What is keyword difficulty? A practical guide for content strategy

In SEO, not all keywords are created equal. Some are low-hanging fruit, the kind of quick wins that can bring in a trickle of traffic almost overnight. Then there are the more challenging terms, the ones that require a massive, long-term effort just to crack the first page of Google. The trick is knowing which is which before you pour hours into writing a blog post.

This is exactly where keyword difficulty comes into play. Think of it as your compass for building a content plan that works. It's the metric that helps you distinguish easy wins from tough climbs, so you can spend your time and money wisely, set realistic goals, and find opportunities to get ahead.

But understanding the score is one thing; acting on it is another. While traditional SEO tools are great at diagnosing the problem, modern platforms are built to provide the solution. For instance, the eesel AI blog writer is designed to help you create the kind of deeply-researched, high-quality content you need to compete, no matter what the difficulty score says.

What is keyword difficulty?

Keyword difficulty, sometimes called SEO difficulty, is a metric that estimates how hard it will be to rank on the first page of Google for a specific search term.

Most SEO tools show this on a scale of 0-100. A low score means it’s probably easier to rank, while a high score suggests you’re in for a real fight. It's worth remembering that every tool calculates this score a bit differently, so a 50 in one tool isn't the same as a 50 in another.

You might have seen the "Competition" metric in Google's Keyword Planner and assumed it was the same thing, but it's not. Google's metric is just for paid ads (PPC), showing how many advertisers are bidding on a keyword. Keyword difficulty is all about organic SEO, which is our focus here.

Here’s a helpful way to think about it: if SEO were a video game, a keyword with a low difficulty score would be the tutorial level. You could probably clear it without much trouble. A keyword with a high score is a bigger challenge. It's going to take more prep, better gear (your content), and a solid strategy to succeed.

How is keyword difficulty calculated?

Google doesn't just publish a difficulty score for every keyword. There's no official formula. Instead, the major SEO tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, and Moz have developed their own algorithms. They do this by analyzing the pages that are already ranking in the top spots and looking for common signs of strength.

While each tool has its own secret recipe, they all tend to look at a similar set of ingredients.

The role of backlinks and referring domains

This is a major factor. For nearly every tool, the number and quality of backlinks pointing to the top-ranking pages is the most important factor. A referring domain is just a unique website that links to a page.

The logic is pretty simple: Google sees backlinks as votes of confidence. If a page has a lot of links from other authoritative, relevant websites, Google figures it must be a valuable resource. So, if the top 10 results for a keyword are all packed with high-quality backlinks from hundreds of different domains, the keyword difficulty score will be high.

This factor is so critical that for a tool like Ahrefs, it's almost the only thing they consider. For others, like Semrush, it's still the most heavily weighted factor in their algorithm, making up over 41% of the score.

The authority of ranking sites

Next up is the overall strength of the websites that are currently ranking. Tools call this different things, like Domain Rating (DR) from Ahrefs or Authority Score from Semrush, but they all try to measure the same thing: a website's overall SEO power, which is based heavily on its backlink profile.

This ties right into difficulty. If you search for something and the whole first page is filled with big names like Wikipedia, Forbes, The New York Times, or established industry leaders, you know it's going to be a challenge. These sites have so much built-in authority that it's incredibly hard for a smaller or newer site to break into the top 10, even with fantastic content.

How SERP features affect difficulty

Have you ever searched for something and found the answer right on the Google results page, without clicking a single link? That's a SERP feature. These include things like Featured Snippets, "People Also Ask" boxes, Knowledge Panels, and Local Packs for map results.

While they're handy for users, they can make life harder for content creators. They take up prime real estate at the top of the page, pushing the classic blue-link organic results down. This can result in fewer clicks for organic results. If the SERP for your target keyword is crowded with these features, you're fighting for a much smaller piece of the traffic pie, making a top spot even more competitive.

A breakdown of popular keyword difficulty tools

Since every tool uses a different method to calculate its score, the numbers you see can vary between platforms. This isn't a major problem, as long as you understand how your chosen tool works and use it consistently to track progress. Let's take a look at a couple of the main players.

Ahrefs' backlink-centric approach

Ahrefs is one of the most respected names in SEO, and their Keyword Difficulty (KD) score is known for its simplicity. It's calculated almost entirely based on one thing: the number of referring domains pointing to the top 10 pages.

• Pros: This method is very transparent. You know exactly what it's measuring. Since backlinks are such a huge ranking factor, it’s a solid indicator of the link-building effort you'll need.
• Limitations: This intense focus on backlinks can sometimes be a bit misleading. A page can rank without tons of links if it has great on-page SEO and high relevance on an authoritative site. A Semrush study even noted that this approach can give a KD score of 0 for high-volume local keywords like "coffee shops near me." The top results (like Google Maps) might not have many direct backlinks, but that keyword is still fiercely competitive.

