One of the most powerful features of Long Tail Platinum is the Keyword Competitiveness calculation; this is the perfect tool if your are searching for how to check competition for keywords. This is a formula that will allow you to quickly analyze the top 10 results in Google to determine how difficult any keyword might be to rank for naturally. This is one of the features that separates LTP from many other keyword research software solutions out there.
We are always striving to improve the software, and as a result of launching version 3.0 of Long Tail Pro, we thought we should take another look at the Keyword Competitiveness (KC) calculation.
Search engines are constantly evolving and we want to make sure we give you the best tools for determining your ability to rank in those search engines.
When we launched version 3.0, we made some minor tweaks to the KC calculation. Because of this, you may see that some of your keywords are a few points higher or lower when comparing 2.0 to 3.0 KC numbers.
We strongly feel like the KC number is more accurate in version 3.0. Today I want to reveal a bit more of what goes into the KC number and what we have changed.
At a high level, here is how the KC number is calculated:
A 21 is a very low score. These are the kinds of keywords that we love!
So, after writing a blog post targeting “Weebly SEO”, we hit publish. We have not done any link building specifically to that page other than sharing on our social media pages.
This post has simply “aged” and moved up the ranks. Now we rank #7 for the keyword; all thanks to finding a great low competition keyword using the KC metric. We’ve done this with a number of our blog posts – for example, we compared Wix and Weebly, Weebly and Squarespace, and Weebly and WordPress – all these articles are on or near the first page of the SERPs – all thanks to LTP’s KC score.
We have repeated this process for many keywords on the Long Tail Pro blog (and other sites we own). Also, by finding one low competition keyword, we’ve taken inspiration for that keyword and also produced an article on Squarespace SEO as well as the best alternatives to WordPress.
The real “kicker” though, is that the traffic to this Weebly SEO page is generating sales. We can track that we are indeed selling a few copies of Long Tail Pro to people that have Googled “Weebly SEO”, read our article, and then go on to buy the software.
Bottom line is that the Keyword Competitiveness score is something that we actively use in our business and it works. If you don’t believe us, here’s another example – the keyword ‘profitable website ideas‘ has KC 21 (although it’s only a 40 search volume KW). We posted an article targeting that keyword and are ranking #5.
This strategy should work with all kinds of sites – including amazon affiliate sites (which tend to be popular as a starting point for a lot of people).
Again, many of you may not notice any changes with the new adjusted KC score in version 3.0. However, overall, you can now be more confident than ever that the Keyword Competitiveness score is the most accurate keyword difficulty score around.
KC remains one of the main reasons why we think one of the best keyword competition analysis tools is Long Tail Pro rather than other keyword tools like Ubersuggest and other alternatives.
In addition, as Google changes ranking factors in the future (which is of course going to happen), we will also adjust as needed the official KC calculation. You can rest assured that the numbers you see in Long Tail Platinum are based on current data and not yesterday’s best practices. All in all, we’re committed to making sure that Long Tail Pro is the best long tail keyword research software in the market.
