Nobody really knows how Google actually ranks pages that is why, real best practices for keyword research are tricky to pinpoint. We do know that it uses over 200 different factors, of which the three most important are content, links and RankBrain. Not necessarily in the same order.

What we also know that Google is experimenting with machine learning and AI-algorithms, which are likely to revolutionize its search engine in the coming next few years. Effectively doing away with a few certainties we have right now.

There’s also no third party tool or software that can give access to Google algorithms. Which means no keyword planner gives 100% accurate results, whatever they’re saying to make you believe.

Still, we can go for some estimations. Let’s see, at what you can do.

How to find out the ranking difficulty of a keyword?

Links

You want to find out the top ranking pages for your chosen keyword and, more importantly, the number of backlinks they have.

‘Domains’ indicate how many unique websites are linking to the given page. The funda is clear: the more links, the more likely the page will rank higher.

It’s not about quantity it’s all about quality though. 10 links from a high quality website will rank the page higher than 100 links from a low quality website. That’s why the number of domain links does not linearly descend from positions 1 to 10. The quality of the domain is where URL rating or UR comes in.

These are just two factors for determining the rank of a page on a certain keyword, but they are important ones.

Content

You can outrank pages with more backlinks if they’re not as relevant to the search query as you are. The part of the page that is actually about your keyword is likely to be a small part of the whole, whereas the other pages are way more around the topic.

Topical relevance

There’s a common misinterpretation, that when you use a keyword in your actual title you’ll be likely to outrank pages that don’t use the keyword in their title. That used to be true, back in 2010. But today in 2017, Google is enough smart to know about the relevance of certain keywords. This means you won’t be able to outrank a page that uses ‘guest blogging’ in their title for the keyword ‘guest writing’ by simply putting that in your title (given that other page has more backlinks, higher UR or both). Google knows the two keywords are family.

Make your page content relevant

‘So, if you are thinking to just make your content more relevant to a certain keyword, you will rank higher on that keyword?’ Not so fast.

Making your page relevant to Google implies you understanding how Google works, how it matches search queries to content it gets from web pages to show the search results.

To stand out from everyone, you should therefore start understanding and learning how Google’s algorithms work and adjust your page accordingly. However, this is a much complex and difficult stuff.

You can come close though. For example, you can go through the top ranking page for a given keyword and list up what other keywords they rank highly for. These keywords are likely associated with your target keyword by Google. Read the pages, use your mind and write logical, coherent content on your topic. Avoid losing the tone what your target audience wants to read.

Check SERP history

Another better way to measure the progress of your page’s relevance to a certain keyword is to keep check on the SERP history - you can also do this in Ahrefs’ Keyword Explorer. It will show you a graph showing how high your page ranks for a given keyword over a certain period of time. It also indicates Google’s level of satisfaction with your page’s content for a certain keyword.

What do you do now?

The very first thing you should do is discuss with your team and come up with a list with keywords that are related, associated to what your actual message is. Think of sort of synonyms of just words that contribute to what you look for. Don’t look at Google at all at this particular stage. Then, screen all of these keywords using the tips in this post and some good SEO tools and pick the ones that are most easily high rank able for, yet are very relevant to your site’s identity. Don’t make the mistake of redirecting all of your strategy and content to completely optimize for Google. People know quality and unique content when they see it and will be coming back for it.

All the Best!!!

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