Keyword ranking tool
-
Hello,
What is best practice for knowing if a keyword is too difficult to try to rank for. i understand the keyword difficulty tool in seoMOZ, but am unsure of how it actually relates to if I should attempt to rank for the keyword. Is there a differential people use such as if a site has a Page Authority of 60 we will not try to rank for a keyword that has a keyword difficulty ranking of 40?
-
The Keyword Difficulty gives you a best guess of how hard it would be to rank for a particular keyword, although it's not foolproof. For each keyword, the tool gives you an analysis on which you can base your best judgement based on
- the quality of your content,
- backlink profile and
- ranking potential (your DA/PA)
When using the Keyword Difficulty Tool, it's helpful to look not only at the raw number, but the metrics also contained in the Keyword Analysis report beneath it. Be sure to run a full report for important keywords. This will give you insight into exactly why each URL ranks the way it does.
For example, the keyword analysis will show you the number of inbound links for each page, on-page factors, and all relevant metrics. When you compare your own site against these factors (you can add your own URL to the report) you can judge how likely you are to rank.
Often times you can earn a top ranking on a keyword with a high keyword difficulty score if you have advantages that the others don't. This is particularly the case when the competition is poorly optimized on-page for the given keyword.
Hope this helps. Best of luck with your SEO.
-
I'm pretty sure Keyword Difficulty and PA are not correlated like that, they just both happen to be on a scale of 100.
Take a look at the DA & PA of the top 10 sites for that keyword. If you're in the middle of the pack, you've certainly got a chance. If you're below everyone, you better start link building and getting your site trust and authority up in order to have a competitive chance with that keyword.
Then use the On-Page Analysis / Grader in your SEOMoz campaign for the page you want to rank. Score an A and you're on your way.
Depending on the niche, I would follow that with more link building to the specific page. Keep an eye on rankings, it could take a day or it could take a few months, depends on difficulty. You should be seeing progress after doing the tasks above.
Do that stuff, and if it doesn't work come back here and let me know, we'll take it to the next level...
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
-
Unsolved Ranking not collecting keywords
Hi, we recently migrated our blog to be on the same domain as our main website. It's been about a month. I have continued adding more keywords we'd like to track to our Ranking list on Moz. But it's been a week and the keywords are still not collecting. Is this something we need to fix on our end, or is there something going on with Moz? keyword ranking issues.png
Moz Pro | | CoveoSEO0 -
Keyword cannibalization
Hello - We have a blog that ranks for 124 different keywords (URL: https://www.clickboarding.com/18-jaw-dropping-onboarding-stats-you-need-to-know/), and it's cannibalizing other keywords that I'm writing blogs specifically for. For example, the blog mentioned above ranks for "employee onboarding process," and I have a different blog I wrote with "employee onboarding process" as the focus keyword that's not ranking at all. Any suggestions or insight is hugely appreciated! Julie K.
Moz Pro | | Julie-Kuepers0 -
Ranking keyword ecommerce product
Hi guys, I run an ecommerce store footdistrict.com. We sell sneakers. My question relates to the name of some of my products and how to rank for them. This concerns to the shoes from New Balance The name of this products follows this format: New Balance XXNumberXXX . But actually I have realized I am ranking for New Balance XXNumber XXX . Note the space between the number and the last 3 characters. All my titles, h1, keywords follow this format. Example: New Balance WL574 RUP vs New Balance WL574RUP My questions are: 1. How would you determine which keyword to rank for: New Balance XXNumberXXX or New Balance XXNumber XXX? I have thought of using analytics data to see the pattern of the users search or maybe the difficulty of the keyword? I am receiving a decent amount of traffic for New Balance XXNumber XXX but I wonder if it'd be higher ranking for New Balance XXNumberXXX 2. Does the algorithmn take into account this space? According to the On page Grader, I have an A for New Balance XXNumber XXX and a F for New Balance XXNumber XXX but I assume the engine doesn't work this way 3. What would you do? Thanks very much Kind regards
Moz Pro | | footd0 -
When is rank tracker going to work
has anyone heard when rank tracker under the research tools is going to be working, been a very long time. I use this tool to check on the progress of sites, I know that it is in the campaigns per week but i want the tool under the research tools and feel a bit let down by semoz over this
Moz Pro | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Meaning of Keyword difficulty
Before joining SEOMoz I used to calculate Keyword difficulty with my own method based on keyword density, presence of synonyms, Page rank, title and URL. This seemed to rather well work and I reach 1st page on a fairly regumar basis by picking good difficulty / interest ratio keywords and only onsite optimization. (No link building) I just looked @Keyword analysis in SEOMoz. It seems it is only based on page / site autority. Is this correct? Do you believe keyword and synonym density is irrelevent? Do I need to set back to my home recipe if I want to include keyword analysis in my difficulty assessment ? Thx
Moz Pro | | ResourceLab0 -
Is it possible to see rankings on a graph?
Would it be possible to display Ranking data on a graph to show progress over a period of time? It would be great to be able to show a client how a certain keyword has improved over a time period.
Moz Pro | | barnst0 -
Site rank checking tool
Is there a tool where I can enter a URL and it will tell me all the terms a site ranks for? Basically I recently put up a new website and I want to know what terms I rank in the top 50 for in Google
Moz Pro | | KevinPatrick0 -
On-Page Keyword Optimization Question
First let me say I want to improve the text of the site I am working on focusing on the site visitor in the first instance. I run the "On-Page Keyword Optimization" The page fails on "Avoid Keyword Stuffing in Document... ...Occurrences of Keyword 48" well over the limit of 15. The occurrence include those in the site navigation and strapline, but it was my understanding that Google was aware of nav areas/areas common to most other pages on the site and that keywords in these areas weren't viewed as being part of the page content. The keyword is the main keyword for the company, and the page is the home page i.e. "acme widgets" the others are "acme widgets for the home"... well you get the idea: The page breaks down as follows: 5 instances in primary nav 1 instance strapline 3 instances secondary nav Remainder in page body I am told by the tool to reduce to 15 instances, so should I? Have 9 instances in the nav and other areas and 6 or so on the page Have 9 instances in the nav and other areas and 15 or so on the page
Moz Pro | | GrouchyKids0