{"id":599952,"date":"2020-06-04T20:15:19","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/likesinternetmarketing.com\/v\/?p=599952"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:15:19","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:15:19","slug":"how-reliable-are-keyword-difficulty-scores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/likesinternetmarketing.com\/v\/seo\/how-reliable-are-keyword-difficulty-scores\/","title":{"rendered":"How Reliable are Keyword Difficulty scores?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure class=\"wp-block-embed wp-block-embed-youtube is-type-video is-provider-youtube epyt-figure\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><div class=\"epyt-video-wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\"  id=\"_ytid_33207\"  width=\"800\" height=\"450\"  data-origwidth=\"800\" data-origheight=\"450\"  data-relstop=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qcpI17UI_YA?enablejsapi=1&autoplay=0&cc_load_policy=0&cc_lang_pref=&iv_load_policy=3&loop=0&rel=0&fs=1&playsinline=0&autohide=2&theme=dark&color=red&controls=1&disablekb=0&\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__  no-lazyload\" title=\"YouTube player\"  allow=\"fullscreen; accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen data-no-lazy=\"1\" data-skipgform_ajax_framebjll=\"\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div><\/figure><br \/>\nIn this tutorial, you\u2019ll learn how Ahrefs\u2019 Keyword Difficulty score works, plus how to tell the difference between a keyword trap and a keyword opportunity.<br \/>\nSubscribe \u25ba https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/AhrefsCom?sub_confirmation=1<\/p>\n<p>***************************************<br \/>\nAdditional SEO Resources<\/p>\n<p>How to Do Keyword Research for a NEW Website (Full Tutorial) \u25ba https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=x5IJ0APR0EQ<\/p>\n<p>Keyword Research Tutorial: From Start to Finish (2019) \u25ba https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=OMJQPqG2Uas<\/p>\n<p>Keyword Research Tutorials for SEO \u25ba https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLvJ_dXFSpd2u5JCtiYWfvnSvAkoPwg5VY<\/p>\n<p>Simple SEO Strategy: The \u201cMiddleman\u201d Method \u25ba https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=433XlvMl508<\/p>\n<p>Link Building Tutorials (Step-By-Step) \u25ba https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLvJ_dXFSpd2tjUTuAHpHidz5e2hAedP_m<\/p>\n<p>***************************************<br \/>\nKeyword Difficulty is a numerical representation of how hard it\u2019ll be to rank in Google for a search query.<\/p>\n<p>But as a standalone metric, it can be misleading. How can a 1 to 3 digit number truly quantify how hard it\u2019ll be to rank in Google?<\/p>\n<p>Google uses hundreds of ranking signals, some that they\u2019ve confirmed, some that have been \u201cverified\u201d through third party studies, and then there are ones that SEOs have concluded based on experience, observation or gut feelings.<\/p>\n<p>To expect a third party with zero association with Google to somehow decrypt 200 some-odd signals and compute an \u201caccurate\u201d metric is unrealistic, or maybe impossible. <\/p>\n<p>Afterall, most of these so-called \u201cranking factors,\u201d are speculation and there are others that can\u2019t even be looked at independently. And for that reason, you\u2019ll notice that keyword difficulty will differ depending on the keyword research tool you\u2019re using. <\/p>\n<p>But despite its shortcomings, it\u2019s actually a super insightful metric if you understand how it works and how Google chooses which pages to rank. <\/p>\n<p>So, how does Ahrefs calculate Keyword Difficulty?<\/p>\n<p>Simply put, we take a weighted average of the number of referring domains pointing at the top 10 pages. <\/p>\n<p>So this means that if a keyword has a high KD, then the ranking pages likely have lots of links pointing at them. In contrast, low KD scores tell us that the top ranking pages don\u2019t have many links.<\/p>\n<p>Since ranking for keywords usually rely on backlinks, KD acts as a good proxy to ranking difficulty. But there are other factors we have to consider.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ll learn what these factors are and how to manually assess the search engine result pages (SERPs) for them. <\/p>\n<p>While KD as a standalone metric is far from perfect, there\u2019s actually a ton of utility you can get from it when you use it based on your understanding of the metric.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ll learn how to use Ahrefs\u2019 Keyword Difficulty to find great topics to target. <\/p>\n<p>Timestamps:<\/p>\n<p>0:35 What is the keyword difficulty metric<br \/>\n2:08 How Ahrefs calculates Keyword Difficulty<br \/>\n2:51 Consider search intent when assessing the KD<br \/>\n4:17 Take website authority into account<br \/>\n7:14 Consider the number of quality backlinks<br \/>\n8:33 Find low-competition topics based on search intent<br \/>\n11:32 Find link prospects using keywords with high KD scores<\/p>\n<p>#keyworddifficulty #keywordresearch #seo<\/p>\n<p>Be sure to subscribe for more actionable marketing and SEO tutorials.<br \/>\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/AhrefsCom?sub_confirmation=1<\/p>\n<p>STAY TUNED:<br \/>\nAhrefs \u25ba https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/<br \/>\nYouTube \u25ba https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/AhrefsCom?sub_confirmation=1<br \/>\nFacebook \u25bahttps:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Ahrefs<br \/>\nTwitter \u25bahttps:\/\/twitter.com\/ahrefs<\/p>\n<div class=\"likes-after-content likes-entity-placement\" id=\"likes-22997329\"><div id=\"likes-2294531155\" style=\"margin-left: auto;margin-right: auto;text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/likesinternetmarketing.com\/v\/iceberg\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"IE Yours Free\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/likesinternetmarketing.com\/v\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/IE-Yours-Free-728x120-1.png\" alt=\"IE Yours Free\"  srcset=\"https:\/\/likesinternetmarketing.com\/v\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/IE-Yours-Free-728x120-1.png 728w, https:\/\/likesinternetmarketing.com\/v\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/IE-Yours-Free-728x120-1-300x49.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 728px) 100vw, 728px\" width=\"728\" height=\"120\"  style=\"display: inline-block;\" \/><\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this tutorial, you\u2019ll learn how Ahrefs\u2019 Keyword Difficulty score works, plus how to tell the difference between a keyword<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":599953,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-599952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/likesinternetmarketing.com\/v\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/likesinternetmarketing.com\/v\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/likesinternetmarketing.com\/v\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/likesinternetmarketing.com\/v\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/likesinternetmarketing.com\/v\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/likesinternetmarketing.com\/v\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/likesinternetmarketing.com\/v\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/likesinternetmarketing.com\/v\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/likesinternetmarketing.com\/v\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/likesinternetmarketing.com\/v\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}