KC = Page Authority (PA) +/- Page Title Factor +/- Keywords in Domain Factor +/- Domain Length
PA = (Several Factors including: Domain Authority, Site Age, Page Links, Juice Page Links, Social Signals, and More)
Now, here is a more descriptive explanation of what goes into determining Keyword Competitiveness: Page Authority: Each website starts with a Page Authority number; this is where the KC number starts. Page Authority is a number provided by Moz.com that in and of itself is a very complex calculation. Page Authority essentially tells you how “authoritative” a particular page is. Page Authority takes into account things like Domain Authority, site age, juice page links, social signals, and more. We take this Page Authority number and then adjust it up or down depending on how well the Page Title, domain, etc. match the given keyword phrase. Page Title: If the exact keyword is in the Title of the page, this is a very strong indicator to Google. As a result, depending on how closely the results in Google match the keyword in the title of their page, we will adjust the base Page Authority number down (if it doesn’t match keywords) or up (if it matches keywords exactly). This is exactly how it should be when you check keyword competition. If several really authoritative pages are ranking, but they are not even targeting the keywords in the title of their page, this is a big sign of weakness. This means that if you simply target the exact keyword in your title, you might be able to outrank all these authoritative pages because they aren’t targeting the exact keyword. The KC formula takes all of this into account and will adjust scores up or down based on how well the pages in Google are targeting the keyword in their titles. This is the largest factor that goes into determining KC; how well are the results targeting the keyword. One of the changes we made in version 3 was to adjust the scores down or up a bit further for results that are not targeting the keyword. Based on our research, this makes the score even more accurate now. Keywords in Domain: Having exact match keywords in the domain used to be a big deal. However, as brandable domains have grown in importance, exact match or partial match keyword domain names have grown much less important. As a result, we’ve adjusted the Keyword Competitiveness score to no longer give very much weight to keywords in the domain name. Length of Domain: A longer domain name, usually means spammy. The keyword competitiveness calculation takes this into account and adjust the score down for any domains that are too long. The old version of the KC score did take this into account; however, the weight has been slightly adjusted so there is not too much weight given to this factor. Overall, the new KC calculation is more accurate than it has ever been before. So, if you check what the new KC score is for any keywords compared to the old score; what you see now is the accurate number. I would also like to re-iterate that the scale of how to tell if a keyword is competitive that I’ve always given is still the same:- 0 to 10 – No competition
- 10 to 20 – Extremely low competition
- 20 to 30 – Low competition
- 30 to 40 – Moderate Competition
- 40 to 50 – Somewhat High Competition
- 50 to 60 – Very High Competition
- 60 to 70 – Extremely High Competition
- 70 to 100 – Don’t even think about it!
Example of the New KC Score in Action…
We don’t just talk about trying to find low competition keywords, we are actively finding and ranking for keywords ourselves all the time! For example, we have been blogging quite a bit on the Long Tail Pro blog, and we are starting to see great results. How do we come up with blog post ideas? How to check competition for keywords? We use Long Tail Pro of course! We generate keywords and then start looking closely at those with a low KC score. We recently found the keyword “Weebly SEO” with a KC score of 21, and wrote a blog post on the subject. Here’s a screenshot showing the KC score in version 3.0 of Long Tail Pro:
A 21 is a very low score. These are the kinds of keywords that we love!
So, after writing a blog post targeting “Weebly SEO”, we hit publish. We have not done any link building specifically to that page other than sharing on our social media pages.
This post has simply “aged” and moved up the ranks. Now we rank #7 for the keyword; all thanks to finding a great low competition keyword using the KC metric. We’ve done this with a number of our blog posts – for example, we compared Wix and Weebly, Weebly and Squarespace, and Weebly and WordPress – all these articles are on or near the first page of the SERPs – all thanks to LTP’s KC score.
We have repeated this process for many keywords on the Long Tail Pro blog (and other sites we own). Also, by finding one low competition keyword, we’ve taken inspiration for that keyword and also produced an article on Squarespace SEO as well as the best alternatives to WordPress.
The real “kicker” though, is that the traffic to this Weebly SEO page is generating sales. We can track that we are indeed selling a few copies of Long Tail Pro to people that have Googled “Weebly SEO”, read our article, and then go on to buy the software.
Bottom line is that the Keyword Competitiveness score is something that we actively use in our business and it works. If you don’t believe us, here’s another example – the keyword ‘profitable website ideas‘ has KC 21 (although it’s only a 40 search volume KW). We posted an article targeting that keyword and are ranking #5.
This strategy should work with all kinds of sites – including amazon affiliate sites (which tend to be popular as a starting point for a lot of people).
Again, many of you may not notice any changes with the new adjusted KC score in version 3.0. However, overall, you can now be more confident than ever that the Keyword Competitiveness score is the most accurate keyword difficulty score around.
