Keyword difficulty always high
-
HI there,
I'm new here and am just getting used to the keyword difficulty tool.
I've noticed that just about every keyword phrase I type in, including ridiculous ones such as "perspex underpants" or "guy debord's shoes" all have a difficulty well over 50% and many over 60%. It makes little difference what my phrase is.
Am I doing something wrong perhaps?
How am I to interpret this result? It would seem to suggest that It is always very hard to rank, even for a rare and ridiculous phrase.
-
That suggests that 63% difficulty is, in reality, rather easy.
I'd say that in reality the domain strength of SEOmoz is kicking the ass in that SERP.
Nevertheless, my suggestion is unchanged. ATTACK.
-
Hi
Thanks for the response but I think you misunderstand my question. The keywords I mentioned were made-up to test the system so we could assess it's accuracy & value. They should be easy to rank for because they don't appear anywhere else.
We ran reports on ridiculous, made-up words that should be easy to rank for due to their low competition, against famous brands & historical characters that are highly contended. SEOmoz results claimed all our keywords (silly and genuine) rated between 54% to 65% "difficulty". Hardly more than 10% variation.
Compare that to the data on search volume and competition that I get from Google (for example) on the same keywords. The keywords of historical characters rated massively more competitive than the silly made-up keywords - as you would expect.
A perfect proof of this disparity is the phrase Perspex Underpants. SEOmoz claims the phrase has a 63% difficulty rating but if you google for _Perspex Underpants _you'll notice this very question ranks on the first page of organic results. That suggests that 63% difficulty is, in reality, rather easy.
My question, therefore, is are SEOmoz's difficulty ratings wildly inaccurate or am I using the tools wrong or mis-interpreting what they say?
-
Am I doing something wrong perhaps?
Maybe the thing that you are doing wrong is fearing competition.
I don't fear competition because where there is a lot of competition there is usually a lot of money changing hands.... and where there is a lot of competition there is usually a lot of long tail traffic to grab.
So, if you can generate really good content that is very high quality, substantive, and keyword diverse then take your best shot at a keyword where you have expertise. You might get some long tail traffic.
(The above is the approach that I usually take... however, I would not take that approach for keywords where there is a lot of extremely aggressive and hardcore competition - such as "payday loans" for example. Those guys can have that turf.
For the keywords that you mention... I would difinitely attack them with informative articles - if you can make best on the web content without infringing upon their brands then you can probably attract traffic.)
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
-
How i can increase my site Moz DA and keyword difficulty difficulty?
Is there any way to increase my site Authority through increasing DA of my site and Keyword difficulty ? my site is about gamming like https://cpsandtypingtest.com/
Moz Pro | | sathoiue80 -
Keyword Troubles!
I have a network security company http://NBGnetworks.com I've searched high and low on google adwords and with ubersuggest but I can't seem to find any keywords that have traffic and aren't medium or harder. In-fact I've found hundreds of keywords that have no searches at all and are still listed as medium by MOZ. Can any fellow MOZers help me?! Thanks, -Nick
Moz Pro | | NBGnetworks0 -
Is there a way to export keywords from SEOMOZ?
Hi, is there a way to export keywords of a campaign in SEOMOZ? The other way around to import including labels? Best
Moz Pro | | ValerieSchmidt0 -
Has anyone noticed that there are no local results in their keyword rankings?
Is anyone else having this issue? The universal rankings are not populating in my keyword rankings tool for any of my clients. Is this something that SEOmoz changedrecently?
Moz Pro | | TippingPointMedia0 -
What's up with Yahoo and Bing in my keyword rankings?
SEOmoz is good I've learned a lot from it. I'm on my 3rd month and now have 8 keywords in top 50 for one site and 1 keyword in top 50 for another. This is for Google US. For Bing and Yahoo! US however I am still not in the top 50 for anything. I have read elsewhere that meta-tag page words can be regarded by these engines as a spam signal. In my meta I have used competative keywords that are relevant to my content, some of which are in the body, but are not my actual targeted keywords as a red-herring to potential competitors. Also might be usefull for other smaller places that still use meta-tags. Could not appearing in BingHoo! have something to do with their alogrithms and the meta-tags? or is it an SEOmoz issue? I have another question also. The " / " after a domain name doesn't appear in my Firefox address bar (I think I did a 301 redirect), but when I copy and paste it into an entry box (e.g. for a link submission) it puts the " / " there at the end which I take off. Does this make any difference?
Moz Pro | | Zoolander0 -
Why do I keep getting "more than one canonical URL tag" on-page factor when, in fact, there is always only one?
The following are pages that SEOMOZ says have "more than one canonical URL tag" but they all have only one. Can someone help me understand this?http://www.lasercenterny.com/Laser-Hair-Removal-Binghamton/tabid/1950/Default.aspxhttp://www.lasercenterny.com/Hair-Removal-Binghamton-NY/tabid/1949/Default.aspxhttp://www.lasercenterny.com/Hair-Removal-Binghamton/tabid/1948/Default.aspx
Moz Pro | | SmartWebPros0 -
Can you track the same keywords across multiple campaigns?
I have a few clients in similar industries across the country and I'm wondering if it's possible to track the same keywords (for instance, air conditioner repair, faucet replacement) across more than one campaign, or if I'll had to reupload the same keyword list for each one. Thanks!!
Moz Pro | | nxmassa0 -
Avoid Keyword Self-Cannibalization
I'm still having issues with this self-cannibalization...it's referencing my tags as links that are doing this... should i remove the tags on my posts that are exact keyword matches to my article? for example, this post generates an 'a' through the on-page optimization tool for the keyword 'kw cares'...they only thing i receive a warning on is the self-cannibalization. http://www.youdrivethesuccess.com/tag/kw-cares/ Cannibalizing link - "kw cares" is it best practice not to have your tags match your primary keywords? any guidance is appreciated!
Moz Pro | | brentmitchell0