In today's eCommerce world, digital marketers should establish a practical and customised content strategy to reach the most relevant possible consumers.   

Keyword difficulty is an important metric that helps SEO experts to create campaigns that will get the best results on the Search Engine Results Page. (SERP).  Keyword difficulty estimation tools can predict how a competitive keyword may be in search results. Therefore, the SEO tools that digital marketers use are very important.  In this blog post, we will detail the influence of the accurate keyword difficulty grade and advise you on the most suitable SEO tool to use.

 

3 steps to follow in your keyword strategy

1. Search Engine Results Page study      

In this first step, a SERP analysis is required, in which the regular value is evaluated on three average values, such as:

• The number of domains that point to the URLs with ranking probability.
• The authority grade of the ranking domains.
• The proportion of follow/no-follow links compared to the keywords that rank.

2. Keyword Guidelines          

Following the second footfall, we move to a breakdown of keyword metrics. This acknowledges the factors that can rank in the Search Engine Results Page, together with a complete analysis of particular keywords. In Semrush, you can weigh the formula differently, depending on the ones that are on the first page. The average number, which refers to the domain for ranking URLs (41.22 % in total) is the one that gets the highest grade. The next parameter, the authority score for ranking domains, is the one that has an authority score of 16.99%. 

Search volume is the third one that has 9.47% and the average follow/no-follow proportion for ranking URLs sits in the fourth position at 9.17%. Some other metrics have rich snippets, branded keywords and site links.

3. Calculation   

Lastly, we arrive at the counting part. This formula is adapted for each country and it considers the number of people from a country and one of the websites when it is calculating the KD score based on Semrush´s regional database.

What does keyword difficulty mean and how does it impact SEO performance?

   According to Aref, keyword difficulty is a very useful metric that makes you understand how to rank for a specific search query. 

On Semrush, you can add likely 100 keywords anytime to verify the KD number. Essentially, the platform can support the user search for important low-competition keywords. Keyword difficulty grades can be determined for long-tail and local keywords. Nevertheless, the SEO tool grants enables you to analyse your SEO strategy depending on your competitors to check what is performing well and analyse any keyword gaps.

These results show you the KD rating and guide what you should do next to gain more hits. At the bottom of the scale, numbers of 0-14% are considered  "very easy"  with the higher chances that new pages appear in the most important Google Search Engine Results Page.

The following step is 15-29%, which is seen as “easy”. In case there is some competition, it likely accomplishes a high position for new web pages. Nonetheless, this can imply creating qualitative content on some specific keywords. 

The higher the KD score is, the more challenging it becomes. A grade of 85-100% is seen as very "difficult", in which keywords have the strongest competition. In this case, it is still achievable to have a good position in Google SERP with these keywords but with more detailed tasks such as on-page SEO, link building and marketing campaigns.

Conclusion

Doing keyword research and finding the most authentic keywords is not an easy task - but taking into consideration our tips, you will have a better chance of reaching your SEO objectives. In case you want to know more about how to perform keyword research, follow this link.