What Is Keyword Difficulty in SEO?

Do not index

Keyword difficulty is one of those SEO terms that sounds more complicated than it is. At its core, it's a way to size up the competition. It tells you how hard it will be to get your content onto the first page of Google for a particular search term.

Think of it like this: a high score means you’re trying to outrank the heavyweights, while a low score suggests there's a real opportunity to get noticed.

Understanding Keyword Difficulty for SEO Beginners

Let’s use a real-world example. Imagine you want to open a new coffee shop. If you try to set up right next to a busy Starbucks in a major city, you're in for a tough fight. They have a huge brand, a loyal following, and a massive marketing budget. That's a high-difficulty keyword.

But what if you opened a small, specialty coffee cart in a local park that doesn't have one yet? Your path to becoming the go-to spot is much clearer. That's your low-difficulty keyword.

In the world of SEO, keyword difficulty is basically the same idea. It’s a score, usually on a scale of 0 to 100, that SEO tools use to estimate how much work it'll take to crack the top 10 search results. It’s important to remember this score doesn't come from Google. Instead, tools like Ahrefs or Semrush calculate it by looking at the websites already ranking for that term.

Why This Metric Matters

If you ignore keyword difficulty, you could easily waste months creating amazing content for terms you have zero chance of ranking for. It’s a classic mistake for newer websites to go after keywords that are completely dominated by household-name brands. By checking the difficulty first, you can build a much smarter and more realistic SEO plan.

Keyword difficulty acts as your strategic filter. It helps you distinguish between winnable battles and uphill struggles, ensuring you invest your time and budget where they can generate the most impact.

Instead of just chasing keywords with the highest search volume, this metric pushes you to be more strategic. It helps you figure out the answers to some crucial questions:

Is this a realistic keyword for my website to target right now?

What kind of effort (in terms of content and backlinks) will it take to even have a chance?

Are there less competitive, long-tail keywords I should focus on first?

Before you get too focused on scores, it's a good idea to understand the bigger picture of what is Search Engine Optimization for business. Knowing the fundamentals makes it much clearer why keyword choice is so vital.

Ultimately, learning how to choose keywords is all about finding that perfect balance. You want terms that people are actually searching for, but with a difficulty score that’s within reach for your website's current authority. It’s the true foundation of any SEO strategy that actually works.

Keyword Difficulty At a Glance

Here’s a quick table to break down the essential aspects of keyword difficulty and why it's a non-negotiable part of any solid SEO strategy.

Concept	What It Means for You	Why It's a Critical Metric
Competition Score	A simple 0-100 metric telling you how hard it is to rank for a keyword.	It quickly shows which keywords are realistic targets and which are long shots.
Resource Planning	High scores mean you'll need more time, better content, and more backlinks.	It helps you allocate your budget and team's effort effectively, avoiding wasted work.
Strategic Targeting	It guides you to find "sweet spot" keywords—decent volume, low competition.	This is how new or smaller sites can gain traction against established competitors.
Realistic Expectations	It sets the stage for what’s achievable in the short-term vs. long-term.	Prevents discouragement by focusing on winnable goals first, building momentum over time.

This table serves as a handy reference, reminding you to always factor in the competitive landscape before diving into content creation. It's the difference between guessing and strategizing.

How Keyword Difficulty Scores Are Calculated

Keyword difficulty scores can feel a bit like a black box—you type in a keyword, and a number from 0 to 100 pops out. But that score isn't just pulled from thin air. It’s the result of a sophisticated calculation that basically does a reconnaissance mission for you, scouting out the competition before you jump in.

Think of it as an algorithm that scans the top-ranking pages for your target keyword and then gives you a single score based on how hard they’ll be to outrank. It’s important to remember this isn't a direct metric from Google; it’s a proprietary score from SEO tools like Ahrefs or Semrush. Each tool has its own "secret sauce," but they all tend to look at the same core ingredients.

Once you understand what goes into that recipe, you're no longer just looking at a number. You start to see the why behind it, which is the key to making smarter SEO decisions.

The Key Ingredients in the Difficulty Recipe

At its heart, calculating keyword difficulty is all about competitive analysis. SEO tools look at the top 10 search results and measure their collective strength. If those pages are heavyweights, the difficulty score will be high. If they're lightweights, you've got a fighting chance.

