4 Important Factor about Keyword Difficulty.

What is the Keyword SEO Difficulty?

What is the Keyword Difficulty in SEO?

Keyword difficulty (also known as keyword competition) is one of the most important metrics you should consider when doing keyword research. The higher is the keyword difficulty, the harder it is to rank on the 1st SERP due to high competition of the ranking websites.

It’s a critical metric alongside with exact monthly search volumes and SERP analysis. It determines a selection of keywords that will help you to improve SEO, bid on keywords in PPC campaigns, and much more.

How is the Keyword Difficulty calculated?

The calculation is based on the selected metrics by Moz, Majestic and our know-how, namely:

• Domain Authority
• Page Authority
• Citation Flow
• Trust Flow

The calculation consists of the following steps:

1. Calculate the overall Link Profile Strength (LPS) for every website that ranks on the 1st Google SERP based on the selected Moz and Majestic metrics.
2. Each metric has a different weight to make sure the results estimate how the real rankings evolve as much as possible.
3. Take into account both high and low LPS values to calculate the overall Keyword SEO Difficulty.
4. The final value estimated how hard it is to start ranking on the 1st SERP so it takes more than ever into consideration websites with low LPS.
5. It’s absolutely alright when a low-authority website outranks high-authority websites and that’s exactly what Keyword Difficulty focuses on.

What is a good value of the Keyword  difficulty in SEO?

Keyword SEO Difficulty

The Keyword Difficulty is indicated on a scale from 0 to 100. The lower the value, the easier it is to rank for the keyword on the 1st SERP.
Keep in mind that the “real” SEO difficulty may vary. It depends on your on-page and off-page SEO skills.

White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO

White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO

What is the Difference Between White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO?

The difference between black hat SEO and white hat SEO has to do with the techniques used when trying to improve a website’s search engine ranking.

Black hat SEO refers to techniques and strategies used to get higher search rankings, and breaking search engine rules. Black hat SEO focuses on only search engines and not so much a human audience. Black hat SEO is typically used by those who are looking for a quick return on their site, rather than a long-term investment on their site. Some techniques used in black hat SEO include: keyword stuffing, link farming, hidden texts and links, and blog content spamming. Consequences of black hat SEO can possibly result in your site being banned from a search engine and de-indexed as a penalization for using unethical techniques.

White hat SEO refers to the use of techniques and strategies that target a human audience as opposed to a search engine. Techniques that are typically used in white hat SEO include using keywords, and keyword analysis, doing research, rewriting meta tags in order for them to be more relevant, backlinking, link building as well as writing content for human readers. Those who use white hat SEO expect to make a long-term investment on their website, as the results last a long time.

Does Black Hat SEO work?

Everybody has their own definition of “black hat SEO”. Put simply, black hat SEO includes any techniques that are against Google's guidelines. Some people view them as a fast track to achieve higher rankings. In fact, many SEO practitioners believe black hat SEO tactics are useful and they encourage others to use them.

Source: Google Blog

Google Algorithm Update 2019

A rare Google confirmation came related to a Google search algorithm update this week (12 march 2019). Google restated previous advice that there is no fix if your site was negatively impacted.

Google released a broad core search algorithm on March 12 - AKA Florida 2

Why it matters:

Google does several core ranking updates per year and confirms very few updates throughout the year. Specific to broad core updates, Google has said numerous times that you cannot do anything specific to fix your rankings. Google’s previous advice is, "there’s no ‘fix’ for pages that may perform less well other than to remain focused on building great content. Over time, it may be that your content may rise relative to other pages."
If your rankings did change recently, it may have been related to this broad core ranking update and not necessarily related to a technical change you made on your website.

What changed?

Right now it is very early and it is hard to guess what has changed. Based on the SEO chatter around this update, prior to Google confirming the update, some are saying this was again targeting the health/medical space. But, Google has said there was no specific target at medical or health sites with that August 1st update.
It is hard to know which types of sites were impacted the most right now. We will continue to monitor the situation and keep you updated on any insights we see related to this update.

Google’s previous advice.

Google has previously shared this advice around broad core algorithm updates:
"Each day, Google usually releases one or more changes designed to improve our results. Some are focused around specific improvements. Some are broad changes. Last week, we released a broad core algorithm update. We do these routinely several times per year.

As with any update, some sites may note drops or gains. There’s nothing wrong with pages that may now perform less well. Instead, it’s that changes to our systems are benefiting pages that were previously under-rewarded.

There’s no "fix" for pages that may perform less well other than to remain focused on building great content. Over time, it may be that your content may rise relative to other pages."
Source: To see more advice from Google around Google updates, see this Twitter thread.