For Semrush useres ,

[Millennialgurupu]

I am also interested to hear from Semrush pros their opinions

[I_am_Burt_Macklin]

I work in a very competitive financial niche. When I got hired and we started really doing SEO we were targeting those in the upper 60s. Anything in the 50s/low 60/ would be better, but we just weren’t finding keywords in that range. That may be different depending on what you’re writing about.

We found success doing this at first after the company not having much traction with higher difficulty scores before that.

We still try to go for those in the 70s, but that’s not always possible.

Keep in mind the parameters these tools use is proprietary and doesn’t always match up, so you do need to take a look at SERPs yourself to fully understand a keyword.

[ClickedMarketing]

Most people recommend looking for keywords that are under a 70 KD. I personally go after all of them. Keyword difficulty is not something I get hung up on.

If KD is important to you, 70 and under is a pretty good guide. I would always take a deeper look at the keywords though. I love Semrush, but none of these tools get it right 100% of the time.

Some tools factor in useless metrics like how many results show up in the SERP, how many results show up with an intitle search, or search volumes. None of which have anything to do with how difficult a keyword is to rank for.

70 will help you filter down to a starting list of keywords to work from.

As far as Ahrefs, when I have done comparisons, I have found Semrush seems to get it right more often than Ahrefs, but that is an admittedly small sample size. I think an example like this is pretty obvious. A term like “best running shoes” is not going to be very easy to rank for. Semrush’s evaluation is clearly closer to reality.

[semrush]

Hi! Jumping in to comment the “official” guidelines:

The keyword difficulty score is a percentage from 0 to 100, and the higher the percentage, the more difficult we predict it would be to rank for. To calculate keyword difficulty, the tool takes into consideration the authority of the domains that are showing up on the results page and then estimates how hard it would be for a new website to outrank its current competitors on the SERP.

In general, you can group difficulty scores into 3 levels:

* **Above 80%: High Difficulty**
In order to rank for a keyword with difficulty over 80%, you would need to invest in SEO and link building practices. If you are working with a brand new site, these keyword targets most likely would not be worth your time.

* **From 60%-80%: Medium Difficulty**
Getting on the first page for keywords in this range won’t be easy, but it is more realistic to target a keyword in this range compared to a keyword over 80%, especially if your website has some authority in your market.

* **Below 60%: Low Difficulty**
These keywords are the easiest to rank for but the hardest to find. Keywords with difficulty below 60% that also have steady search volume represent your best opportunities for ranking your pages with SEO.