So, what makes a page a heavyweight? While the exact formula varies, the calculation generally rests on two main pillars: domain strength and page-level authority.

A keyword difficulty score is essentially a data-backed prediction. It boils down multiple complex factors into a single, digestible metric to estimate how tough it'll be to earn a top spot on Google for a specific query.

These factors include the authority of the websites on page one, the number and quality of their backlinks, and how well their content matches what people are searching for. It's a snapshot of the entire competitive landscape.

Backlinks: The Currency of Authority

The single biggest factor in almost every keyword difficulty calculation is the backlink profile of the pages already ranking. Backlinks are essentially votes of confidence from other websites. The more high-quality "votes" a page has, the more authority Google gives it.

SEO tools dig into several backlink metrics:

Number of Referring Domains: This is a count of how many unique websites link to a page. Getting links from 100 different domains is way more powerful than getting 100 links from the same domain.

Quality of Referring Domains: Not all links are created equal. A link from a major news outlet or a respected industry blog carries a lot more weight than one from a brand-new, unknown site.

Follow vs. Nofollow Links: "Follow" links are the ones that pass authority (or "link juice"), while "nofollow" links generally don't. A healthy ratio of follow links points to a much stronger profile.

Put simply, if the top results for "best running shoes" are all loaded with backlinks from major fitness and retail websites, that keyword's difficulty score is going to be sky-high.

Domain and Page Authority Metrics

Beyond just the backlinks pointing to a specific page, these tools also look at the overall strength of the entire website. This is where metrics like Domain Authority (DA) and Domain Rating (DR) come in.

These scores give a 10,000-foot view of a website's ranking potential based on its entire backlink profile. If the search results are dominated by sites with massive authority scores, you know you're in for a tough fight. To see how these metrics stack up, check out our guide on Domain Rating vs Domain Authority.

Content Quality and SERP Features

While backlinks are the star of the show, other factors play a strong supporting role. Some tools use more advanced formulas that blend in things like search volume, content quality, and even the presence of special search features on the results page.

For instance, if the top results are all comprehensive, well-structured articles packed with videos and original data, that raises the bar. On top of that, if the page is crowded with SERP features like Featured Snippets, "People Also Ask" boxes, or video carousels, it can be much harder to actually win clicks, which indirectly makes the keyword more difficult to succeed with.

Why Keyword Difficulty Shapes Your SEO Strategy

It’s one thing to know how keyword difficulty is calculated, but understanding why it matters is what really separates a decent SEO plan from a great one. Think of keyword difficulty as a strategic filter for your entire content calendar. It helps you decide where to put your most precious resources—your time, budget, and creative energy.

Without it, you’re flying blind. You could easily spend months crafting the perfect article for a keyword you have absolutely no realistic chance of ranking for. This single metric keeps you focused on the winnable battles, which is crucial when you're just starting out or have a tight budget.

From Data Point to Strategic Roadmap

Keyword difficulty doesn't live on an island. Its real power is unlocked when you pair it with two other essential pieces of the puzzle: search volume and user intent. When you analyze these three elements together, you get a clear, actionable roadmap for your content.

Search Volume: This tells you how many people are looking for a term.

User Intent: This tells you why they're looking for it.

Keyword Difficulty: This tells you how hard it will be to get in front of them.

A keyword with huge search volume might look like a goldmine, but if its difficulty score is 95, it's probably a trap. On the flip side, a keyword with a super low difficulty score is worthless if no one is actually searching for it. The sweet spot is finding that perfect balance for your website. You can learn more about this in our guide on how to find a low competition keyword.

Why Difficulty Is Relative to Your Website

Here’s a common mistake I see all the time: treating keyword difficulty as a fixed, universal number. A score of 70 means something completely different to a brand-new blog versus an established industry giant like HubSpot or Forbes. For the new site, it’s an impossible mountain to climb. For Forbes, it’s just another Tuesday.

This is where your own website's authority enters the picture. The strength of your backlink profile and your overall reputation in your niche directly impact which keywords are actually within your grasp.

Keyword difficulty isn't just about the competition; it's about your position relative to that competition. It forces you to ask, "Is this battle winnable for me, right now?"

