzing keyword performance.
Among the analyzed parameters is, obviously, also the one related to Keyword Difficulty.
Moz SEO combines the Keyword Difficulty score with the click-through rate and search volume of a specific keyword, thus providing a series of potentially successful keywords.
Despite the apparent complexity of the analyzed data, using Moz SEO is very easy.
It is indeed an SEO tool that can be used even by less experienced users, and it is completely free, however, like SEMrush, it requires registration and account creation.
Ubersuggest, Real-Time Data
It is a free tool that works even without registration and allows you to quickly generate a very high number of keywords.
Widely used by web writers, this tool also provides Keyword Difficulty calculation, but its main feature is that it performs the calculation based on data obtained in real-time from Google.
Ubersuggest returns a complete picture of the performance of each search query, providing details such as the search volume of a specific keyword, the CPC (average cost per click on related ads), the competitiveness of the word and its trend based on seasonality, related keywords, and a detailed SERP analysis.
Ahrefs, for SEO Professionals
Ahrefs is a paid tool that is mainly used by SEO professionals and specialized agencies. Among its capabilities, SEO analysis and the ability to suggest and best organize link building stand out.
Obviously, this tool also calculates Keyword Difficulty, through an average of the number of domains present in the top 10 Google results.
Ahrefs has a tool, Keyword Explorer, which shows the monthly search volume of a given keyword and suggests related ones, and being a professional tool, it also allows monitoring of a site’s authority by analyzing its backlinks, and enables complete competitor analysis.
SEOzoom, the All-Italian Answer
SEOzoom is an Italian tool that allows you to monitor and manage every aspect of SEO activity.
The tool is paid, but offers a free one-week trial.
The uniqueness of SEOzoom is that it makes a distinction between Keyword Difficulty and Keyword Opportunity.
While the former indicates the difficulty of ranking based on the chosen keyword, the latter signals the potential to rank high in the SERP with that specific keyword.
SEOzoom is a very professional tool that offers “detailed keyword analysis, allowing you to follow their” trend, distribution, and performance over time.
It also provides reports on real-time keyword positioning, thanks to the rank tracker, and integrates an editorial assistant, which helps the user write content in line with Google’s requirements.
KWFinder by Mangools
The Keyword Finder platform, developed by Mangools, has a series of very useful SEO features, which include the ability to search for keywords with low difficulty.
It is an easy-to-use tool with a rather intuitive interface that provides accurate statistics on keyword competition, very in-depth SERP overviews, and keyword suggestions.
KWFinder allows you to perform some searches for free. To exceed the free limit, however, a subscription is required.
High Keyword Difficulty: What Strategy to Adopt to Avoid Succumbing to Competitors?
If the analysis of a site’s content reveals a Keyword Difficulty with very high scores, there are several strategies to adopt to still position it high in the SERP.
Among these, we can particularly mention on-page SEO, content promotion, and, above all, creating a link building strategy.
Let’s try to understand what link building is and how to do it
Link building: how to do it without risking penalties
The term link building refers to the construction of a network of connections between a site and others, and it’s the most well-known among off-page SEO activities.
Links constitute the “soul of the internet, and in the vastness of the virtual world, they can be likened to preferential lanes. For this reason, they assume” crucial importance in the search engine ranking strategy.
Link building is essentially based on the “insertion of one or more links within” the pages of a site, which can refer to information in line with the exposed content, recommendations, additional data, or simply serve as a connection with another site, if both owners benefit from this reciprocity.
In addition to optimizing a site, link building is also able to increase the value of a domain. Being linked
, or recommended, contributes to increasing the authority of a site in Google’s eyes.
Although many are led to believe that an optimal SEO strategy for their site is quite simple to plan and implement, in reality, building a good link building strategy, the appropriate use of keywords, and all the techniques to increase content visibility are the exclusive domain of industry professionals.
In conclusion, here’s what you should do
Doing it yourself most often has the effect of losing traffic and potential customers, or hindering your business and online activity, making it more difficult to reach its full potential.
For this reason, we recommend you turn to a specialized SEO agency, like Qreativa, and request a tailored SEO consultation.
The SEO Agency Qreativa provides clients with a series of experts who, thanks to their competence and experience, produce concrete results and provide real support.