KC remains one of the main reasons why we think one of the best keyword competition analysis tools is Long Tail Pro rather than other keyword tools like Ubersuggest and other alternatives.
In addition, as Google changes ranking factors in the future (which is of course going to happen), we will also adjust as needed the official KC calculation. You can rest assured that the numbers you see in Long Tail Platinum are based on current data and not yesterday’s best practices. All in all, we’re committed to making sure that Long Tail Pro is the best long tail keyword research software in the market.
Hah! I did think that the KC metric had changed 🙂
Thanks for the info
You have answered a few queries I had about “keywords in headers” and that saves me sending in a support ticket *lol*
I used to do a lot of keyword research trying to find great keywords, but with LTP I find I am still spending a lot of time searching for great keywords, but now I am finding literally hundreds of low KC keywords that have enabled me to set up 4 new sites within just a week!
It is an amazing tool and because of it, I have actually unsubscribed from a ton of mailing lists simply because LTP will help me make the cash I was looking for.
Great post!
That’s great to hear Don…thanks!
Hi Spencer,
Why do I see dash on keyword competitiveness?
Thanks.
Hi Reynor, Please update to the latest version. It should clear that up! thanks.
Thanks for this detailed post on keyword competitive score calculation.
I thought to ask you a question, i believe this is the right place to do so. I run a service at http://www.adsensenichesites.com/ , i always deal with keywords. I use several tools to do keyword research but rely on longtailpro and moz.com for keyword competitiveness.
Earlier LTP keyword score would have a slight difference from Moz keyword difficulty score. But now there seems to a very big difference by atleast 10 points between LTP and Moz?
So, what Keyword competitive score must we rely on? I know LTP is great, but your comments on this will help.
LTP and Moz use different calculations, so the scores are likely to be different most of the time. We think the LTP score should be used (of course!).
Can you expand on this a bit Spencer? I don’t mind that the tools come out with different numbers, but when I find a keyword that looks like a great opportunity in LTP but has average difficulty in Moz, I don’t know what to do.
Thanks for the update.
I have a few questions:
1. As you no longer use PBN links to rank your sites what type of links are you using to rank keywords that are medium competition in LTP?
2. Are you having any luck ranking new websites easily with keywords from LTP that are considered low competition under 30 KC, sometimes keywords rank easily on sites such as Long Tail Pro and Niche Pursuits due to the sites authority. Are you getting the same results ranking on the first page of google with any new websites?
Thanks
1. We use outreach, infographics, and social sharing as a way to help get links.
2. Yes, we have been able to rank for low competition keywords on new sites after just a few short months.
Hi Spencer,
Thanks for revealing the way you calculate the Avg KC for the keywords. I’m using the LTP since last year and it is an awesome tool to find the profitable KWs.
But calculating the Avg KC for every KW takes a lot of time and thus it would be good if we get the instant results like Global search, local search, Advertiser competition and so on.
Good to know that we will get more accurate KC for all the KWs from LTP.
Hey Spencer!
I’m so glad to see this post. I’ve been dying to know how you calculated that KC score! And now I’ve got a much better idea.
Is there any chance you can give us the actual algorithm/formula you’re using? Or at least let us know how much “weight” each of the factors has toward the KC score?
I’m loving LTP Platinum 3.0. A huge improvement over v2. Well done!
Cheers,
Scott
Thanks Scott! I don’t plan on sharing the entire formula or weight of the factors…this is kinda our secret sauce.
Hey Spencer!
I’m so glad to see this post. I’ve been dying to know how you calculated that KC score! And now I’ve got a much better idea.
Is there any chance you can give us the actual algorithm/formula you’re using? Or at least let us know how much “weight” each of the factors has toward the KC score?
I’m loving LTP Platinum 3.0. A huge improvement over v2. Well done!