For example, a new e-commerce store should steer clear of a high-difficulty term like "women's shoes" (KD 90+). A much smarter approach would be to target a specific, long-tail keyword like "vegan leather running shoes for flat feet" (KD 15), build up some authority, and then gradually work their way up to more competitive terms.

Personalizing Your Keyword Strategy

This idea of relative difficulty is so critical that some SEO tools are starting to build it right into their platforms. They recognize that a generic score just doesn't paint the full picture. Semrush, for instance, has research highlighting the importance of assessing keywords based on a specific site's authority. They even offer a Personal Keyword Difficulty (PKD) score that adjusts the difficulty rating based on your domain's strength.

This means a keyword that looks impossible for one site might be a perfect opportunity for another.

This personalized view, which you can read more about in this Semrush article on personalizing difficulty scores, turns a generic data point into a custom recommendation. It helps you spot opportunities your competitors might miss because they’re only looking at the general score, allowing you to build a smarter strategy based on your unique strengths.

How to Interpret Keyword Difficulty Scores

So, you've got a keyword difficulty score. Great. But what does a number like 45 actually mean for your SEO plan? On its own, it's just a number. The real skill is turning that score into a smart, actionable strategy.

Think of keyword difficulty scores like levels in a video game. Low-score keywords are the opening stages—perfect for building up your site's XP and getting some quick wins. High-score keywords? Those are the epic boss battles you only tackle once your website has leveled up its authority and content arsenal.

The goal isn't just to hoard a list of low-difficulty keywords. It's about finding the right challenge for your website's current strength, blending quick wins with ambitious, long-term goals.

What the 0-100 Scale Really Means

Most SEO tools spit out a score on a scale from 0 to 100. While the exact math can differ a bit from one tool to the next, the general idea is the same. We can group these scores into tiers that tell you what you're really up against.

This helps you move from simply seeing a number to truly understanding the effort involved.

Breaking Down Keyword Difficulty Tiers

This table helps you understand what you're getting into at different score levels and which keywords are right for your site right now.

Score Range	Competitive Landscape	Effort Required	Ideal for These Websites
0–20	Wide open. Often new or very niche topics with little direct competition.	Low. High-quality content alone can often secure a top spot quickly.	New websites, small blogs, businesses in a specific local area.
21–40	Getting busy. You'll see established blogs and some known brands competing here.	Medium. Demands well-researched content plus a handful of quality backlinks.	Growing websites with some established authority and a bit of a backlink profile.
41–60	Tough competition. The top spots are held by well-known, authoritative sites.	High. Requires exceptional, 10x content and a consistent, strategic backlink campaign.	Established businesses and authority sites with strong domain metrics.
61+	The big leagues. Dominated by major brands and household names.	Very High. Needs top-tier domain authority and a massive, diverse backlink profile.	Industry leaders, major publications, and enterprise-level websites.

Think of these tiers as flexible guidelines, not rigid rules. What's a "long-term goal" for a brand-new blog could easily be an "achievable target" for an established industry player.

Your website's own authority is the ultimate cheat code. A score that’s out of reach today might be in your grasp in six months.

Context Is Everything

A keyword difficulty score is useless without context. The most important piece of context? Your own website's authority. A KD score of 50 is a brick wall for a site with a Domain Authority of 10, but it’s a perfectly reasonable target for a site with a DA of 60.

Your industry also changes the game completely. Some niches are just naturally more competitive. In cutthroat sectors like consumer finance, you might find that average difficulty scores are north of 70. Meanwhile, in a quirky B2B niche, the average might be below 30. If you want to see how this plays out across different sectors, you can discover more insights about industry-specific keyword difficulty on Positional.com.

This is why looking at keyword difficulty in a vacuum is a mistake. It's just one part of the classic SEO triangle, working alongside search volume and user intent.

As you can see, you need all three to align for a truly successful keyword strategy.

Look Beyond the Score

The number is your starting point, not your final answer. The best SEOs use the score to build a shortlist, then they roll up their sleeves and manually analyze the search engine results page (SERP).

Put on your detective hat and ask a few simple questions:

Who is already on page one? Are you up against massive brands like Forbes and Wikipedia, or are the top spots held by smaller blogs and businesses like yours?

How good is the content? Are the top articles genuinely helpful and comprehensive, or do they look thin, outdated, and easy to beat?

What is Google rewarding? Are the results mostly in-depth blog posts, product pages, or YouTube videos? Make sure the content you plan to create actually matches what's already ranking.

This hands-on check gives you the full picture. It moves you from knowing how hard it is to rank to understanding what it will actually take to get there. This becomes even more critical when you need to find search volumes for keywords, as that data adds another crucial layer to your decision.

Finding Your Strategic Sweet Spot in Keyword Research

Okay, so you get what keyword difficulty is. Now for the fun part: actually using it. This is where you stop just looking at numbers and start making smart strategic moves to find keywords that hit the perfect balance between decent search volume and a difficulty score you can actually beat.

Think of it like building an investment portfolio. You don’t put all your money into high-risk, high-reward stocks. Instead, you balance them with some safer, steadier options. It's the same with keywords. You need a mix of "quick wins" to get some traffic flowing and more ambitious, long-term targets to build toward. For a newer site, this balanced approach is everything.

Uncovering High-Potential Keywords

Keyword research should feel less like a chore and more like a treasure hunt. Your SEO tools are the map, helping you sift through thousands of options to find those hidden gems your competitors are probably ignoring. The best place to start is with broad "seed" keywords—the big-picture topics that define your niche.

From there, you dig for the gold: the long-tail variations. These are usually longer, more specific phrases that not only have lower keyword difficulty scores but also signal that the searcher knows exactly what they want. For example, instead of fighting an uphill battle for "vegan recipes," you might find an opening with "easy vegan dinner recipes for beginners."

The strategic sweet spot is where decent search volume meets a difficulty score your website can realistically beat. It's the intersection of opportunity and capability.

By targeting these more specific phrases, you connect with people who are much further down the rabbit hole and closer to taking action, whether that's trying a recipe or buying a product.

Leveraging Long-Tail and Question-Based Keywords

One of the best tricks for finding low-difficulty opportunities is to listen for questions. Keywords that start with "who," "what," "where," "why," and "how" are fantastic because they tell you someone is actively looking for an answer.

Put yourself in your audience's shoes. What problems are they trying to solve? What questions are they actually typing into Google? Creating content that directly answers these questions is a surefire way to start gaining traction.

Here’s how a simple shift in focus can change the game:

Broad Term: "keyword research" (KD 80+)

Strategic Long-Tail: "how to do keyword research for a blog" (KD 35)

Broad Term: "SEO tools" (KD 90+)

Strategic Long-Tail: "best free SEO tools for small business" (KD 40)

Look at that difference. You go from a nearly impossible fight to a very winnable one, all while serving a more targeted and motivated audience. To see how this fits into the bigger picture, check out this comprehensive guide to keyword research.

A Practical Process for Finding Your Keywords

Great research is useless without a solid process to turn it into results. Once you have a big list of potential keywords, you need to refine it into an actionable content plan. This is how you transform raw data into real, measurable website growth.

Here’s a simple, four-step approach you can follow every time:

Generate a Broad List: Fire up your SEO tool and explore all the variations of your seed keywords. Don't be too picky yet—the goal here is to gather as many ideas as possible.

Apply Difficulty and Volume Filters: Now it’s time to get focused. Filter your list to show only keywords with a difficulty score that’s within reach for your site. You'll also want to set a minimum search volume to make sure it's worth your time.

Analyze the SERPs Manually: For the keywords that make the cut, you have to do a manual spot-check. Actually Google them. Are the top results all from huge, authoritative brands, or do you see smaller blogs and businesses like yours? This real-world context is something a KD score can never fully capture.

Prioritize and Plan: Finally, take your refined list and organize it. Group related keywords into topic clusters to build authority, and map them out on a content calendar. Now you're ready to start creating.

This methodical approach takes the guesswork out of it. You’re no longer just throwing content at the wall and hoping it sticks; you're building a strategy backed by data. If you want to go even deeper, our guide on how to build a keyword list breaks this entire process down step-by-step.

