30-second summary:
- Keyword difficulty (KD) scores help digital marketers understand potential search engine performance
- KD scores are useful in building SEO strategies, filtering out ineffective keywords
- Low competition keywords give an advantage in attracting traffic
- Some KD calculating tools may be inaccurate due to the use of limited parameters
- Semrush has developed a new formula for KD score calculations that it says has improved accuracy
With countless companies competing for the same audience, digital marketers need to develop a highly effective and targeted content strategy to find a way through the crowded market and connect with potential customers. Keyword difficulty (KD) is an essential metric to assist marketers in formulating an effective SEO strategy for reaching the top of search engine results pages (SERP).
Focusing on a keyword with a low KD score can achieve faster results with traffic from search engines as there is less competition. Whereas keywords with a higher KD score will typically have far more competition in search results, making it much harder to appear near the top of SERPs in the short term. Long-term improvements are achievable but will take time and require multiple SEO measures to be implemented.
KD calculation tools can determine how effective a keyword may be in search results. However, a lot can depend on the SEO tools that digital marketers are using. Such tools are not always accurate due to the limited parameters that can vary from developer to developer. The result is that the KD calculation may be inaccurate and even lead a digital marketer to believe that their keywords will perform better in practice than in reality.
Content created in partnership with Semrush.
Semrush, an online visibility management platform provider, has developed what it says is a proven formula to achieve an accurate