Keyword Difficulty Analysis: How to Choose the right SEO keywords

A successful SEO campaign almost always depends on the keywords you use. Since the elements are relevant to your search strings, they can promote your website by helping it rank in search engines. However, individual keywords are becoming less important and keyword-based search engine optimization is losing ground. Blame it on black hat techniques that, even in practice, had long-term effects. This is because there are now more important factors than the presence of keywords:

• Keyword ranking is more important than usage frequency. This means that using a keyword in the title and title tags carries more weight than using it five times in the content.
• Using synonyms is enough. Now that Google is getting better at interpreting website data, keyword specificity is disappearing. So even if different keyword combinations are used, as long as they are in the same context, Google can theoretically put them in the same category.
• Semantic search is of great importance for user search. Previously, Google analyzed search queries based on words. For example, a search for "Utah running shoes" will return anything related to running, shoes, and even events in Utah. But with search semantics, Google interprets the meaning of the entire search, not just individual words.

Along with this change, you need to approach keyword research differently. Keywords are still important, but they need to be perfect to be truly effective. So whatever process you follow, you should forget it completely as long as you can remember. Even if you find yourself ranking, you'll be doing keyword research the wrong way. Instead of looking for keywords with high volume, low competition, good CPC or an effective latent semantic index, we recommend using Keyword Difficulty Analysis.

What is keyword difficulty analysis?

Keyword difficulty is defined as a factor that helps determine how easy or difficult it is for a website to rank for a particular keyword. So it is no longer about short tail or long tail, high or low, because other factors now come into play, such as the following:

• Number of pages currently ranking for this keyword
• The number of pages that bid for a keyword in a paid search campaign.
• Number of keywords and cost per click for a given month

If you want to go into detail, you should also look at the issues you have to fight based on three elements:

1. Concurrency or number of pages indexed for a given query
2. A website's authority or ranking is based on the number and quality of incoming links.
3. Relevant sites rank well for relevance to certain search queries, taking into account factors such as on-page rankings and off-page signals.

Difficulty analysis also requires an assessment of keyword difficulty. The easiest way to do this is to check strong and weak search results based on frequently used keywords or key phrases. Between "Utah sneakers" and "Nike sneakers," the latter is more difficult to categorize, especially for regular, less popular blogs. It is impossible to compete with reputable blogs.

A search query for "Pebble Time Review" will return the following results:

These are all top 10 results where a less reputable site would be hard to beat.

But if you're using long-tail keywords, chances are your results will include forums, unrelated sites, YouTube videos, Yahoo Answers, and other sites that will be easier to rank for or give poor results. So you need keywords that will lead to poor search results.

But since there are no hard and fast troubleshooting rules, you have to use the tools at your disposal. Keyword challenge tools come in all shapes and sizes. It is not just a specific type of software, but a set of procedures that will allow you to identify keyword problems.

Conduct complexity analysis based on several principles

Contest Page

Find out who your competitors are for certain keywords or phrases. Just enter the search term you want to use in the search engine and check the results. As a blog or business, your competitors are other blogs or businesses that provide the same products or services and use the same sets of keywords. The top ten are your strongest competitors.

You can further narrow your search by looking at the number of indexed pages that use the same search term in the title. To do this, use "allintitle", one of Google's advanced search operators, which displays websites with your keyword in their title.

Because you know your competitors, it's important not to make decisions based solely on the information you gather. Just use it as an indicator, because there are many other items that will blow your mind from the first page.

Top 10 search results

If you want to measure your keyword problems, identify the top ranking websites related to the terms you want to use. It's easy to get results. This makes unpersonalized search difficult, but not impossible. Just use the right tools to customize your search and get more relevant results. A good example is using the Chrome browser in incognito mode. What it does is remove the results it returns based on your search data and preferences, such as ads, news, images, and YouTube videos.

Number of connections

Top ranking pages tend to have a large number of external referral links and domains based on certain keywords. If you use the same keywords, you will definitely struggle to rank. But if you have a high-ranking site with lots of direct links, you have an opportunity. You can get the number of link domains a website belongs to using Open Site Explorer or Majestic SEO . But remember that a site with few quality links can have the same authority as a site with very low quality links, so more analysis is needed.

External optimization

How strong a competitor's website's off-page optimization is is reflected in the number, authority and type of links, including backlinks. Keyword Difficulty Analysis will look at page authority, domain authority, keywords in the anchor text, and diversity of unique links to the root domain.

Page optimization

Now that you know who your competitors are, find out how they optimize. Think like a search engine and look for signals that will help you rank for your keywords easily and effectively.

