Help selecting KWs based on their difficult to rank for and KW tool question
-
I've done all of my keyword research, and now I'm selecting the KW's. In a previous question, seomoz had answered to pick a mix of easy, medium, and difficult words to rank for. How do I know which are easy, medium, difficult? The KW Difficulty Tool is not very specific.
Is the level of difficulty related to where the phrase pops up for my company in search results? Are hard words ones that you do not already rank in the top 50 search results? When selecting KWs should I choose words that rank already in the top 50 that I'd like to try to move up? Or look for NEW phrases/words not in the top 50 results?
Also, when entering KW phrases int the KW Difficulty Tool, Rank Tracker, and in Campaigns - do I need to use quotation marks if it is a phrase? I noticed that the KW difficulty tool has different results if you use quotation marks.
Lastly, The person who did SEO before me has a list of KWs he optimized for, would it be valuable for me to include his words in my On-Page optimization efforts?
-
But should I choose terms that we rank for in the top 50 results to try to move us up, or choose terms that we're not even in the top 50 yet? (Or a little of both)
And our competitors do have high DA/PA Scores and MozTrust Ranks, but I think it'd still be smart to target some of their KW phrases I noticed they rank for and my company shows up after them, correct?
-
Thank you.
But should I choose terms that we rank for in the top 50 results to try to move us up, or choose terms that we're not even in the top 50 yet? (Or a little of both)
And our competitors do have high DA/PA Scores and MozTrust Ranks, but I think it'd still be smart to target some of their KW phrases I noticed they rank for and my company shows up after them, correct?
-
When choosing a term to rank for, in my experience, choosing a term that has low competition means finding sites that rank top 10 that do not have high domain/page authority scores, relatively low moztrust/rank, and of course really low backlinks. If a site has 10 backlinks, as long as they're from sites that are under 50 DA, they're easy to rank for.
The reason you get different results from KW Difficulty Tool using quotation marks is because that tool pulls the top 10 google results for whatever term you put in. Generally, the top results are different when using quotations. I recommend you NOT use quotation marks when using the KW difficult tool.
I would do your own research and optimization and stay away from using someone elses work/data, to me, it seems prone for errors and miscalculations which lead to loss of money, time, and other potential fallout.
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
-
Inconsistent Keyword Search Volume & Difficulty Across Tools (e.g., Moz, Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, Semrush)
Hi there, Moz Community! I'm reaching out for some guidance on keyword research discrepancies. I'm currently targeting the keyword "sui gas bill" for my blog, sngplbill, which focuses on information related to Sui gas bills. I've used several keyword research tools, including Moz, Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, and Semrush, and each platform provides different search volume and keyword difficulty scores: Moz: No search volume data, Keyword Difficulty (KD) 24
Keyword Research | | Faizali.786
Google Keyword Planner: Search volume 100k-1M, Difficulty (Low)
Semrush: Search volume 90k, KD 31
Ahrefs: KD 1 (Very Easy)
These varying results are causing some confusion. Ideally, I'd like to understand which platform offers the most reliable data for search volume and keyword difficulty. Here are some additional details that might be helpful: My target location: Pakistan My Questions: What factors might contribute to these discrepancies in keyword data across different tools?
Considering my niche (Sui gas bill information in Pakistan), which platform would you recommend for the most accurate search volume and keyword difficulty estimates?
Are there any additional factors to consider beyond search volume and keyword difficulty when selecting keywords for content strategy?
Any insights you can provide would be greatly appreciated!
Capture sui gas bill semrush.PNG Capture moz sui gas bill.PNG Capture gkp sui gas bill.PNG Capture ahref sui gas bill.PNG
Thanks,0 -
I'm finding it difficult to make a decision on keywords to select to target for new site?
Hi, I'm doing keyword research for a small site and followed the standard keyword process of using Ahrefs and Google's keyword planner tools to see what keywords are being searched for my service. There are keywords that have a higher avg monthly search volume but they are aren't as relevant as ones that include the word cheap or affordable for example but those ones are only 300 monthly searches per month which seems very small for the main page of the site. Any advice what I should do in this scenario? Do I choose a more relevant keyword with lower search volume or go for one with much higher avg monthly search volume which is much more competitive?
Keyword Research | | TZ19820 -
Importance of news headlines for their search rankings
Hi there, we're trying to determine how to best write headlines to make our articles more findable. We're a Theater content and ticketing site (theatermania.com) and we're about to publish an article describing outdoor Shakespeare in New York City. We've discussed a few headline options (we automatically use the headline as the page title, although we aren't married to this) below. Are any of these much more findable than the other? For example, are we shooting ourselves in the foot if we lead with "Fill your Summer...." in the first option? Fill Your Summer in the City With Free Outdoor Shakespeare Summer in the City With Free Outdoor Shakespeare Free Outdoor Shakespeare This Summer in the City
Keyword Research | | TheaterMania0 -
KWs w/ no bids on Google AdWords
When using the Google Keyword Planner to research KWs, is it a correct assumption that if the KW doesn't have a suggested bid, there's probably not going to be a real impact in optimizing for it? Hypothetically, if I saw a high-volume, low-competition KW w/out a suggested bid I'd feel differently, but I'm just seeing it happen with low volume and competition. Thanks,
Keyword Research | | SSFCU
Sarah0 -
Tag usage based on Google keywords
We are making a site that will be a database of publicity stunts. We used the Google Keyword tool to find a bunch of words related to this. The term itself has similar keywords such as [pr campaigns]. And also there are some derivative keywords as [bad publicity stunts], [famous publicity stunts], [celebrity publicity stunts]. Each bringing in 20-50 monthly searches for the exact term. Some concepts appear slightly differently such as [famous pr stunts] and [famous pr campaigns]. We'd love our pages to appear on as much of these keyword searches as possible (overall we expect about 3k-4k searches /month on exact matching). And we're planning to use these keywords as a our taxonomy for our post tags. That way the keyword appears in each stunt page AND there is a page for each type of publicity stunt. As a general policy, what would be the best way to write our tags?
Keyword Research | | davhad
1. 'crazy', 'famous', 'bad'.
2. 'crazy publicity stunt', 'famous publicity stunt', 'bad publicity stunt'
3. 'crazy publicity stunt', 'famous pr campaign', 'bad marketing stunt' Thanks for sharing your expertise.0 -
What are the checkmarks for on the keyword tool?
I'm looking at the keyword research tool and notice that some of the boxes are checked. I dont really see a reason why? does anyone have this answer? i did attempt look in the Q&A section with no luck.
Keyword Research | | praxiscredit1 -
Small Doubt about Google Keyword Tool Search Data
No. of searches for some query in Google Keyword Tool for a specific country shows data for last 12 months or for last 1 month? Please reply. 6hHTw.png
Keyword Research | | ksbnok0 -
How do you check your KW rankings?
I'm currently using the PRO campaigns to track my main keywords. However, I'm trying to do some research on KW opportunities, and having no luck finding a way to conveniently check rankings for new keywords. What tool do you use to get ranking results for large keyword lists?
Keyword Research | | AdoptionHelp0