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What is keyword difficulty? How do you measure it? Why bother at all? If you’re wondering any of these things, you’ve come to the right place. In this post, we’ll explore everything there is to know about keyword difficulty and how it affects your SEO efforts. By the time you finish reading, you’ll be an expert on the topic!
What is keyword difficulty?
Keyword difficulty is a measure of how difficult it would be to rank for a given keyword in search engines. The higher the keyword difficulty, the more difficult it would be to rank for that keyword. There are a few different factors that go into calculating keyword difficulty, but the two most important are the number of competing websites and the quality of those websites.
How to measure keyword difficulty?
There are a few different ways to measure keyword difficulty, but the most popular is the Keyword Difficulty Score (KD score). The KD score ranges from 0-100, with 100 being the most difficult. To calculate the KD score, you need to know two things: the number of backlinks pointing to the top 10 results for that keyword, and the average authority of those results.
Why measure keyword difficulty?
There are a few different reasons why you might want to measure keyword difficulty. The most important reason is to help you prioritize your keywords. If you’re trying to rank for a bunch of different keywords, it’s important to focus your efforts on the ones that are most likely to give you results. Keyword difficulty can also help you identify new opportunities. If you see a keyword with a low KD score, that means there’s less competition and it might be easier for you to rank for it.
Conclusion
Keyword difficulty is an important metric to keep in mind when you’re doing SEO. By understanding what it is and how to measure it, you can make sure you’re focusing your efforts on the right keywords. And that’s going to help you get better results!

Jamie Fallon is an SEO expert who lives life to the maximum, redlining every day on a rollercoaster straight to the grave.
In an SEO career of almost ten years, he’s seen it all, he’s done it all, and he’s not impressed: from white text on a white background to today, when you can have robots paint or write for you like some kind of sick science fiction come true.
No matter what life throws at him, Jamie always manages to come out on top. He’s an expert at seeing the silver lining in every cloud and making the best of every situation. His positive attitude and unshakable faith in himself have seen him through tough times. For some people, success goes to their heads; but Jamie never forgets what got him to wherever he thinks he is.
When he’s not busy gaming the system, you can find him writing angry thinkpieces on how Google is ruining everything good about the internet, or hanging out with his wife (pictured).