A keyword is typically too competitive when the sites already ranking are much stronger than yours, and you don’t have a realistic way to compete.
Of course, keyword difficulty scores can give you a quick sense of that competition, but they really only tell part of the story. To know whether your site can truly compete, you still need to check the actual SERP, the strength of the ranking pages, and whether the opportunity makes sense for your site.
In this post, we’ll look at how to measure keyword difficulty, check the competition manually, and decide when a keyword is too competitive to target.
Keyword Difficulty vs. Keyword Competition: What’s the Difference?
Since keyword difficulty and keyword competition are often used interchangeably, let’s start by clarifying exactly what we’re looking at here. Keyword difficulty is an estimate of how hard a keyword may be to rank for, usually expressed as a score in an SEO tool.
In an SEO context, keyword competition, on the other hand, is what you’re actually up against in the search results: the sites ranking, the strength of their pages, their backlinks, and how well they match search intent. This is distinct from the “Competition” metric in Google Ads Keyword Planner, which measures paid ad auction density
And really, that’s why it often makes sense to use both. Keyword difficulty can help you narrow down a list quickly, especially when you’re comparing keywords across other metrics like keyword volume. Then, the final decision should come from a closer look at the search results and whether your site can realistically compete.
How Do You Check Competition on a Keyword?
To properly check keyword competition, you need to look beyond the difficulty score and break down what’s already ranking. You want to see who is ranking, how strong those pages and domains are, how well they satisfy the search intent, and what your page would need to do to compete.
It can help to work through these checks in a certain order.
1. Consider who is ranking
Start by searching for the keyword in question and looking at the sites that already appear near the top of the results. If the SERP is dominated by major brands, large publishers, government sites, or other well-established domains, that usually means you’re dealing with stronger competition.
But don’t stop at the big names — look for a mix. If smaller niche sites, newer businesses, forums, or lesser-known publishers are also ranking, that can be a good sign that Google is willing to surface pages from sites without massive authority.
From there, look at how closely those sites resemble yours. A small specialist site in your exact niche may be more relevant competition than a huge general publisher that happens to rank for the term.
As a quick rule of thumb, the more results you see from sites that are similar to yours in size, topical focus, and content type (e.g., blog post vs product page), the more realistic the keyword may be.
2. Compare the ranking pages
Next, open a few of the top-ranking pages and look at what they actually do well — what did they do to get top billing? Pay particular attention to how directly they answer the query, how thoroughly they cover the topic, and whether the information feels current and useful.
Then it’s time to consider the contents’ weaknesses. Ask yourself these questions:
- Are the pages thin, outdated, repetitive, or missing something obvious?
- Do they answer the main question but leave important follow-up questions untouched?
- Are they relying on surface-level information you could improve with clearer explanations, better examples, original data, or stronger organization?
Your main job here is to figure out whether you can create something meaningfully better for the searcher. If the top results are already strong across the board, the keyword may be harder to justify. But if several of them leave clear gaps, that gives you a much more concrete opening.
3. Check backlinks and authority
Now look at the off-page strength behind the ranking results. A page can be useful and well written, but if it also has hundreds of referring domains pointing to it, that tells you something about how much support may be helping it hold that position.
For a quick check, you can use a free tool like Ahrefs’ Backlink Checker to look at the links pointing to each ranking page. Or, if you already use a paid SEO platform, see if it will let you dig deeper into referring domains, page-level authority, and the strength of the overall domain.
If you end up identifying several top-ranking pages that have relatively weak backlink profiles, that can be a good sign. It may mean you don’t need an impressive backlink profile to be competitive, and can even rank without backlinks for some low search volume keywords.
However, if nearly every result is backed by strong domains and substantial page-level links, you should assume the keyword will require more than good content alone.
4. Review the search intent
Search intent is usually easiest to spot by looking for patterns across the first page. In other words, you just need to pay attention to the types of results Google keeps showing for the keyword.
When most of the results are product pages, Google probably sees the query’s search intent as transactional, while if they’re mostly guides or tutorials, the intent is likely informational. You may also see comparison pages, category pages, local results, videos, or a mix of formats.
Whatever mix it gives you, what matters is whether there’s a clear pattern. When Google consistently rewards the same type of result, trying to rank with something completely different can create an intent mismatch and may prevent your content from securing one of the top SERP spots.
So before targeting the keyword, make sure the page you actually want to create aligns with what the SERP is already telling you people want.
When Is a Keyword Too Competitive to Target?
A keyword is probably too competitive when the effort required to rank is much higher than the value you’re likely to get from it.
If stronger sites seem to be already dominating the SERPs, the ranking pages are already solid, and you’d need significantly more authority or backlinks to compete, it may simply not be a good keyword for your site right now.
No matter how much you want it.
Build a Smarter Keyword Strategy With MarketingPal.io
Some keywords will be too competitive for your site right now, and that’s fine. The important part is knowing what to target instead and how those easier opportunities can help you build toward more competitive terms over time.
And we can help with that. MarketingPal.io’s Topical Authority Content Plans identify keyword opportunities and organize them into clusters, so you’re not choosing keywords in isolation. And if you want help turning the plan into actual pages, our content creation services can handle that part too.
Ready to get started? Contact us today.
