Welcome to the ninth tutorial in my SEO tutorial series. In the past tutorials, we've studied some leading metrics and scores by Moz and Majestic. Now it's time to implement what we learned in past tutorials to find out "How much efforts it requires from you to grab one of the Top 10 ranks for your desired keyword".
That's right. We're moving towards "Keyword Difficulty Analysis" part from today. As I mentioned it several times before, there are two core parts of On-Page SEO and if you have a good grip on both of them, then you'll most likely succeed for long-term. Those two core parts are:
- Keyword Research (We've covered Keyword Research already)
- Keyword Difficulty Analysis (includes competitors' analysis)
What is Keyword Difficulty Analysis?
Image Credits: TheConversation
It looks pretty simple from its cover but in fact, it's a complicated process because you need to go through every single thing. Keyword Analysis generally refers to your measurements through which you estimate your expected difficulty level.
Not all keywords are equal. Some keywords are very easy to rank (as easy as drinking water) while other keywords require you to invest millions. Some of them just need good link-building strategy while others require you to post wordy articles (1500 to 2500 words) with On-Page optimization.
Which Keywords Should We Target?
Actually, there are 2 types of keywords:
- Money Keywords
- Adsense Keywords (as known as General keywords)
Money Keywords:
"Money keyword" refers to those keywords in which you target some affiliate products (or your own product) and make money through their affiliate program. There are thousands of online sites which have their own affiliate program. So, money keywords are used for affiliate marketing and usually contain product's name on it.
For example: Keywords like "iPhone 6 amazon" or "iphone 6 review" or "iphone for sale". They are called money keywords because even in a review post, you can pretty much include your affiliate links and if any visitor buys a product through your link, you earn the commission.
Adsense or General Keywords:
General keywords are usually known as "Adsense Keywords". People optimize general keywords to make money out of PPC and CPM programs. In PPC program, you get paid if someone clicks on one of your ad monetized on your site. In CPM program, you get paid on per 1,000 visitors basis.
These keywords can be about anything. You get a load of options and choices to make. Talented people usually target general keywords in the beginning because money keywords are usually difficult to target (since they're already optimized by your competitors). So, Adsense keywords is a solution for SEO optimizers to make money with their site.
What Type Of Keywords We Should Target For Steemit?
We need to target general keywords because Steemit is a content-based platform, and with money keywords, you'll be limited to talk only about products. You couldn't be able to target general keywords which are actually searched.
The reason why you should prefer "General Keywords" is the fact that they are widely searched as compared to money keywords which are searched like 100 times a month and the second reason is that, they are sometimes easy to rank.
How To Measure Difficulty Level Of Keywords?
Image Credits: SStock
Well, this is a broad question. We'll need time to grasp all the concepts but for today, I'm going to talk about the most important thing where you should pay huge attention before moving any further and that is: "You must know your own site's ability first to compete with others, to find out how strong or weak you are"
How I Should Measure My Site's Ability To Compete?
There are several metrics you'd need to know about your own site, and they are:
- Domain Authority
- Page Authority
- Trust Flow
- Citation Flow
- Site Age
- Alexa Rank
How To Find Out Those Metrics?
Let's find out together.
Domain Authority and Page Authority:
To know your Domain Authority and Page Authority. Simply go to Moz Open Site Explorer and type your site's name. For your easiness, I'll find the DA and PA of Steemit with you.
Now, you just need to click "Search" and your site's metrics will appear (see screenshot):
Trust Flow and Citation Flow:
It's time to know Trust Flow and Citation Flow of your site. Simply go to Majestic and type your site's address. Please take a note that (www.) version and (root domain) are different from each other. Therefore, you'll see different metrics for both versions. I'll search for root domain (i.e without www.)
Now, the metrics are in front of me:
Site-Age:
To find out how old your site is, you should go to Archive - Way Back Machine and type your site's address (root domain). See screenshot:
Alexa Rank:
These two things are easy to find. But if you're still clueless, then replace steemit.com with your own site's name in the link to find out your Alexa rank.
Here is the link: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/steemit.com (replace steemit with your own site's address)
As for Steemit, I got the following results:
Steemit Metrics:
The following are the metrics of Steemit:
- Domain Authority = 58
- Page Authority = 65
- Trust Flow = 26
- Citation Flow = 49
- Site-Age = 1 year and 2 months old
- Alexa Rank = 4,750 Global
Conclusion:
It is must to know your own metrics because it will give you an idea of what type of keywords you should target. That was a first step out of many steps. We'll cover strategies to reveal Keyword Difficulty Level in my coming tutorials. And furthermore, if you want to optimize your personal site and if your plans are to make money with it, then I'd suggest you should go with "Money Keywords" because, despite the fact that their search volume is low, they are worthy because even 1 sale per month through 1 keyword can give you quite a good sum of money.
My Previous Tutorials:
1st: How to Optimize Your Steemit Content for Search Engines
2nd: How To Give Your Steemit Content Even More Visibility In Search Engines And Beat Your Competitors
3rd: How To Benefit From Images You Use In Your Steemit Content - Internal & External Links - The Proven Method
4th: How To Generate Steemit Content Ideas - Keyword Research - Exact Search Volume Of Keywords From Google!
5th: Turn One Keyword Into Thousands Within Minutes - Long Tail Keywords - The Proven Keyword Research Technique
6th: Understanding The Leading SEO Metrics - Domain Authority And Page Authority
7th: Understanding The King Of Metrics In SEO Industry - Majestic - Trust Flow And Citation Flow
8th: An Introduction To Semrush - Keyword Estimated Traffic Calculation And Difficulty Score By Semrush