Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Keyword Difficulty Score Assesment
-
What is a good keyword difficulty score to pursue when deciding which keywords to try and rank on?
I'm in a very competitive field and I am currently in the process of doing keyword research to look for the low hanging fruit.
-
Hi,
Moz says that keyword difficulty score is based in domain authority and page authority of the competing 20 search results for a keyword. I wonder if it only takes those 2 values because, in that case, that score would not be representative enough for the difficulty. Does not it take the onpage optimization -keyword in title, text, etc-?
How do you determine the keyword difficulty?
Your Keyword Difficulty Score is based on the Domain Authority and Page authority for the top 20 search results that keyword is pulling on Google. These sites are analyzed using our Mozscape index to pull Page Authority and Domain Authority. These two metrics (along with a host of others from the Mozscape index) help create the Keyword Difficulty score.
-
I'd reverse engineer a little and see what keyword difficulties you've managed to rank on so far and why. Of course, the numeric score is just a guideline and take it with a grain of salt. Start with with what you've managed to rank on so far and then look for similar or somewhat more difficult terms going forward.
-
Old question now, but interesting none the less and currently marked as unanswered. As tomcraig86 says there is much more to it than relying on the KD score, but I tend to go by the rough guide of :
- Sub 30 - pretty easy.
- 30 - 35 fairly easy with good on page and some quality anchored links.
- 35 - 40 - starting to take a bit more effort, air tight on-site SEO required as well as good link profile.
- 40 - 50 domain authority counts much more, without it will take longer to rank although I have done this with minimal off-site efforts before.
- 50+ All about resources. Onsite SEO needs to be totally nailed, including internal linking/ topic modelling etc. a strong & diverse link profile with good social signals and ... time.
This is just from my experience of ranking for keywords in conjunction with output from this awesome tool. Been doing SEO for some time, but only using the keyword difficulty tool for about 12 months.
-
You'll need to assess which keywords are actually a possibility for your site. Ranking isn't down to just the keyword you're going for. Domain age, authority, trust etc are all factors used in calculating your position in the SERPs. Don't get scared off by a 'Highly Competitive' keyword though!!
-
Well if you want a keyword you have to just go for it! If your site has loads of unique content, the likelyhood is that you'll start seeing benefits from long tail searches coming in with not too much work.
Check out the PRO campaigns on here, I'm assuming you're aware that SEOmoz utilizes some Google API's to serve up their own keyword difficulty score. Unfortunately the site I'm link building to is in a super competitive market!
Hope this helps.
Tom
-
That is the tool I am asking about, whats a good percentage score to go after when researching a keyword?
-
SEOMoz Have its own Keyword Difficulty tool and it have a very good and powerful analysis for the top 10 rankings.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Domain keyword ranking
I used to use Searchmetrics (years ago) which enabled me to add in the domain name into their website, and it would provide all the keywords that rank for it. Does Moz do that do you know? Thanks
Keyword Research | | patn_studio0 -
Long tail keyword research
Hi guys, what is the best practice to find the long tail keywords, like Google Instant Suggestion, people also search, or moz keyword explorer I have experienced a lot in MOZ pro Keyword Planner, but now I want to know easiest way to find long tail keywords for my website olehana Makeup, still I'm using just 3 keyword that I already ranked in Google SERP top 3 positions now I also want that some long tail keywords also gets ranked.
Keyword Research | | daimon670 -
What defines what words in a title are considered Keywords?
Hi, sorry if this is a silly question. I'm curious how keywords are defined. Is every word in a title a possible keyword? If I have a keyword titled "Linear Shower Drain | 40" Long", does it take the whole thing as a keyword? Is just "Linear Shower Drain" the keyword? Would "Shower Drain" pop up as a keyword, since its nested in the title? Thank you in advance for your answers!
Keyword Research | | ezable0 -
A Solution to Keywords Being Grouped in Google Keyword Planner
Hi guys, I am trying to get search traffic for a list of keywords which I put together a few years ago for one of my clients, this was before Google made changes to their Keyword Planner. When I am adding the list into Google Keyword Planner it is "grouping" a number of the keywords/phrases together, and therefore removing 13 of the keywords from the original list of 59 keywords. Is there a way around this so I can get search volume for the original list, and not the cut down one? I am specifically using Google Keyword Planner as I want to get search volume for a number of specific locations in the UK. Any comments/feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance! Jack. I19Op
Keyword Research | | ChemistryMarketing1 -
Tool for wildcard keyword suggestions
Like others, I have also been oblivious to the options which were uncovered in this article, using stars or underscores to uncover more keywords suggestions. However, I am trying to find a way to avoid the manual labour. Did any of you find a successful tool that automatically adds all the possible combinations of these wildcards to give a comprehensive lists of suggestions? I am looking for a tool that also included my country (.nl).
Keyword Research | | Entertainment0 -
Setting Up a Keyword Matrix
Greetings MOZ community!! My real estate web site contains about 500 pages with perhaps 70 pages targeting low volume, somewhat valuable but not very competitive keywords. Three to four URLs target very competitive terms. The following terms are among the most valuable: New York City office space,
Keyword Research | | Kingalan1
New York office space,
Manhattan office space,
NYC office space Such variants as: Office space in New York City,
Office space in New York,
Office space in Manhattan,
Office space in NYC
ETCETERA convert really well How would I match different terms to different URLs? For example I have just re-written the following two critical URLs: www.nyc-officespace-leader.com (home page)
http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/commercial-space/office-space (product page) Would it make sense to use "Manhattan office space" and variants on the home page while excluding "New York City office space" variants? At the same time I would use "New York City office space" variants on the "office-space" product page while excluding all mention of "Manhattan office space". Is this logical and does it conform to SEO best practices? For the "NYC office space" terms I would add them to http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/listings. This URL has almost no text but a strong potential to rent because of a high number of incoming internal links. Is this approach sensible? In general what measures should I take to prevent URLs from competing for the same keywords? Also, is there a software package or tools that I can use to come up with keyword variants? As a non SEO professional, can I create my own keyword matrix or is this really in the realm of a professional SEO consultant? Thanks, Alan0 -
Which keywords are sending traffic to my site?
I want to know Which keywords are sending traffic to my site? What type of strategies behind this ?
Keyword Research | | surabhi60 -
How do search engines score "nested" keywords?
I use "nested" for lack of a better term; what I mean is keyword phrases that contain other keyword phrases. For example, if I have a page that is extremely well optimized (on-page) for the phrase "old silver coins", is that page by default also extremely well optimized (on-page) for the phrase "silver coins"? Or does google understand that I am optimizing for the longer phrase "old silver coins" and somehow exclude me from contention for the sub-phrase "silver coins"? I understand that this gets more complicated when talking about backlinks (off-page), but the same general question remains. If I am getting good backlinks for "old silver coins", am I also getting good backlinks for "silver coins" at the same time? I do understand that "silver coins" may be more competitive than "old silver coins" and so my page may not rank the same for the two phrases. But I am really curious if there is some kind of multiplier effect with nested keyword phrases like the example I have provided, or whether google somehow only credits for the full phrase and not for any sub-phrases contained therein. Any insight would be greatly appreciated! (And sorry if this has been addressed already. I have looked around the site and have googled this question, but haven't found anything useful yet.) Thanks. BONUS QUESTION: Are the answers to my questions above exactly the same when discussing singular versus plural keywords ("coins" versus "coin")? After all, that is a "nested case just like my examples above. On the other hand, I can see there being some special treatment of singular and plural.
Keyword Research | | Kp2221