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Keyword competition is a metric that indicates how difficult it might be for a website or search ad to appear when someone searches for a specific term in a search engine like Google.
It helps you assess whether a keyword is worth pursuing. So you can avoid wasting time or budget on terms that are unlikely to drive meaningful results like traffic, clicks, and conversions.
In today’s search engine results pages (SERPs), competition isn’t just about outranking other sites. You’re also competing with features like AI Overviews: AI-generated answers that often appear above organic results and can reduce visibility for your page.
Competition looks different depending on the channel:
This SERP shows that keyword competition isn’t just about outranking similar businesses. You’re also up against paid ads, Google’s preference for established brands in AI Overviews, and even community platforms like Reddit that Google elevates in the results.
To have a chance with this keyword, you’d need content that’s not only high quality but also backed by strong backlinks and a site with enough authority to stand alongside these established names.
This example shows why keyword competition is so important: Choosing the wrong keyword could mean competing against players you have little chance of outranking.
So how do you know whether a keyword is realistically within reach? Let’s dig in.
Keyword competition helps you understand your chances of appearing in paid or organic search results. And whether a keyword is worth your time, effort, or budget.
When you know the level of competition for a keyword, you can make smarter decisions by:
You can find keyword competition using our free keyword difficulty checker.
Open the tool, enter your keyword, select a location, and click "Search."
In the "Overview" report, you'll see two keyword competition metrics calculated by Semrush:
Semrush also shows competition metrics in other tools like the Keyword Tool, Keyword Gap, and Organic Rankings.
Let's say you're doing keyword research.
Open Keyword Magic Tool, enter your seed phrase (broad, related term), add your domain for personalized data, and choose a location. Click “Search.”
You’ll see “KD%” and “Com.” columns, which show keyword difficulty and competitive density for each keyword.
There’s also a Personalized Keyword Difficulty (PKD %) column, which estimates how hard it would be for your domain (specifically) to rank for that keyword.
Semrush measures keyword competition by analyzing ranking difficulty for SEO and advertiser bidding activity for paid search.
For SEO, Keyword Difficulty (KD%) is calculated by evaluating the top 10 organic search results.
It considers key factors like:
For paid search, Competitive Density is calculated by tracking how many advertisers are bidding on a keyword in Google Ads.
Semrush collects this data from its advertising database and scales it from 0 to 1.
Some keywords face more competition because more websites target them, and the pages already ranking are harder to beat.
Here’s why a keyword might be tougher to compete for:
Your industry also affects keyword competition.
Some niches have plenty of low-difficulty keywords. Others are saturated—even long-tail terms can face serious competition from the start.
Keyword competition varies by industry. Our 2025 analysis shows just how significant those differences are.
We exported over 500,000 keywords from Semrush’s U.S. database. After removing duplicates and rows without a KD score, we analyzed over 188,000 valid keywords across five industries: SaaS, Ecommerce, Local Services, Finance, and Health & Wellness.
Each keyword was tagged as low (0–29), medium (30–69), or high (70–100) difficulty based on Semrush’s KD% score.
The difference in keyword competition between industries is striking:
We also found that Ecommerce offers abundant opportunities for niche players.
Nearly half (48%) of Ecommerce keywords are low-difficulty, and fewer than 2% are highly competitive. This shows that many specific product searches have little competition from major retailers.
Health & Wellness is surprisingly accessible. Around 44% of health-related keywords are low-difficulty. This makes it easier for newer sites to rank by targeting long-tail questions.
On the other hand, Finance almost always requires a big investment to rank. This industry has the highest share of medium-difficulty keywords (63%). This means that most terms need significant effort, authority, and quality content to compete.
In this study, we saw how much keyword search competition can vary by industry.
These differences help explain why some SEO strategies work faster in certain spaces. And why others take more time, content, or authority to succeed.
Because every industry has a different mix of easy, moderate, and hard keywords, which shapes how you need to approach ranking.
