What is Keyword Difficulty?
Keyword Difficulty (sometimes called SEO difficulty or keyword competition) is a metric used to estimate how hard it would be to rank organically for a particular keyword in search engine results. It takes into account factors such as the strength of competing pages, domain authority, backlink profiles, and content relevance.
SEO tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Moz provide keyword difficulty scores, typically on a scale from 0 to 100, with higher numbers indicating greater difficulty.
Why Keyword Difficulty Matters
Understanding keyword difficulty helps marketers make strategic decisions about which keywords to target. By balancing high-volume terms with achievable difficulty levels, businesses can increase their chances of ranking and driving traffic more efficiently.
Key benefits include:
- Better keyword targeting and prioritisation
- Smarter content planning and SEO strategy
- Improved ROI on content and SEO efforts
- Avoidance of overly competitive terms
- Insight into which keywords require strong link-building or domain authority
Combining keyword difficulty with metrics like search volume and intent provides a more complete SEO picture.
Example in Use
A new e-commerce site is researching keywords to optimise product pages. It finds that “best running shoes” has a very high keyword difficulty, while “lightweight trail running shoes for beginners” is less competitive but still has good search volume. They decide to target the lower-difficulty keyword first to gain traction and traffic faster.
As their domain authority grows, they can begin targeting more competitive keywords.
Related Terms
- Keyword Research
- Search Volume
- Long-Tail Keyword
- SERP
- SEO Strategy