SEO Keyword Research Step 3.5: Assess Keyword Difficulty

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 | SEM, SEO

This is the first step that will look at Keyword Difficulty (or competitiveness). This will give us a basic idea of how hard it will be to rank for that keyword.

We already have the start of an answer. The third column in our spreadsheet, Advertiser Competition, tells us how competitive those keywords are among advertisers using Google’s pay-per-click (PPC) ad system. A rank of 1 is the most competitive. For our purposes, that indicates the keyword is relatively more difficult to rank for than, say, an advertiser competition of 0.5.

But remember a few salient points:

1. That information is derived from Google’s PPC data, and speaks of competition between advertisers, not websites. This figure provides guidance, not a bankable number.
2. Don’t take any of the raw numbers as absolute. They are useful only in comparing one keyword to another. A score of .6 or 60 (depending on the tool used) doesn’t mean it’s 60% difficult to rank for that keyword, and that’s that.
3. Finally, never let a single data point trump your common sense.

What Affects Keyword Difficulty?

The basic idea: you take a single keyword, and then you look at all the websites optimized for that keyword. They’re not all going to be equally optimized. If most of them are well-optimized, it’s going to be difficult to rank for that keyword. If almost all of them are almost perfectly optimized for that keyword, it will be next-to-impossible to rank.

Some factors that impact difficulty:

• The sheer number of sites optimized for that keyword.
• How well that sites are optimized, especially the top 10 or 20. If many or most of those sites are older with more inbound links, with high relevance for the keyword, and well-executed on-page optimization (meaning the content, headers, page title, URL structure, meta tags, etc. are all optimized); then keyword difficulty will be high.

Keyword Difficulty tools compile information like this to generalize the overall difficulty of ranking for a keyword.

Keyword Difficulty Tools

To get an additional metric for Keyword Difficulty, we’re going to use another keyword tool which will give us a broad overview.

You can find the Keyword Difficulty Check at www.seochat.com/seo-tools/keyword-difficulty/, but I’ve also included it in this post below:

Keyword Difficulty Check Tool © SEO Chat™ Keyword Enter a keyword or keyword phrase Enter Captcha To Continue To prevent spamming, please enter in the numbers and letters in the box below Report Problem with Tool.

You can also find a couple of other keyword difficulty tools, if you prefer.

• Keyword Difficulty Check from SEOlogs.com: www.seologs.com/keyword-difficulty.html.
• Keyword Difficulty Tool from the always fantastic SEOMoz.org: http://www.seomoz.org/keyword-difficulty. (This one requires a paid membership to use.)

What if a keyword is too difficult?

Be wary of concluding solely from this data point that a keyword is too difficult to choose. Never forget there are many other considerations. Besides, sometimes it’s not a bad idea to choose keywords for which you may not rank well initially, but into which you will grow. Plus, sometimes you won’t have much choice: the most appropriate keyword may simply pose a greater challenge.

The great thing about the Internet: it’s dynamic, never static, always evolving, always changing. So too your site. Even if you never change the content, sheer longevity can positively affect its ranking. (Don’t think you’ll make the #1 spot if you just wait long enough, though; someone else who’s proactive about their SEO will always eclipse you.)

The point is, even if you choose to utilize a difficult keyword, if you dedicate effort to a comprehensive SEO campaign, you may yet penetrate the elusive Top 10 rankings.

Richard Goulde is a professional writer and SEO who combines compelling copy with Internet savvy -- sales, educational, PR and creative. He's based in Dallas but his words go global, so whether you're in Peoria or Paris, contact him to talk about how his work can serve your business needs.

Tags: Keyword Research, Keywords

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