Checking Keyword Difficulty

Keyword Difficulty score is a percentage value estimating the work required to get a website to show up on page one for a given keyword in a given search engine listings.

When Rank Tracker calculates Keyword Difficulty, it looks at the 10 top ranking pages for every term and analyzes a number of off-page factors for each page: page and domain InLink Rank, the number of links to page and domain. The higher is the score, the harder it'll be to outrank your competitors.

Check keyword difficulty

To start analyzing keyword difficulty, open one of your Rank Tracker projects and switch to the Tracked Keywords module under Rank Tracking.

Select a keyword and then find the Keyword Difficulty section in the bottom tab. In the table, you'll see the list of top 10 pages ranking for the keyword, along with their SEO stats. Below, you'll find the same stats for your own page (ranking one or assigned one), so you can see how different aspects of your SEO compare to competitors'.

On the left, you can switch between the search engines the score is calculated for. To check the Keyword Difficulty for the first time, or update it anew for the selected keyword simply hit the Update button.

You can add the Keyword Difficulty columns so that the difficulty score in any search engine would be displayed in your Workspace next to keywords. To do that, click to edit visible columns, find the Keyword Difficulty columns on the left and select the ones you need.

Update Keyword Difficulty in bulk

To update Keyword Difficulty for multiple keywords at a time, switch to the Keyword Map module under Rank Tracking. Hit the Update Keyword Difficulty button in the top menu. You'll see the score in the respective column in the Keyword Difficulty section, and the table with the details in the bottom tab.

Keep in mind that the checking process may take a while depending on the number of keywords you select, as there are lots of data Rank Tracker needs to gather and analyze for each.

Copy Keyword Difficulty stats

You can copy the Keyword Difficulty stats for any selected keyword (one keyword at a time). To do that, you should select the records you'd like to copy from the Keyword Difficulty table, right-click on the list, and choose Copy to Clipboard > Copy all Columns (or URLs only). Then you can paste the data into any spreadsheet.

With Rank Tracker you can check the unlimited number of keywords for their difficulty score, which will help you find the most worthy keywords, and wisely give up on those which are too tough to compete for. Looking into individual competitors' stats will let you spot what helps them rank higher, and prioritize your keywords and SEO efforts accordingly.

Next steps: