What kind of keyword difficulty should I be aiming for when launching an new site?
-
I know that words in their 20's or 30's would be ideal, but it's proving hard for me to find relevant keywords with such scores (just a couple with scores in the 30's). Is going for words between 40-50 a waste of time?
Thanks.
-
I absolutely agree Marc. This is a HUGE Pro Tip that took me a while to fully appreciate.
By targeting the long tail version in the short run, you can build up some traffic, trust and other metrics. But you're also simultaneously targeting the head term so as time goes along you'll likely end up ranking for both (if you've followed a well devised strategy of course)
Thanks Marc, Cheers
-
I'd say 40-50 is moderate. 30 shouldn't be too much of a problem most of the time if you nail onpage optimization and can get some links. Of course, depending upon budget, time, experience and resources... 40-50 can sometimes be difficult to achieve.
Rather than looking too much at the difficulty score, I'd be looking at the metrics for the top ranking sites and gauging whether or not it's reasonable that I can beat those metrics. Keep in mind, you may not want to pay as much attention to the metrics of an exact match domain or international brand name because you can't duplicate either of them
Pull an advanced keyword report for your top phrases, download them into excel and then add some metrics to them. Once you're done, the big question will be "is it realistic that I can beat these metrics with the allocated (time and money) budget?".
If you can, then I'd pull a "Top Pages Report" with OSE for each ranking website and see what kinds of content and tactics they've employed to get those metrics that are helping them to rank.
Armed with this information, you should have a very clear picture of what needs to be done to win, where to start and if it's realistic or not.
Does this help Zachary?
-
I agree with Donnie regarding targeting local or long tail phrases when looking for keywords to optimize for.
For example, if your client is a plumber, you'll have a hard time optimizing his site for the keyword plumber which has a difficulty of 63% according to the SEOmoz Keyword Difficulty tool.
Since your client is a plumber, though, you could include a local word like the city or town where your client is located and get better results. So seattle plumber has a difficulty score of 41%.
You can often add qualifiers to get commonly searched for long tail phrases for even better results. So best seattle plumber service has a difficulty score of 37% which you could probably get ranked for if you include it in your SEOmoz campaign and focus on it.
While it's not a complete waste of time to go for words that have higher scores than 20s or 30s, you'll probably get better results faster if you go for words with lower scores.
I hope that helps!
-
It helps with the theory, but some more specificity would help Are you saying 40-50 would be considered high demand/difficulty phrases? The problem is that I'm not finding much in the niches I'm targeting at around keyword difficulty 30...
-
I love this question. Ultimately, it really depends on the budget (both time and money)...
In my experience, it's best to start out with either local or long tail type phrases when launching a new website on a shoe string budget (I'm assuming that's the case here?).
Think of it as a mind-map, or informational hieerarchy... write/ build really great content around a small niche-of-a-topic, and grow towards broader (and higher difficulty) phrases as you get links, PR, attention, etc.
I think Google builds some trust up with websites that are ranking for local/ long tail type phrases (and thus the ranking) and sometimes t's easier (cheaper) to build on that trust and expand rather than starting out too ambitious.
I'm not suggesting that you lose sight and give up on the higher demand/ difficulty phrases, I'm merely recommending that you create a content plan that will allow you to grow into them in a methodical way
Does this help?
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
-
Difference keyword tool and related topics
Hello, Can someone explain me the difference between those 2 ? Because to me they are very similar. Thank you,
Moz Pro | | seoanalytics0 -
Keyword Rankings Report Accuracy
How many of you routinely have inaccurate data in your Moz Pro keyword rankings reports? I just checked 5 of our terms that came in this morning - yes, it's a not logged in, non-personalized, incognito, cleared cache search - and none of them actually ranked where Moz said they ranked. One was listed in the top 5 and wasn't even on the first page. One was listed at position 3 but was actually at position 8, a big difference when it comes to CTR. And the report will have stuff like our brand name not ranked at all one week, then jumping by 45+ positions the next week, then gone the next week. And it doesn't fluctuate like that. I get that the reports are general to what most people see, but should such big disparities be expected?
Moz Pro | | Kingof50 -
Finding all search terms/keywords
Hi everyone! Is there a report I can run on SEOMoz that will show all of the search terms that people are using to find my site? I want to analyze where I am doing well and where I can use some work, but I'd like to have that as a starting point. Thanks in advance!
Moz Pro | | JodiFTM0 -
Site Explorer - No Data Available for this URL
Hi All I have just joined on the trial offer, im not sure if i can afford the monthly payments, but im hoping SEOmoz will show me that i also cannot afford to be without it! In my proses of learning this site and flicking through each section to see what things do. However when i enter my URL into Site Explorer i get the following message "No Data Available for this URL" My site should be crawl-able, so how do i get to see data for my site/s. I wont post my URL here, as the site has a slightly adult theme.
Moz Pro | | jonny512379
If anyone could confirm if i can post "slightly adult" sites. Best Regards
Jon0 -
Domain & Page Authority of brand new site?
Something I always do to assess how easy/difficult it will be for a clients site to rank against competitors is to compare domain and page authority scores with the scores of the competitors on page 1. This is great when Moz have spidered my clients site and can provide scores but what about where a clients site is brand new with only a few natural links? Anyone suggest a ball park figures for Domain authority on brand new websites?
Moz Pro | | QubaSEO0 -
Which of these is the best guest blogging site
Which of these is best: http://www.guestblogit.com/http://www.bloggerlinkup.com/ http://www.Myblogguest.comhttps://www.helpareporter.com/ I like the look of MyBlogguest.com so far. We are wanting to guest write articles to be published on quality sites in exchange for one or two links back (link building) Also, how do you choose what article topics to write. So far my strategy is to look at the industry's biggest sites and to use the "Top Pages" tab in OSE to look for hot topics. Thanks!
Moz Pro | | BobGW0 -
Site rank checking tool
Is there a tool where I can enter a URL and it will tell me all the terms a site ranks for? Basically I recently put up a new website and I want to know what terms I rank in the top 50 for in Google
Moz Pro | | KevinPatrick0 -
What is mT/mR good for In the keyword tool difficulty full report results?
So the ratio is MozTrust to MozRank, but what is this good for? What can I deduce from this and what can I use it for?
Moz Pro | | MarloSchneider2