Keyword Difficulty as a standalone metric can be misleading.
I mean, how can a one to three digit number truly quantify how hard it's going to be to rank in Google?
Now, despite its shortcomings, it's actually a super insightful metric if you understand
how it works and how Google chooses which pages to rank.
So today, I'm going to break down this mysterious metric, answer some frequently asked questions,
and of course, I'll show you how to tell the difference between a keyword trap and a keyword opportunity.
Stay tuned.
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If you're unfamiliar with Keyword Difficulty, it's basically a numerical representation
of how hard it'll be to rank in Google for a search query.
Now, I want you to think about this for a second.
Google uses hundreds of ranking signals, some that have been confirmed, some that have been
"verified" through third party studies, and then there are ones that SEOs have concluded based
on experience, observation or gut feelings.
So to expect a third party with zero association to Google to somehow decrypt 200 some-odd
signals and compute a quote-unquote "accurate" metric is unrealistic and perhaps impossible.
Afterall, most of these so-called "ranking factors," are speculation and there are others
that can't even be looked at independently.
And for that reason, you'll notice that keyword difficulty will differ depending on the keyword
research tool you're using.
In fact, I pulled up these three keywords in four different keyword research tools and you'll see
how vastly different the difficulty scores are.
So does that mean that keyword difficulty is useless?
Or that one tool is better at predicting ranking difficulty than another?
Not at all.
Now, I can't speak on behalf of other tools because a) I don't know how they calculate KD;
and b) I don't really care how they calculate it because Ahrefs is the only SEO tool with
keyword difficulty scores that I've used consistently for the past five and a half years.
So I'll be talking about how we calculate Keyword Difficulty at Ahrefs, outline some
of the shortcomings for all tools, including ours, and then we'll piece it altogether so
you can find keyword opportunities for your site.
So, how does Ahrefs calculate Keyword Difficulty?
Simply put, we take a weighted average of the number of referring domains pointing at
the top 10 pages.
So this means that if a keyword has a high KD, then the ranking pages likely have lots
of links pointing at them.
In contrast, low KD scores tell us that the top ranking pages don't have many links.
Now, since ranking for keywords usually relies on backlinks,
KD acts as a good proxy to ranking difficulty.
But there are other factors we have to consider.
So let's walk through these factors and unpack them with practical examples.
And I promise that by understanding these fundamental concepts, it'll help you to utilize
Keyword Difficulty scores more effectively.
The first thing to consider is search intent.
Search intent means the reason behind a searcher's query.
And generally speaking, these can be broken down into four groups.
Informational, commercial investigation, navigational, and transactional.
Informational queries are ones where a searcher is looking for information about a topic.
These are usually queries that contain words like "how," "what," and "who."
So something like "what is protein powder?" would be informational in nature.
Commercial investigation queries are ones that show that the searcher is in the market
for a specific product or service but has yet to make a purchasing decision.
So they're often looking for comparisons to help solve their problem.
And these queries often include keyword modifiers like "best," "vs." and "review."
So "best protein powder" would be an example of this.
Navigational queries are when the searcher is looking for a specific website.
So a couple examples would be "Ahrefs Keywords Explorer" or "Google Analytics login."
Finally are transactional queries, which indicate that the searcher is looking to make a purchase.
So "buy protein powder" would fit in this group.
Now, keyword modifiers like the ones I've mentioned won't always be in the query.
So the way to identify search intent is to look at the SERP.
For example, looking at the top 10 pages for the query "roasting coffee beans" you'll see
that the top 10 pages are clearly informational.
And we'll touch on this again in a bit.
The second thing to consider is website authority.
At Ahrefs, we have a metric called Domain Rating, which represents the overall strength
of a website's backlink profile.
And while the majority of SEOs believe that Google uses some kind of domain level metric
in their ranking algorithm, John Mueller has publicly said they don't.
Now, since our Keyword Difficulty metric doesn't take website authority into account, interpreting
KD will depend on what you believe.
But for arguments sake, let's use some examples of queries with a low difficulty score, where the ranking
pages are from highly authoritative websites.
So there are two things we need to talk about here.
The first is brand equity.
There are certain queries where big brands dominate the SERP.
And to be frank, there's not much you can do about it unless you're in the same playing field.
For example, a transactional query like "media storage" has a KD of 3.
But if you scroll down to the SERP, you'll see that they're dominated by household names
like Home Depot, Amazon, Wayfair, and Walmart.
Now, queries like these aren't necessarily about page-level links.
It likely comes down to where people actually shop.
And those places are usually big brands.
So we're left with this chicken or the egg scenario.
Are these sites ranking because of brand?
Or is it because of website authority as we measure using Domain Rating?
Or could it be expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness aka. EAT?
What about CTR or local factors?
Maybe it's a combination of many?
Or are some of these things dependent on the other?
And we haven't even talked about on-page and technical SEO factors like facets, page speed,
and more.
Again, this makes KD a tough metric to calculate accurately
because manual assessment is a prerequisite.
And even then, we're still hypothesizing.
Now, there are a lot of transactional queries that look similar to this, especially for head terms.
So when you see a similar SERP, you need to take KD with a grain of salt and assess all
factors manually case-by-case.
The second thing we need to discuss is that Keyword Difficulty and Domain Rating are
relative metrics.
Let's take a look at an informational query, where brand equity may not play as big of a role.
This query has a low KD, but looking at the SERP, you'll see that all of the ranking pages
have high Domain Ratings, aka. high website authority.
So is this KD score truly representative of ranking difficulty?
