hey it's ammo and welcome to the fourth
lesson in our keyword research module
today i'm going to show you how to
determine ranking difficulty for a
keyword
this will help you understand how hard
it'll be to rank high in google for your
target keywords
let's get started so when it comes to
ranking in google
you need to understand who you'll be up
against before you target a keyword
otherwise you could be entering a battle
you won't be able to win
from an seo perspective competitors are
pages and websites that rank at the top
of google for your target keywords
so that means your competitors can be
different for every single keyword you
target
so there are three main things you'll
want to consider before you decide to
pick a fight
and those are search intent metrics of
the top ranking pages and websites
and topical authority of the top ranking
websites
now as we go through these points we're
going to create a list of self-check
questions
which should help you make informed
decisions in your keyword targeting
also in order to see things like metrics
of top ranking pages
you need an seo tool since google won't
show you data on other pages
so i'll be using ahrefs keywords
explorer throughout this lesson
now if you don't have an ahrefs account
you can use our free serp checker tool
which will give you data on the top
three pages
all right let's start with search intent
the first thing you need to do is look
at the serp and ask yourself
do some of the top ranking pages fail to
closely match
search intent to find this out you can
go through the three c's of search
intent as we discussed in lesson two of
this module
and by the looks of it they're all
listicle blog posts
using the freshness angle so they do
match it
also pay close attention to the titles
and urls of the ranking pages
in general if the top pages include the
primary keyword
or a variation of it in the title and or
url
they're likely targeting that keyword
for example
all of the top ranking pages for the
quarry how to save money are
exactly about that whereas a quarry like
best convertible car seats for small
cars is a bit mixed
as you can see some pages have gone
specifically with the angle
for small cars as a result it's probably
matching searcher intent
better than the more broad posts about
the best convertible car seats
for any car this is a sign of weakness
in the serp because it means there's
probably a lack of rank-worthy content
out there
about the best convertible car seats for
small
cars now i don't want you to take this
as advice
that you must include the exact keyword
phrase in your titles
and or urls with this example finding
convertible car seats for small
cars is actually a very specific need
for a specific person all right let's
talk about the metrics
the first metric to look at is the
number of websites that are linking to
the page
at ahrefs we call this referring domains
as i mentioned in module 1 backlinks are
one of google's most prominent ranking
signals
so if a page has a lot of quality links
pointing at it
then it'll be more competitive to rank
so before choosing a keyword
you need to ask yourself can i get more
quality backlinks
than the top ranking pages now at this
point in the course
we haven't talked about the attributes
of quality backlinks
but our link building module that's
coming out in a couple of weeks
should help you answer this question the
second metric is website authority
at ahrefs we call this domain rating
which represents the overall strength of
a website's backlink profile
very generally speaking you should be
going after keywords where your
website's dr is in a similar ballpark
range
as the top ranking pages or at the very
least
one of the top ranking pages should be
in the same range as your website
for example if all of the websites that
rank in the top 10
have high dr's and you have a dr of
let's say
10 then you may want to consider
competing when you're at a similar level
so let's add that question to our
checklist is my website in a similar dr
or higher than the top ranking websites
again this is a very general
recommendation
but still a decent one to follow if
you're a beginner to seo
to see the domain rating of your own
site you can enter your domain in site
explorer
and see it here on the overview page or
you can enter your domain in our free
website authority checker
i'll be leaving links to all of these
tools in the description
all right let's move on to the third
part which is topical authority of the
top ranking websites
google wants to rank pages from
authoritative sources
and this goes beyond backlinks for
example
if we look at the serp 4 how to unclog a
toilet
you'll see that this dr42 site is
outranking
much more powerful websites with
significantly more referring domains
well this page comes from a website
that's just about
plumbing so it's likely more
authoritative on the topic
so the question you need to ask yourself
is is my website
equally or more topically authoritative
than the top ranking websites if the
answer is yes
then that's a positive thing for you the
easiest and quickest way to find out is
to just look at the domain names
and use some common sense for example
looking at the serp 4
best convertible car seat for small cars
you'll see sites like
experienced mommy baby center parenting
pod
baby list and other relevant sites that
talk about products for children
and for domains that aren't as easily
distinguishable like
800buckleup.org you can just visit the
site
hit the about page and get a general
idea of what the site is about
in this case you'll see that they talk
about car seat recalls
and review car seat brands so yes it is
topically authoritative
on car seats alright let's look at our
full list of yes or no questions
as a very general rule of thumb the more
yeses you can check off
the better your chances of ranking again
very general because
seo is quite nuanced with that said
let's go through a couple of
hypothetical examples for our golf site
to set the scene
let's say you have a website that's
about golf instruction and you also
review golf equipment
and your website's domain rating is low
at around 15.
alright so the first example is for the
quarry best golf grips let's start with
the first question
closely match search intent
from the looks of it they all look
decent so i'll check the no box
next up can i get more quality backlinks
than the top ranking pages
again we haven't covered anything about
quality backlinks yet
so for now let's just look at quantity
most of the sites have very few
referring domains
so i'd say this is a yes next question
is my website in a similar dr range or
higher than the top ranking websites
based on the serp there are a few sites
with similar website authority so let's
give this a yes as well
and finally is my website equally or
more topically authoritative than the
well all of the top pages are from golf
sites and so is mine so let's give this
a yes as well
so based on our analysis it looks like
this would be a topic worth going after
all right the next analysis is for the
keyword best putters
looking at search intent overall it
looks like the majority of pages are
good
so i'll check the no box but i do want
to touch on this page
on the best blade putters this is more
of a focused post and they're likely
ranking high for this because of
all of the other factors like high
website authority
lots of referring domains and topical
authority
so i would actually exclude them from
the rest of this analysis
alright next up can i get more quality
backlinks than the top ranking pages
again just looking at the quantity of
links to these pages
the answer would likely be a yes seeing
as we're still looking at about
a dozen referring domains but it's
important to realize
that getting more links than the number
one page probably won't happen in the
near future
meaning getting the top ranking spot
will be tough
next is my website in a similar dr range
the answer is no
and finally my website is topically
authoritative
so i'll give this a yes now it looks
like we're at a tie between yeses and
notes
and this is exactly why i said as a very
general rule of thumb
the more yeses you can check off the
better your chances of ranking
again seo is nuanced plus you need to
weigh out some of the other principles
we discussed
like traffic potential and business
value
and the best way to make sound judgment
calls is through
experience so it will take time to hone
your skills
and gain a better grasp of keyword
analysis
so as you can see understanding how hard
it will be to rank in google
will be a key skill to your success in
search
why because it's the first step to
getting predictable results
after all if you know what it'll take to
rank ahead of your competition
then it all comes down to execution and
that's what the next two modules are all
about next week i'll be dropping our
on-page seo module
which will help with actually creating
content that ranks
so make sure to subscribe so you don't
miss out on those lessons
or if you're watching at a later time
then check the description to
continue on with the course i'll see you
in the next lesson