• Keywords in title tag
• The length of the title tag
• Keyword in H1
• Keywords in image caption
• Keywords in the domain or URL
• Presentation of keywords in anchor text or external links
• Content quality
• Optimization level (more or less optimized)
• Using Questionable SEO Practices
• Website internal link architecture

You can also simplify your rating by simply rating the optimization of each page as "none", "minimal", "severe", "fair", "decent" or "good" and "excellent". But no matter what steps you take, the process will require a lot of work. If you want to reduce the amount of effort and time, you should filter your keyword list down to a reasonable size.

Conducting complex analysis using Google search operators

Google can be your best friend in problem analysis, not just knowing your competitors or the keywords they're using. However, to get the most out of Google, you need to use three specific service providers.

As already mentioned, allintitle returns results with the search term in the title. while allinurl returns results with keywords in the URL and allintext returns search results with keywords appearing in the content.

How do you use this to your advantage? For example, using the keyword "Nike sneakers" allows you to analyze the keyword complexity in Chrome. Remember to search in incognito mode to keep your results organic and personalized. Track results and revenue with the advanced Google search tool. The information you collect will be similar to the following:

Keywords: Nike running shoes

Results with Allintext: Nike sneakers

Allinurl Results: Nike Sneakers

Results from Allintitle: Nike sneakers

What do the numbers tell you?

• If the total number of results is equal to or close to 1,000,000, you are more likely to land on the first page.
• If the results with Allintext are only 50% higher than the overall results, the keyword difficulty is too high.
• If the results with allinurls and allintitles are less than or close to 1000, they are more likely to rank high on the first page if certain criteria are met:
  • Over 2,000 detailed blog posts
  • Precise Image Optimization
  • High score in reading in Flash
  • Fast download speed
  • Happy social sharing
  • Effective communication
  • More DA, higher PA backlinks
  • Perform a Difficulty Analysis with a Custom Token

The great thing about using Google search operators is that you will be able to get information about your competitors while searching. But you can always take a shortcut with the keyword challenge tool.

Run Keyword Difficulty Analysis with the Difficulty Tool

Keyword checker
This is a free tool that you can use to analyze the difficulty of ranking for certain keywords. Each search condition is classified as very easy, easy, medium, difficult and very difficult.

To start using it, you need to create an account first. Once you're done, you can start the analysis by entering keywords in the input field, selecting your country, and clicking the Submit button. You will get results in tabular form with keyword difficulty analysis shown in the last column. It is recommended that you use medium or not very complex search terms.

But keep in mind that search results may vary by country. So don't make decisions based on them alone. Instead, combine it with other keyword challenge tools.

MOZ Keyword Difficulty Tool
This tool is more advanced and includes other useful features that make it a perfect choice. It may not be free, but it's good value for money. You can run 20 reports simultaneously, and the standard subscription has a daily limit of 400 reports.

To perform a complexity analysis, it is enough to enter one or more keywords in the input field. You can separate terms with commas, tabs, or enter them on a new line. Select your search engine (Google, Bing, etc.) and country, then click Check Difficulty. You will then receive a report with the specified difficulty level and rating factor. The score ranges from 1% to 100%, where 1% is easy and 100% is very competitive.

The great thing about this troubleshooting tool is that you have the option to export the report in CSV format if you want to do your own analysis. There's also a "Compare" button that will give you an idea of ​​which keywords have the lowest difficulty level but the highest search volume - a great combination. Simply select the keywords you want to compare two or more at a time and then click Compare.

Note that even if you select Google as your search engine, search volume data will always be for Bing. But don't worry, it won't affect your results in any way.

SEMrush
SEMrush, a professional SEO tool originally designed for digital marketers, recently launched a Keyword Difficulty Analysis tool where you can check the rankings of multiple keywords in bulk. It's not free, but you do get a 14-day free trial . Find the Keyword Difficulty Analyzer under Tools, enter your keywords and find the difficulty level. You can enter up to 100 search terms per line.

The great thing about this tool is that you get more out of the box. This means that you will not only learn about keyword issues, but also about keyword research, competitor analysis, and even backlink opportunities.

Here are some examples of keyword challenge tools you can use. Of the three options, SEMrush is considered the easiest to use and is highly recommended for affiliate marketers and bloggers.

Keyword difficulty analysis can also be performed for app store optimization. Check the result to determine how many apps are targeting specific keywords. Just enter a search term in the app store and Apple and Google will show you which apps are using which keywords. Another factor is volatility, which is a good indicator of how difficult it is to rank for a particular search term. Find a tool that you can use because it's hard to find volatility manually.

Once you have your list of keywords, sort and filter them into different categories such as short-term and short-term target keywords, medium-term target keywords that need to be maintained and developed, and long-term target keywords that are attainable. through sustained effort. . .

Keyword difficulty analysis may seem like a new concept, but it's a new way to rank in search results that's worth integrating into your SEO campaign.