Keyword Difficulty Tool - How to use it the best way?
-
Hi,
I am freshman, both, here on SEOmoz and in SEO generally and have a question concerning the assessment of KW difficulty. I did browse through the Q&A-Section (great content!!) but could not find a relevant answer to my problem.
So I am currently building my initial keyword list, our website is only 2 months old, so we are still in the very early stage. Fashion is a very competitive area, so the KW Diff. Tool indicates high difficulty for a lot of words and phrases. however, I identified some with percentages <50 or even lower than that. Then I compared the results of the SEOmoz tool to Google Adwards and the Google results for competitiveness differed significantly.
For example: for the KW Personal Shopping I got KWD from Seomoz 33% (in Germany) and from Google 0,5 for broad and 0,64 for exact search. I am quite confused how to make the right choices for my KWs now.
-
Which metrics should I consider most?
-
What else apart from the competition factor is behind the metric KW diff.?
-
Does it matter in any way that I search from Germany for Germany in German?
-
Do you have any further recommendations for the process of identifying the best Kws?
Thanks a lot in advance, best from Berlin
Tani
-
-
Does this tool still work with Google results? I'm seeing that regardless of what search engine I choose from the drop down that in the results portion of the page it always says "Bing Search Volume" leading me to believe that the keyword difficulty portion is also in terms of Bing searches.
Thank you,
-
Hi Ressler - Thanks for the great anwer here. I see that you are in the auto industry and have a question for you. I'm new at SEO and have been analyzing some sites in the travel space. In doing so, I came across an auto site recently founded by some ex-Tripadvisor guys which is called carguru.com, which is getting ranked for lots of terms. Any clue has to how they've done this in such a competitive space like auto?? I wanted to understand their tactics and see if they could be applied to the travel space.
Thanks for your time. The Moz community is awesome.
-
Dear community,
thanks a lot for your help! The Q&A Forum works perfectly!
Best Tani
-
Hi Tanja,
Keep in mind that the Adword Keyword tool is meant for advertising, so the "competition" is thought to be a better measure of paid competition, not the organic rankings you are trying to achieve.
The best approach is to use the KW difficulty tool to analyze the competition. Look at all the metrics. Run a complete report for your top keywords. Are the competitors pages properly optimized? Can you beat them anywhere? Pay close attention to title tags and inbound anchor text, as these carry a lot of weight.
I still get most of my ideas from Google's tool, at least as a starting point. I then try to find modifies that I can more easily rank for. There are 3 types of modifiers I can think of off the top of my head:
Let's use the keyword "running shoes" for example:
Type Modifier: "Wholesale Running Shoes"
Location Modifier: "Running Shoes Germany"
Date Modifier: "Running Shoes 2012"
By optimizing my page around specific modifiers (and you often can't find these in Google Adwords) you can rank more easily for given keywords. The more specific, the better.
-
Hey Tanja,
I had the same question as you when I first got started here on SeoMoz... What does difficulty number mean? (me looks at Rand :P) There seems to be no explanation on here. So I had to ask myself is 40% high, what about 50%, 60%? In reality, these numbers don't mean much. The best way to assess competitivness of a keyword is to look at the chart shown below the difficulty score. In essence if you can match number of root domain backlinks/backlinks/authority as the number 1 guy then you have really good chance of ranking well (not always the case, but generally that holds true)...
Also, keep in mind that Google Adwords metrics is derived from paid ads, which very often doesn't necessary correlated with the difficulty of ranking organically.
-
Welcome Tani!
As you could probably guess by my name, I work in the auto industry. Which you would assume is pretty competitive. Well, when I do my keyword research in the Google Keyword Tool, I'm greeted with .9's usually. This sounds extremely daunting, but it really isn't that bad. When I hop onto the keyword tool that SeoMoz offers, I get a 34%. Now, that sounds really friendly!
So, my strategy is to generate my keyword list in the Google Keyword Tool, download the CSV and use excel to manipulate the data. Once I discover the keywords I want, I run them through the keyword tool here at SeoMoz. I know there is a way to just automatically do all this in Excel, but I've learned that I really don't know how to code in it. Anyway, I then copy over the stats I get from here to the excel sheet for another column of data. Finally, I look at what might be worth ranking for, in the short time, out of those keywords. From there I will visit the top 10 sites, and see if they are doing things correctly for on page.
Depending on that stat, and my current websites stats, I will decide to go after a keyword or not.
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
-
Best SEO for New Lead Gen Site: Use Corporate Domain or Product Name?
Hello, wanted to poll the Moz community about a URL discussion my company is having. We plan to launch a new publicly-facing resource and want to leverage organic search as much as possible. For the domain, we’re considering these options: the corporate domain since it’s well established or the URL for the product, which is more descriptive of the content that will reside on the page, but doesn’t have much authority because almost all of the relevant content is behind a paywall. The product domain is appealing because we want to build brand recognition. Should we also look at a more specific domain for the topic that doesn’t leverage either branded domain? Any Moz tools you’d recommend to help research this decision? Thank you in advance for your thoughts!
Moz Pro | | Gbtyne0 -
Is there a way for me to find out how a keyword would rank if it were on a specific site?
Is there a way for me to find out how a keyword would rank if it were on a specific site? For example, lets say that XYZ.com does not have the keyword "ABC". Is there a way for me to find out how the keyword "ABC" would rank if it were on XYZ.com?
Moz Pro | | TurboH0 -
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 -
Is it still best practice to optimize your site with geographic long tail keywords?
Since Google is tailoring search results to user IP and location, is it still best practice to optimize your site titles etc. with long-tail geographic keywords? For example, instead of optimizing a page for "dentist in West Palm Beach, Florida", search users who are IN West Palm Beach can just search "dentists" and a list of local dentists will be displayed (both in the local listings AND organic search listings). I'd love to see Rand cover this on a Whiteboard Friday!
Moz Pro | | RickyShockley1 -
What web page and domain analysis / error checking / testing tools do you use for competitor analysis? sites like webpagetest
Just wondering what everyone is using, I am looking to get as much insight and detail as I can on websites that are not currently being monitored by me... i.e. potential clients. I use tools like pagespeed, webpagetest, loadimpact and open site explorer, google adwords, ispionage, alexa, semrush and well, looking for more. I really just want to rip a website to the tiniest pieces possible in an organized and coherent manner... is there anything out there? I have tried several other's which i no longer use (compete, 4q, woopra, nuestar, to name a few), I am not sure if I know exactly what i want, i just want more.... damn the human condition. lol
Moz Pro | | atb9900 -
Is there a way to see what keywords users of my site are using to find it online?
Since Google Analytics no longer shows the keywords used by people to find a site online, does the SEOMoz toolset provide somethng to show this data?
Moz Pro | | Mionkeybot0 -
Campaign Manager Keyword Rankings all messed up???
My campaign in SEO Moz Campaign Manager has just ran it's weekly crawl, and all my keyword rankings are messed up. 18 keywords have apparently dropped by massive amounts, but when I do a physical search, they haven't moved. Also Keyword Tracker agrees with the physical search, so why is the Campaign Manager showing the wrong rankings all of a sudden??
Moz Pro | | gdavies090319770 -
SEOmoz LDA tool experience?
http://www.seomoz.org/labs/lda Does anyone presently use this tool as a regular part of their SEO analysis? Does anyone have any updates regarding this tool? It is still in the lab despite no updates for over 6 months. Is it being retired? Or promoted to production? If you do use the tool, what % of relevance is your goal when optimizing pages?
Moz Pro | | RyanKent0