Semrush's multi-factor model

Semrush uses a more blended approach. Their Keyword Difficulty (KD%) is a broader metric that considers multiple factors, including backlink data, the median Authority Score of the domains on page one, and the presence of SERP features.

They also have an interesting feature called Personal Keyword Difficulty (PKD). This uses an AI algorithm to estimate the difficulty specifically for your website. It analyzes your domain's authority and relevance to the keyword to give you a personalized score.

• Pros: PKD is incredibly useful. It gives you a much more realistic idea of your actual chances of ranking, rather than just a generic number. It helps you find keywords where your site might have a unique advantage.
• Limitations: A consideration is that these tools are diagnostic. They help identify if you have a chance at ranking but do not assist with the content creation process. Developing content that is competitive enough to rank remains a separate task.

How the eesel AI blog writer tackles keyword difficulty

Once you have researched a keyword and know its difficulty, the next step is to act. This is where the eesel AI blog writer can help. It’s designed not just to analyze keyword difficulty, but to help you address it by generating content that is optimized to rank from the start.

From metric to masterpiece in minutes

The process is straightforward. You provide a keyword, regardless of its difficulty score, and the tool generates a complete, SEO-optimized, publish-ready blog post. This helps close the gap between finding an opportunity and acting on it. The time-consuming process of outlining, researching, writing, and formatting is streamlined.

Context-aware research to outrank the competition

For any keyword with moderate difficulty, generic, surface-level content is often insufficient. It is important to create content that is more comprehensive than what is already ranking. This is where eesel AI’s research capabilities can be useful. It analyzes the current SERP to understand the search intent behind the keyword. It then generates a resource with relevant insights, structured to satisfy that intent. The result is an article that has a good chance of competing with the top-ranking pages.

Building authority with automated assets and social proof

To rank for terms with high keyword difficulty, your content needs to project authority and trustworthiness (what SEOs call E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). The eesel AI blog writer automatically includes these signals in the content it creates.

• Assets: It generates custom images, infographics, and tables to break up text, make complex information easier to understand, and improve the overall user experience.
• Social Proof: It finds and includes real, relevant quotes from Reddit threads and embeds YouTube videos. This adds authentic, human perspectives to your article, showing you’ve done your homework.
• Credibility: It automatically adds external citations to credible sources to back up claims and builds internal links to other relevant content on your site, which helps both users and search engines.

How to use keyword difficulty in your content strategy

How do you actually use this metric in your day-to-day work? It's not just about chasing low numbers. A smart strategy uses the full spectrum of difficulty scores.

Prioritize quick wins with low keyword difficulty

If your website is new or has lower domain authority, you should definitely start by targeting keywords with lower difficulty scores. This is your foundation. Ranking for these less competitive terms helps you build momentum, bring in some early traffic, and start establishing your site's topical relevance with Google. These early wins give you a base to build on.

Using topic clusters to tackle high keyword difficulty

This is a more advanced and powerful strategy. It involves targeting a high-difficulty, broad "pillar" keyword with a massive, comprehensive page. Then, you surround that pillar page with multiple "cluster" articles, each one targeting a lower-difficulty, long-tail keyword related to the main topic.

All of these cluster pages link back to your main pillar page. This structure tells Google that you have deep expertise on the entire subject. Over time, the authority you build with your easier cluster articles flows to your pillar page, helping you gradually climb the rankings for that super-competitive term.

Setting realistic expectations for high keyword difficulty terms

When you decide to go after a keyword with a high score, you have to be realistic. Use the score to manage expectations with your team or clients. Ranking for these terms isn't a quick project; it's a long-term campaign. It will demand not only an exceptional piece of content but also a sustained, deliberate link-building strategy to get those authoritative backlinks we talked about earlier. The difficulty score helps you justify the investment in time and resources needed to succeed.

For a deeper dive into practical strategies, this video from Semrush offers excellent tips on how to find and leverage low-competition keywords effectively.

A video from Semrush explaining how to use keyword difficulty to find low-competition keywords for your SEO strategy.

Beyond the keyword difficulty score

Ultimately, keyword difficulty is a vital diagnostic tool. It's a guide that helps you map out your SEO strategy, manage your resources, and understand the competitive landscape. But it's not a wall. A high score doesn't mean a keyword is impossible to rank for, and a low score doesn't guarantee you a top spot.

The most important ranking factor has always been creating the best, most helpful piece of content that answers a person's search query. The challenge is that doing this consistently, and at scale, can be difficult.

Tools like the eesel AI blog writer are designed to help with this process. They allow you to move from analysis to focusing on publishing high-quality content that performs well in search.

Ready to stop analyzing and start ranking? Generate your first blog post for free.