Common Myths About Keyword Difficulty

It’s easy to get led astray by some common misconceptions about keyword difficulty. Believing these myths can send you down the wrong path, wasting a ton of time and money on a strategy that was never going to work. Let’s clear the air and bust a few of the most persistent myths so you can build an approach that’s grounded in reality.

Myth 1: A Low Score is a Golden Ticket

This is the big one. Many people see a low keyword difficulty score and think they've found a guaranteed win. While a low score definitely signals less competition, it's not an automatic pass to the #1 spot. You still have to do the work.

At the end of the day, Google just wants to give its users the best possible answer. A low-difficulty keyword with thin, unhelpful content will get beat by a genuinely useful article every single time. Think of a low score as an open door to the competition, not a reserved seat on the winner's podium.

Myth 2: High Search Volume is All That Matters

Another classic mistake is chasing keywords with huge search volumes while completely ignoring their difficulty scores. I get it—it's tempting to go after a term that gets tens of thousands of searches a month. But for most sites, especially newer ones, this is a recipe for disappointment.

Those monster-volume keywords are almost always locked down by huge brands with powerful domain authority and years of backlinks. A small blog trying to rank for "running shoes" (KD 90+) is like a local band trying to open for a stadium tour—it’s just not going to happen, no matter how great your content is.

Instead, find that sweet spot: a healthy search volume paired with a difficulty score that’s actually within your reach. Nailing these keywords helps you build momentum, bring in real traffic, and grow your site's authority over time.

Myth 3: Keyword Difficulty Scores Are a Perfect Science

It’s tempting to look at that 0-100 score from your favorite SEO tool and treat it as gospel. But here’s the thing: these scores are incredibly sophisticated estimates, not direct data pulled from Google's brain.

Every tool, from Ahrefs to Semrush, uses its own unique algorithm to calculate difficulty. That's why you might see the same keyword scored as a 45 in one tool and a 52 in another. They’re fantastic for comparing the relative difficulty of keywords within the same tool, but they should never be the only piece of data you use to make a decision.

Myth 4: Once You Rank, You’re Set for Good

Finally, there's the idea that once you’ve clawed your way to the top of the SERPs for a tough keyword, you can just sit back and relax. If only it were that simple. Search rankings are anything but static.

Your competitors are constantly publishing new and better content. Google is always tweaking its algorithms. Keyword difficulty itself can change, rising as a topic gets more popular and attracts more competition. Getting to the top is a huge accomplishment, but staying there requires continuous effort—updating your content, building fresh links, and keeping an eye on what everyone else is doing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Even when you've got a good handle on the theory behind keyword difficulty, a few practical questions always pop up. Let's tackle some of the most common ones so you can put this knowledge to work.

What Is a Good Keyword Difficulty Score to Target?

Honestly, there's no single magic number. What's "good" is completely relative to your own website's authority.

If you're just starting out with a brand-new site, sticking to keywords with a difficulty score under 20 is a great way to get your foot in the door. For a more established website that's been around for a while, you can realistically aim for keywords in the 21-40 range. The trick is to match your targets to your current strength.

Can a New Website Rank for a High-Difficulty Keyword?

Let's be real: it's highly unlikely. A new site trying to rank for a keyword with a score of 70+ is like a local band trying to open for The Rolling Stones—it's just not going to happen overnight. These high-difficulty keywords are locked down by websites that have spent years building authority and earning thousands of quality backlinks.

Your best bet is to focus on low-competition keywords first. These are your early wins that build momentum. As your site gains more authority over time, you can start setting your sights on those more competitive terms.

Why Do Different SEO Tools Show Different Scores?

Ever notice how a keyword might have a score of 45 in one tool but 52 in another? That's completely normal, so don't sweat it. Each SEO platform, whether it's Ahrefs, Semrush, or another, uses its own unique recipe to calculate keyword difficulty.

They're all looking at similar ingredients—like backlinks and domain strength—but their specific formulas and the data they pull from can differ. The best approach is to pick one tool you like and stick with it. This allows you to make consistent comparisons within that tool's ecosystem, rather than getting hung up on the exact numbers.

Ready to stop guessing and start targeting the right keywords? Outrank’s AI-powered platform helps you discover high-potential, low-competition keywords tailored to your website's authority, so you can create content that actually ranks. Start your journey to the top of the SERPs by visiting https://outrank.so.