Keyword Difficulty

Written by Cobus van der Westhuizen, reviewed by Wynand van der Westhuizen, fact-checked by Lenata Oosthuizen. Last reviewed July 2026. Editorial policy.

What Is Keyword Difficulty?

Keyword difficulty (KD) is a metric used in search engine optimisation to estimate how hard it is to rank a webpage in the top organic results for a given search term. It is expressed as a number from 0 to 100, with 0 being the easiest and 100 being nearly impossible to rank for without substantial domain authority and backlink investment.

Most SEO tools calculate keyword difficulty primarily by analysing the backlink profiles of the pages currently ranking in the top 10 results. If those pages have thousands of high-quality backlinks from authoritative domains, the difficulty score will be high, because displacing them requires a comparable level of link authority. Some tools also consider content quality signals, page authority, and brand strength when computing the score.

It is important to understand that keyword difficulty is an estimate, not a guarantee. A page can rank for a high-difficulty keyword if its content significantly outperforms existing results in depth, accuracy, and user experience. Conversely, a low-difficulty keyword might still be hard to rank for if the existing results are perfectly aligned with the searcher's intent. Keyword difficulty should be used as one filter among several when selecting which keywords to target.

Typical difficulty bands in most tools are: 0 to 20 for easy, 21 to 40 for medium, 41 to 60 for hard, and above 60 for very hard. For most South African businesses without an established domain, focusing on keywords in the 0 to 30 range produces the fastest organic results.

Keyword Difficulty In Practice

The scenario below is an illustrative example, not a Juicy Designs client result. The figures indicate the scale of effect that keyword difficulty analysis typically produces, so treat them as indicative rather than measured.

Picture a new Cape Town restaurant reviewing its keyword targets. It might look at "restaurant Cape Town" and find a difficulty score in the region of 70. Ranking for a term like that would typically require a significant link-building campaign and would take many months even with good content. Filtering for "best seafood restaurant Hout Bay", on the other hand, might reveal a difficulty score of around 20, making it far more achievable in the short term.

The practical process for a South African business is to export a list of keywords from a tool like Ahrefs or Semrush, filter by difficulty below a threshold appropriate to the site's current domain authority, then cross-reference against search volume and search intent to identify the best opportunities. This three-way filter ensures you target keywords that are winnable, have meaningful traffic, and match what your content can genuinely answer. Over time, as your domain earns more backlinks and authority, you can progressively raise your difficulty threshold and target more competitive terms.

How keyword difficulty is calculated

Keyword difficulty is a metric, provided by SEO tools, that estimates how hard it would be to rank on the first page of search results for a given keyword, usually expressed as a score, often out of 100, where higher means more difficult. Tools calculate it by analysing the pages currently ranking for the keyword, considering factors such as the authority and backlink profiles of those competing pages, and sometimes other signals, to estimate how strong the competition is. A high difficulty score means the current top results are strong and well-established, so out-ranking them would require significant authority and effort, while a low score suggests weaker competition that a newer or less authoritative site could realistically challenge. Because each tool uses its own model and data, difficulty scores are estimates that differ between tools and should be read as relative guides rather than precise, absolute measures. Keyword difficulty is a valuable input for judging which keywords are realistic to pursue, helping avoid pouring effort into terms that are effectively unwinnable given a site's current authority.

Using keyword difficulty

Keyword difficulty is most useful for prioritising which keywords to target, matched against your site's authority and resources, so you pursue terms you can realistically compete for rather than wasting effort on ones that are effectively out of reach. A newer or less authoritative site is usually wise to target lower-difficulty, often longer-tail keywords where it can realistically rank and win traffic, building authority over time towards more competitive terms, rather than chasing high-difficulty head terms dominated by established competitors. But difficulty should be weighed alongside the other factors that determine a keyword's worth, search volume (the demand), intent (whether the traffic fits your goal), and commercial value, since an easy keyword nobody searches, or that does not fit your business, is not worth targeting regardless of low difficulty. Because scores are estimates that vary by tool, use them as relative guidance, comparing keywords rather than treating a specific number as definitive, and consider the actual competing pages where a decision matters. Used sensibly as one input among several, keyword difficulty helps a business focus its SEO effort where it can realistically pay off.

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