The answer is yes and no.
Keyword Difficulty is going to be relative to the website you're trying to rank.
So while the ranking domains mostly have DR values in the 70s and 80s, a personal finance
site with a DR 95 might think a KD of 5 is actually an overestimation because they'd
probably be able to rank for this query with ease.
Whereas a personal finance site with a DR 15 would think it's too low and that they've
been duped by the difficulty value.
Now, if you have a so-called "weaker" site compared to these big brands, don't feel bad.
Pages on a low authority site can still outperform high DR sites.
And that usually comes down to the next consideration which is the number of quality links pointing at a page.
While KD takes into account the quantity of links, it doesn't account for quality.
To assess quality, you'd have to take into account topical relevance of the linking domain
and page, the link authority from the referring page, the number of external links on the referring page,
the number of internal links pointing at the referring page, and the authority of those pages.
So we keep things simple and consistent by estimating the average number of referring
domains pointing at the top 10 pages.
And we also provide an estimate of the number of unique linking domains you'll need in order
to rank in the top 10.
So for that reason, it's always worth manually looking at the backlink profiles of top ranking
pages because quantity isn't everything.
Now, these are some of the reasons why no tool can calculate KD accurately.
And as I've mentioned before, ranking difficulty is relative based on the website you're trying
to rank and its competitors.
In fact, other things that I haven't even touched on include content quality, technical factors like
page speed and the use of HTTPS, and user signals like dwell time, if that's even a ranking consideration.
So, while Keyword Difficulty as a standalone metric is far from perfect, there's actually a ton
of utility you can get from it when you use it based on your understanding of the metric.
The first way is to find low-competition topics based on search intent.
If you remember before I showed you the example of the transactional query "media storage,"
where it came down to mostly brand, on-page, and technical factors.
And while many transactional queries don't seem to place as much weight on links, informational
and commercial investigation queries often do, which happens to be what keyword difficulty is built around.
So to find a reliable set of low-competition topics, go to Keywords Explorer and search
for a broad query related to your niche.
So I'll search for "makeup."
Next, I'll go to the Questions report, which are all going to be informational queries.
Finally, I'll set a KD filter with a maximum value of 5, assuming that's low in my books.
And now you can see topics like "how to sanitize makeup," and "how to use a makeup sponge."
And if I click the SERP button, you'll see that:
a) It is indeed an informational query;
b) a couple of top ranking pages don't have any links;
and c) there's a low-authority website ranking in the top 10.
Now, the Questions report limits you to queries that are phrased as questions.
And as I've already shown, not all informational queries include words like "how," "what," "why,"
"where," and "when."
There are additional keyword modifiers like "tutorial," "list," and "ideas" that imply a need
for information.
So let's find more informational queries by going to the Phrase match report.
Now, to narrow in on informational keywords, I'll click the include box and add a list of
informational keyword modifiers.
And I'll change the tab to Any word.
Next, I'll set the KD filter again with a max value of 5.
And now we've just expanded our list of queries where KD should be quite reliable.
As for commercial investigation queries, you can do the exact same thing, but instead of
informational modifiers, you can use words like "best," "top," "price," "review," and more.
And you'll find that the Keyword Difficulty scores here are pretty good indicators of
general ranking difficulty.
But as always, you'd have to analyze the SERP to see who you'd be competing against.
Here's a list of informational and commercial investigation modifiers you can use.
So feel free to take a screenshot and use them when you're doing keyword research.
Again, KD is a proxy to ranking difficulty.
So it's most effective when you're doing keyword generation.
Now, two quick notes.
First, if you have a website in health or wealth niches, then you also need to weigh
in factors like EAT as many of these topics are in the "Your Money or Your Life" category.
And second, you should always manually review the top ranking pages before creating your content.
Ignoring it is just lazy and can lead to wasted time and money.
One final note I want to make is not to shy away from keywords with high difficulty scores.
People often see a query with a high difficulty score and immediately ignore it thinking they'll
never rank.
But since you know our Keyword Difficulty metric is based purely around links, then
you should look at this from a different angle and see these high KD queries as opportunities.
Again, high KD means that on average, the top ranking pages have lots of links.
Translation: lots of link prospects for you.
To find these topics, you just need to do the opposite of what you did before.
Instead of setting a max KD value to something low, set a minimum KD value to something high.
So right now, I'm in the Questions report since I'm looking for informational queries
on credit cards.
So I'll set a minimum KD value to 40 and you can now see some great informational topics.
And if I click on the SERP button, you'll see that these pages have lots of backlinks,
where you can reach out to the linking pages and try to get them to link back to you.
Now, targeting these high KD keywords isn't necessarily about ranking for a high traffic query.
By getting links to your pages, you can increase your overall website authority, and you can funnel
PageRank through internal links to help boost your other pages' rankings.
And we have a full tutorial on using this as an SEO strategy, which I'll link up in the description.
Now, keyword difficulty isn't meant to discourage you from ranking for a particular keyword.
It's purpose is to help you estimate the resources required to rank for a query and to give skimmable
guidance with keyword generation.
So if you still expect keyword research tools to provide an infallible keyword difficulty metric,
then that needs to change.
Instead, use what you know about your preferred tool's metric and combine it with what you know
about how Google ranks pages.
Now, if you enjoyed this video, make sure to like, share and subscribe for more actionable
SEO and marketing tutorials.
And if you want a more hands-on keyword research tutorial, then I recommend watching the ones
that I've linked up for you.
I'll see you in the next tutorial.