Cheers,
Scott
Thanks Scott! I don’t plan on sharing the entire formula or weight of the factors…this is kinda our secret sauce.
Hi Spencer,
Nice to know that you and your team keep Long Tail Pro updated. I can’t tell you how helpful this software has been for me over the past few years. I don’t know what I would do without it.
Question – you mention the it only uses the exact phrase when looking at the Top 10. As you know, Google counts a lot of KWs the same these days. Ie, when you type “top rated product y”, Google will BOLD “best” because it knows that means top rated.
Do you ever see a future update with the synonym factor?
Cheers,
Robert
Actually, we DO take into account synonyms already. We don’t always recognize as many synonyms as google, but we do our best.
will there be new training videos coming out?
Yes, we came out with new training videos for v3 not too long ago right here: https://longtailpro.com/demo-videos/
will there be new training videos coming out?
Yes, we came out with new training videos for v3 not too long ago right here: https://longtailpro.com/demo-videos/
I use LTP a month ago! It is great tool and help save a lot of time. But in LTP3, I cannot find local search volumes and CPC that show per keyword in LTP2.
Did you drop theme or problem only my computer?
Hi Sophy,
Thanks for the question – Google now labels CPC as “Suggested Bid” which we’ve also done in LTP 3. Also, you can choose which items to show/hide by managing your columns when you click on the little menu icon on the right side.
Thank you Jake
I use LTP a month ago! It is great tool and help save a lot of time. But in LTP3, I cannot find local search volumes and CPC that show per keyword in LTP2.
Did you drop theme or problem only my computer?
Hi Sophy,
Thanks for the question – Google now labels CPC as “Suggested Bid” which we’ve also done in LTP 3. Also, you can choose which items to show/hide by managing your columns when you click on the little menu icon on the right side.
Thank you Jake
Hi Spencer,
Recently, LTP v3.0 runs update regularly. So, can I know the reason? I don’t mind about these update. I just concern what change in new updates compare with before version.
And there is one more thing. Can I sort by Search Volume like the way in v2.x.x? I can’t find this feature. Please help me to resolve this issue. Thank you very much.
Hi Tu,
Good question – yes you can. If you click on “Local Searches” in the column header, it will sort by search volume. Notice in this screen shot that I’m sorted in descending order.
Hi Jake,
Thank you very much.
Hi Spencer,
Recently, LTP v3.0 runs update regularly. So, can I know the reason? I don’t mind about these update. I just concern what change in new updates compare with before version.
And there is one more thing. Can I sort by Search Volume like the way in v2.x.x? I can’t find this feature. Please help me to resolve this issue. Thank you very much.
Hi Tu,
Good question – yes you can. If you click on “Local Searches” in the column header, it will sort by search volume. Notice in this screen shot that I’m sorted in descending order.
Hi Jake,
Thank you very much.
Hi Spencer and all LTP team.. congarts with the launch…
i have a bit suggestion to make calculation on Keyword Competitiveness on Domain Authority become less when it applied on subdomain. Because i see on low competition keyword where on top 10 google it listed blog site from blogspot or wordpress.. the LTP detect this web 2.0 with high keyword competitive
Hi Spencer and all LTP team.. congarts with the launch…
i have a bit suggestion to make calculation on Keyword Competitiveness on Domain Authority become less when it applied on subdomain. Because i see on low competition keyword where on top 10 google it listed blog site from blogspot or wordpress.. the LTP detect this web 2.0 with high keyword competitive
Hi Spencer. Could you possibly explain what qualifies a link as a “juice link” in LTP?
Thanks!
Hi Spencer. Could you possibly explain what qualifies a link as a “juice link” in LTP?
Thanks!
Could you give me a example as real number with your formula below?
KC = Page Authority (PA) +/- Page Title Factor +/- Keywords in Domain Factor +/- Domain Length
Thank you!
Could you give me a example as real number with your formula below?
