SEO difficulty is a metric that tells you how difficult it is to rank for a given keyword based on competition Is the SEO difficulty manageable.
It is important when choosing which keywords to position for and track because the higher the difficulty (i.e. the more competition there is for that keyword), the harder it is to position.
Take a look at your keywords:
- Did you select any with a high difficulty?
- Are there too many high difficulty dentist database keywords compared to low difficulty ones?
If this is the case, it might not be easy to rank your content.
One solution is to add more low and medium difficulty keywords to the mix and try to rank for them first with your content, with high difficulty keywords acting as complementary keywords in the content.
You can find out the SEO difficulty of your keywords using tools like SEOptimer’s keyword research tool.
Below is a screenshot from the latter for the example keyword “ seo for plumbers. ”
Looks like I chose well – it’s a nice, easy-to-manage keyword that’s still easy to rank for.
Also consider monthly search volume when considering keyword competition.
Search volume is essentially the average number of monthly searches for that keyword in Google.
Have you given your strategy enough time?
Your keyword ranking analysis must also take into account the timing of your SEO campaign.
In fact, SEO takes time to produce results— at least four full months of work (even six).
Is your campaign at least that old?
You also need to be sure what you are looking for by analyzing your keyword positions in Google.
For example, you can examine how the if your youtube advertising position of your main keywords in the SERPs has changed over the course of four months.
To do this in SEOptimer, start by saving screenshots and exporting keyword data at regular intervals starting in the first month. Ideally, every ten weeks, as this is the period covered by the ranking history chart.
Exporting is easy. You have the option to export keyword ranking data to CSV, PDF, Excel, or print.
Are your keywords up to date?
Monitoring the ranking trend of your keywords in the SERPs can help you understand which keywords are a priority for your SEO and differentiate the successful ones from the less successful ones.
It is crucial to know which keywords need more work to rank well.
Below is an example from my Monitor Backlinks account. I’ve drawn red boxes around keywords that need work and green boxes around keywords that are doing well:
You can also work out the statistics that tell you what percentage of your keywords you are tracking are working and what percentage are not working or need improvement.
In my example above, I need to do burkina faso business directory extra work on seven out of 10 keywords, which is 70% of the entire group (phew!).
Of course, keywords can only take you so far.