Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • SEO Q&A
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. Moz Tools
    3. Moz Pro
    4. What kind of keyword difficulty should I be aiming for when launching an new site?

    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.

    What kind of keyword difficulty should I be aiming for when launching an new site?

    Moz Pro
    3
    6
    2322
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • ZakGottlieb71
      ZakGottlieb71 last edited by

      I know that words in their 20's or 30's would be ideal, but it's proving hard for me to find relevant keywords with such scores (just a couple with scores in the 30's). Is going for words between 40-50 a waste of time?

      Thanks.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • DonnieCooper
        DonnieCooper @MarcMenninger last edited by

        I absolutely agree Marc. This is a HUGE Pro Tip that took me a while to fully appreciate.

        By targeting the long tail version in the short run, you can build up some traffic, trust and other metrics. But you're also simultaneously targeting the head term so as time goes along you'll likely end up ranking for both (if you've followed a well devised strategy of course) 🙂

        Thanks Marc, Cheers

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • DonnieCooper
          DonnieCooper @ZakGottlieb71 last edited by

          I'd say 40-50 is moderate. 30 shouldn't be too much of a problem most of the time if you nail onpage optimization and can get some links. Of course, depending upon budget, time, experience and resources... 40-50 can sometimes be difficult to achieve.

          Rather than looking too much at the difficulty score, I'd be looking at the metrics for the top ranking sites and gauging whether or not it's reasonable that I can beat those metrics. Keep in mind, you may not want to pay as much attention to the metrics of an exact match domain or international brand name because you can't duplicate either of them 🙂

          Pull an advanced keyword report for your top phrases, download them into excel and then add some metrics to them. Once you're done, the big question will be "is it realistic that I can beat these metrics with the allocated (time and money) budget?".

          If you can, then I'd pull a "Top Pages Report" with OSE for each ranking website and see what kinds of content and tactics they've employed to get those metrics that are helping them to rank.

          Armed with this information, you should have a very clear picture of what needs to be done to win, where to start and if it's realistic or not.

          Does this help Zachary?

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
          • MarcMenninger
            MarcMenninger last edited by

            I agree with Donnie regarding targeting local or long tail phrases when looking for keywords to optimize for.

            For example, if your client is a plumber, you'll have a hard time optimizing his site for the keyword plumber which has a difficulty of 63% according to the SEOmoz Keyword Difficulty tool.

            Since your client is a plumber, though, you could include a local word like the city or town where your client is located and get better results. So seattle plumber has a difficulty score of 41%.

            You can often add qualifiers to get commonly searched for long tail phrases for even better results. So best seattle plumber service has a difficulty score of 37% which you could probably get ranked for if you include it in your SEOmoz campaign and focus on it.

            While it's not a complete waste of time to go for words that have higher scores than 20s or 30s, you'll probably get better results faster if you go for words with lower scores.

            I hope that helps!

            DonnieCooper 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
            • ZakGottlieb71
              ZakGottlieb71 @DonnieCooper last edited by

              It helps with the theory, but some more specificity would help 🙂 Are you saying 40-50 would be considered high demand/difficulty phrases? The problem is that I'm not finding much in the niches I'm targeting at around keyword difficulty 30...

              DonnieCooper 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • DonnieCooper
                DonnieCooper last edited by

                I love this question. Ultimately, it really depends on the budget (both time and money)...

                In my experience, it's best to start out with either local or long tail type phrases when launching a new website on a shoe string budget (I'm assuming that's the case here?).

                Think of it as a mind-map, or informational hieerarchy... write/ build really great content around a small niche-of-a-topic, and grow towards broader (and higher difficulty) phrases as you get links, PR, attention, etc.

                I think Google builds some trust up with websites that are ranking for local/ long tail type phrases (and thus the ranking) and sometimes t's easier (cheaper) to build on that trust and expand rather than starting out too ambitious.

                I'm not suggesting that you lose sight and give up on the higher demand/ difficulty phrases, I'm merely recommending that you create a content plan that will allow you to grow into them in a methodical way 🙂

                Does this help?

                ZakGottlieb71 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                • 1 / 1
                • First post
                  Last post

                Got a burning SEO question?

                Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                Start my free trial


                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.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • Dustless

                  What's the best way to search keywords for Youtube using Moz Keyword explorer?

                  I want to optimize my youtube channel using identified keywords, but I'm concerned that the keywords I'm identifying work well for SERP's but might not be how people search in Youtube. How do a distinguish my keywords to be targeted for Youtube?

                  Moz Pro | | Dustless
                  0
                • sdwellers

                  Compare sites?

                  I'm frustrated, so want to ask a stupid question....My site.. www.seadwellers.com outranks my biggest competitor in most Moz catagories... www.rainbowreef.us ...EXCEPT Facebook likes...(he has a ton)  **And yet, rainbowreef.us outranks me in most keywords on
                  Google?!  I know it's not simple...but  Can anyone take a quick peek and give me any insight as to why???  ** Example "Dive Key Largo" keyword...he is #1 and I am #5...typical in the most important keywords!

                  Moz Pro | | sdwellers
                  0
                • thomas.wittine

                  Does SEOmoz have a tool to find mirror sites?

                  I heard from a company that is trying to get my clients SEO business that they discovered multiple sites mirroring our site's content. Does SEOmoz have a tool to find these websites? Or does Google?

                  Moz Pro | | thomas.wittine
                  0
                • anthonytjm

                  What do you use for site audit

                  What tools do you use for conducting a site audit? I need to do an audit on a site and the seomoz web crawler and on page optimization will takes days if not a full week to return any results. In past Ive used other tools that I could run on the fly and they would return broken links, missing htags, keyword density, server information and more. Curious as to what you all use and what you may recommend to use in conjunction with the moz tools.

                  Moz Pro | | anthonytjm
                  0
                • endlessrange

                  Keyword Difficulty Score Not Available

                  What exactly does this mean? That the service is down? Or the score will never be available? It seems like I get that and then the tool gets stuck and I get no other data.

                  Moz Pro | | endlessrange
                  0
                • YNWA

                  How can a site have a backlink from Barclays website?

                  Hi, I have entered a competitiors website www.my-wardrobe.com into Open Site to see who they get links from and to my surprise they have a load from Barclays Business Banking. When I visit the page I can not see the links. But if I search the pages source code for my-wardrobe, there I have it, a link to my-wardrobe.com. How have they done this? Surely Barclays haven't sold them it? And more so, why are they receiving link juice when you cant even see the link on the Barclays page in question - http://www.barclays.co.uk/BusinessBanking/P1242557952664 Thanks | |
                  |   | <a <span="">href</a><a <span="">="</a>http://www.my-wardrobe.com" class="popup" title="Link opens in a new window" rel='' onmousedown="dcsMultiTrack('DCS.dcsuri','BusinessBankingfromBarclays/Footer/wwwmywardrobecom', 'WT.ti', '','WT.dl','1');"> |
                  |   | www.my-wardrobe.com |
                  |   |
                  |
                  |   | |

                  Moz Pro | | YNWA
                  0
                • coremediadesign

                  Meta keywords no longer in use

                  Can someone point me to the official article explaining why meta keywords are no longer taken into account by search engines please? I know Moz has indicated that search engines ignore them, but I would like to read a bit more about it - what was the reason behind it and since when.

                  Moz Pro | | coremediadesign
                  0
                • MarloSchneider

                  What is mT/mR good for In the keyword tool difficulty full report results?

                  So the ratio is MozTrust to MozRank, but what is this good for?  What can I deduce from this and what can I use it for?

                  Moz Pro | | MarloSchneider
                  2

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • Local Citation Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.