How to interpret the keyword tool?

[sleepmaster]

I've played with the keyword tool a bit. Some keywords have 43% difficulty and some have 55%.

What do these difficulty levels mean? I don't really know how to go about it.

[RobertFisher]

Brian, the easiest way to explain it is that the higher the %, the more difficult it will be to rank for a given keyword. So if you want to watch it change, take a keyword that is highly searched (bankruptcy attorney) and put it in; the difficulty comes back at say a 63%. Then look at how the top ranking urls fair in Domain Auth and Page Auth and you will see about where you need to be to get ranked on that term. But, if you make it longer Bankruptcy attorney Chapter 11, you will see % drop and PA, DA of ranked pages go down which means it is easier to rank for that term.

But...the best use of this tool is to then go part way down page to where it says run full report and click that and put in your url to see where you would rank and to compare the various metrics used in ranking. If you wish to get more info go to this blog by Rand.

Hope you try it out.

[KyleJohnson40]

Check out this thread on the keyword difficulty tool.

In short, the percentages are meaningless unless you have experience with ranking terms at different levels. Even then it's just a starting point, and you'll be best served by analyzing the underlying data. For example, I generally have an easy time with keywords at the 50% difficulty and know that first page is reasonable within 90 days - but that's personal experience and your mileage will vary.

[sleepmaster]

Well, for instance, a keyword I'm trying to rank #1 for has "56%" difficulty.

It gets 12,000 exact searches a month. Is it worth the effort? Can I actually rank for it?

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[RobertFisher]

Do you mean, can you rank for it or, can you rank for it in a week or two? Yes, you can rank for it. It will require great on page SEO, quality content, more quality content, and diligence. Is it a term that can be assisted locally? etc.

Next, the other opinion I would give is don't start out worrying about #1. With our clients, we follow the rankings through campaign reports, etc. If we have a term we like and it is progressively moving up, we feel we are having an effect. If I was to be worried that a given search term was not at #1 in a fixed time period, I might go nuts....or more nuts. There are times we will have a term move up ten or twelve spots in a week and others that move slower. It really depends on the competition and the effort (quality and quantity) that is put into it.

[sleepmaster]

Well the term I'm trying to rank for is "Lack of sleep."

My website: http://www.lackofsleephq.com

I've built a lot of no follow links via blog comments mostly. I'm trying to develop more web 2.0 strategies and find ways to get more dofollow links as well.

But currently, my website is in position 200 or so per google webmaster tools.