KC = Page Authority (PA) +/- Page Title Factor +/- Keywords in Domain Factor +/- Domain Length
Thank you!
I came across your program this morning in a book I was reading on Amazon Affiliate success. The author seems to put tremendous stress on the KC Score. I have the trial version of your program, thank you, but I am thinking that I will be leaving money on the table if I do not purchase the $300-plus version with the KC score. It seems that if you are serious about making money, you need the KC Score. Could you furnish me with any insights into this?
RonD
Hi Ron,
We totally agree with you that in order for your to make money you need the best tools to succeed from the start. Which is why we recently updated our 10-day trial to include the KC score feature.
I came across your program this morning in a book I was reading on Amazon Affiliate success. The author seems to put tremendous stress on the KC Score. I have the trial version of your program, thank you, but I am thinking that I will be leaving money on the table if I do not purchase the $300-plus version with the KC score. It seems that if you are serious about making money, you need the KC Score. Could you furnish me with any insights into this?
RonD
Hi Ron,
We totally agree with you that in order for your to make money you need the best tools to succeed from the start. Which is why we recently updated our 10-day trial to include the KC score feature.
Thank you for sharing how LTP calculate KW competitiveness, It helps me to understand how it work. Again great job.
Thank you for sharing how LTP calculate KW competitiveness, It helps me to understand how it work. Again great job.
I have been using LTP for a pretty long time now and I would go so far as to say that it is the main piece of software that has helped me to actually earn money online.
I found a really amazing keyword a long time ago, with 10 monthly searches and KC of 13. Now it is ranking for thousands of variations of that keyword and with no link building at all!
The on page content is very good and optimized for that KW, but the point is that I don’t think I would have found that KW without it!
I have been using LTP for a pretty long time now and I would go so far as to say that it is the main piece of software that has helped me to actually earn money online.
I found a really amazing keyword a long time ago, with 10 monthly searches and KC of 13. Now it is ranking for thousands of variations of that keyword and with no link building at all!
The on page content is very good and optimized for that KW, but the point is that I don’t think I would have found that KW without it!
Great post it helped me a lot finding low competition keyword. I purchased this product a week ago, and now I’m clear how to use this product efficiently. And it’s really a wonderful tool for beginners, in short its a time saving seo tool (: thanks once again!
Great post it helped me a lot finding low competition keyword. I purchased this product a week ago, and now I’m clear how to use this product efficiently. And it’s really a wonderful tool for beginners, in short its a time saving seo tool (: thanks once again!
Hi Team LTP,
Do I use high or low KC in LTP premium? I saw someone picks high KC, some pick low?
Which is right?
Thanks
Which is right is 100% based on your abilities and what are you doing. Start with low KC.
It’s so much useful data for me. We have to use long tail pro for keyword research. So, we have to know about KC.
Thank you for sharing.
Great post it helped me a lot finding low competition keyword. I purchased this product a week ago, and now I’m clear how to use this product efficiently. And it’s really a wonderful tool for beginners, in short its a time saving seo tool (: thanks once again!
Thank you for sharing.
Great post it helped me a lot finding low competition keyword. I purchased this product a week ago, and now I’m clear how to use this product efficiently. And it’s really a wonderful tool for beginners, in short its a time saving seo tool (: thanks once again!
i already have subscription of kwfinder and i am looking for another tool, i think LTP can be a good choice as i have heard a lot about you. and the articles like these proves that to be true.
I heard about this LongTailPro keyword search tool earlier. That time just neglected. Now I could see this is one of the best keyword search tools. Well explained article.
Hello I am working with some affiliates platforms
and i have found best longtail keyword for my best articles on LongTailPro
its amazing tool for keywords researching
Thanks LongTailPro 🙂
Hi, i just created an amazon affiliate web site and used longtail pro as a keyword research tool. I choose kc between 20 to 30, is it ok for new blog?
Hi, yes for new sites we do recommend you to target keywords that have KC scores lower than 30.