Significance of SEOmoz`s keyword difficulty
-
Hello everybody,
currently, I am working on a project that will be available in multiple languages. My problem concerns the difference of the German and English language in relation to the SEOmoz`s Keyword difficulty (KWD).
I just finished my German keyword research and got a satisfying collection of keywords I can use according to the KWD, page/ domain authority, Backlinks and Onpage-check.
Now, as I am doing my research for the English market I find it hard to find any appropriate keywords with a satisfying KWD.
I imagined the ranking on the English market to be much harder but now I doubt to ever rank for any useful, effective keyword on my list, because most of them are over 70 (some important over 80). According to the research it seems to have something to do with the authority strength of the pages, trust, etc, because they do not have more backlinks. Since they are query independent it is very hard for me to get a feeling for those metrics (I am new at SEO).
So here are my questions:
Due to your experiences, is it even possible to derank such pages or should I simply save the effort?
How significant is the SEOmoz`s KWD?
Would you always do Onpage optimization (text, internal linking) in case you earn more trust, authority, etc in the future, just to have your site optimized on the best keyword possible, even though you know that you cannot rank for that keyword (Cue: User-experience)? Or would you switch to less significant words (e.g. flashcards -> index cards) where you have a chance to rank but which is not that effective with traffic? Or focus on longtail, if possible?
Many thanks
-
Thank you Stubby, much appreciated!
-
As I have watched you respond numerous times, I once again am impressed with your awesomeness.
You should change your avatar to have a bright light shining around your head or something...
Hopefully this does not come off as sarcastic, it is intended to be actual praise, and lighthearted
-
Everyone has their own philosophy on this. Here is what I use... (this is for an information site, but same philosophy could be used for informative content on a retail site)
I do not fear competition, because where there is competition there is usually a lot of money changing hands. Also where there is competition there is usually a lot of search volume. So, I attack the high volume keywords with high quality substantive content. High quality content will be shared, liked and linked - and that will help your rankings. Substantive content (meaning long copy covering all details of the subject) will attract long tail traffic because it will contain a diversity of keywords.
I do use the SEOmoz KWD tool, however, my way of gauging the competition is to go out in the the SERPs and see what content I will be competing against. If I can beat their content then I am going to attack. KWD makes no difference.
If you have great content that beats the competition don't hesitate to go after those difficult keywords. A year after your content goes up you might be surprised at where your page is ranking. Then you will say that you are glad that you were not a chicken.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
Why My Keyword Rank Had a Huge Drop?
Hi guys.. i really need your help.. I have a problem, why after i optimization my keyword with one article each day, after 1 week later my keyword rankings had a huge drop from page 1 down to page 5? (the data from moz.com rankings) How the best way to increase my keyword rank in Google? Is there any other way than to use article? Really appreciated for your help..
Moz Pro | | newbie_SEO0 -
Seomoz crawler problems
I have had Seomoz for about a month. It has crawled about 1000 pages. I have about 10,000 pages total for the site. Why are these others being a problem? I have contacted help but the guy isn't any help, we have just been going back and forth for the last two weeks. Any suggestions?
Moz Pro | | EcommerceSite0 -
Does the page authority data also considers the on page factors like the presence of keyword in the title,meta text, and keyword frequency ??
The moz difficulty score considers four factors for the top websites. are the on page factors included in the page authority data ?
Moz Pro | | iQuanti0 -
SEOMoz Q&A having some issues?
Apologies if this has been asked. I was browsing Q&A and got a Ruby error page, reloaded and everything was fine. However a bunch of the topics are kind of messed up, and it looks like a chunk of them are missing now. For example my 'questions I've answered' section of My Q&A only has the newest question and the oldest question, and when I sort the SEOMoz Tools category by newest I get one recent post and then the next one is from November of last year. You guys having database problems?
Moz Pro | | icecarats0 -
Seomoz crawling filtered pages
Hi, I just checked an seo campaign we started last week, so I opened seomoz to see the crawl diagnostics. Lot's of duplicate content & duplicate titles showing up, but that's because Rogerbot is crawling all of the filtered pages as well. How do I exclude these pages from being crawled? /product/brand-x/3969?order=brand&sortorder=ASC
Moz Pro | | nvs.nim
/product/brand-x/3969?order=popular&sortorder=ASC
/product/brand-x/3969?order=popular&sortorder=DESC&page=10
/product/brand-x/3969?order=popular&sortorder=DESC&page=110 -
Discrepancies in link reports from SEOMoz and OSE
Hello, I am trying to understand the link profile of my site. In the competitive analysis from SEOMoz, it shows 22K+ of links, with about 900+ being external followed links and 800+ internal. Webmaster tools shows a similar number of external followed links, but the link report from OSE only shows about 150 external followed links. This brings up several questions: Where is this 22K total links coming from? Why is there such a difference in the SEOMoz competitive analysis and the OSE report? Why does the OSE report show some links as not followed, while Webmaster tools lists them as followed? Am new to the off-page aspects of SEO, and I have to say the discrepancy in data from different tools is by far the most challenging thing for me. Would welcome general advice on this topic as well. Thank you!
Moz Pro | | LynnMarie0 -
Do keywords in drop-down menus count?
In running one of my campaigns in SEOMoz Pro, it was recommended that I reduce the amount of times a keyword is used to 15. On the actual page, there are fewer than 15, but when you include the number of times it is used in drop-downs from the nav bar, the number is 53. I know there is really no hard and fast rule about how many instances of a keyword make for keyword stuffing and the drop-downs only use the term where needed. Without it's use, it would be difficult to navigate the site. Is this a problem or should I focus on more important fixes?
Moz Pro | | rdreich490 -
Report: keyword difficulty verses SERPS ranking
Hi there, I've been using the PRO tools for a few months now, and find them great for revealing information for my clients, and planning our SEO approach. One report I've put together has been really helpful for a client, but I built it manually and it took ages. It lists, in a spreadsheet, keywords side-by-side with keyword difficulty, target URL, and SERPs result. Sorting by keyword difficulty or SERPS position has helped us to prioritise which pages to hit first. But it took a while to generate the report, and I'm wondering if anyone has a better approach, or if this kind of report can be generated automatically: http://www.cicada-online.com/app/images/documents/product-page-SEO-blank.pdf Thanks Mozzers!
Moz Pro | | nedwells0