Keyword Difficulty shows how competitive a keyword is, but you also need to check who’s ranking and the strength of those pages to determine if you can realistically compete.
Let’s say you’re evaluating the phrase “best backpack for travel.”
Its Keyword Difficulty is 57% and the Competitive Density is 1.00. This means you'll face strong competition in both organic and paid results.
To rank organically, Semrush recommends you need 26 referring domains and optimized content.
But what counts as optimized content? And who are you up against?
That’s where SERP analysis comes in.
Scroll down the Keyword Overview report to see who ranks on page one. In this example, it’s Pack Hacker, The New York Times, Reddit, and Amazon.
You’ll also see how many backlinks and referring domains each page has.
Click into those links manually and review:
This helps you understand what you need to create—or improve—to outrank them.
Next, check paid search competition.
In the same report, you’ll see that Amazon is running Google Ads for this keyword.
Click “View details” to explore their ad strategy.
When analyzing keyword competition, focus on these five factors:
From there, decide whether to:
After analyzing keyword competition, decide whether it’s worth targeting based on difficulty and available resources.
Here are common situations and what to do in each case:
Compete
Pivot
Pass
The keyword is important to your product or service
The keyword is useful but too competitive right now
The keyword isn’t critical to your goals
You have strong content or authority—or the resources to build it
You can target a more specific or less crowded variation
It would take too much effort for too little return
It’s likely to bring in traffic that will convert into sales
You want to build topical authority before targeting the harder version later
You already have less competitive and still relevant keywords
It’s achievable in SEO or paid search (or both)
One channel is too competitive—try the other
It’s competitive in both SEO and ads
Let’s revisit our example: “best travel backpack for men.”
It’s a competitive keyword in both SEO and paid search.
If it directly supports your product, you might still pursue it. But you’ll need standout content or a solid ad budget.
If it’s not critical, it’s smarter to target a more specific variation like “best business travel backpack for men.”
These more specific keywords usually face less competition.
Sometimes SEO is too competitive, but ads may still work. Or, in the case of “best business travel backpack for men,” SEO could be easier while ads might be tough.
Use your keyword analysis to choose the best path based on your resources.
Tracking your keywords helps you monitor ranking changes and shifts in competition. This lets you adjust your strategy early and protect your website traffic.
Google Search Console tracks keyword positions but doesn’t include keyword difficulty scores or paid search data.
Semrush’s Position Tracking tool gives you the complete picture for both organic and paid keywords. You can see your rankings, keyword difficulty, and daily position changes.
This helps you track which keywords are becoming harder to rank for and where you’re losing visibility.
You can also add competitors to compare your rankings side by side.
Set ranking drop alerts to catch early signs of rising competition. And react before traffic slips.
Keyword competition refers to how hard it is to appear in search results, whether in SEO or paid search. It's often used interchangeably with keyword difficulty, especially in SEO.
In Semrush:
Check SEO keyword competition at least every 3-6 months or whenever traffic or rankings change. New competitors, updated content, or shifting search trends can make a keyword more or less competitive over time.
Using high-competition keywords without a budget is challenging because both SEO and paid ads require resources to compete.
Start simple: Pick one phrase you want a page to rank for.
Run the phrase through our tool to check keyword difficulty and explore other ideas with lower competition.
Use that insight to create a plan for ranking higher.
Cecilia Meis
Cecilia is a senior editor and strategist with more than 12 years of experience shaping editorial strategies, refining brand messaging, and leading high-impact teams. She began her career in print and digital editorial leadership roles before transitioning to SEO and digital marketing, focusing on data-driven strategies. She‘s passionate about ensuring operational efficiency, upholding editorial standards, and mentoring writers to deliver top-quality, brand-aligned content.
Keyword search volume is the average number of monthly searches for a search term in a particular location.
Google Keyword Planner is a free tool that lets you research the queries people type into Google.
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