Comparing Keywords to Prioritize Your Content Backlog
You open your keyword research doc and it has 200 rows. Some have high volume. Some have low difficulty. Some feel relevant but you're not sure why. Your content backlog has 40 topic ideas sitting in Notion, and you need to decide what to write next month.
So you stare at the spreadsheet, sort by volume, then sort by difficulty, then sort by volume again, and end up picking the one that felt right.
That's not a process. That's guessing with extra steps.
Comparing keywords to prioritize a content backlog is a specific skill — one that most people skip because keyword tools don't teach it. They show you data. They don't tell you how to weigh it.
Here's how to actually do it.
The Four Dimensions That Matter When Comparing Keywords
Every keyword you evaluate should be measured against four things: volume, difficulty, intent, and business fit. None of these works in isolation.
1. Volume
Monthly search volume is the ceiling on what a keyword can deliver, not a guarantee. A keyword with 5,000 monthly searches won't send you 5,000 visitors — you'll get a fraction of that depending on your rank position.
Use volume to eliminate, not to select. If a keyword has fewer than 50 monthly searches and it's not a critical bottom-of-funnel term, it probably doesn't deserve a standalone article. If it has 50,000 monthly searches and difficulty of 85+, you'll spend months chasing something you may never rank for.
Volume sets the stakes. It shouldn't be the deciding factor.
2. Difficulty
Keyword difficulty scores (Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz all have their own versions) estimate how hard it will be to rank in the top 10. They're calculated from the authority of pages currently ranking for that term.
The number that matters isn't the raw score — it's the score relative to your site's current authority. A DR 40 site treating a KD 70 keyword as "medium difficulty" is making a mistake. That's a long-shot for them even if it's medium for a DR 70 competitor.
When comparing keywords, look at difficulty as a ratio against your realistic competitive position. See competitive keywords: how to rank when you're behind if your site is newer or has lower authority — the approach changes significantly.
3. Intent
This is the most underweighted factor and the most important.
Search intent is what the person typing that query actually wants. Four broad buckets:
- Informational: They want to learn something ("how does X work")
- Commercial: They're comparing options ("best X for Y")
- Transactional: They're ready to act ("buy X online", "X pricing")
- Navigational: They want a specific site or page
Content that mismatches intent doesn't rank — or it ranks and bounces. Google has gotten extremely good at detecting when a page doesn't serve what the searcher needed.
Before you write anything, Google the keyword yourself. Look at the top 5 results. Are they blog posts, product pages, comparison articles, or tool landing pages? That's the format Google trusts for that intent. You need to match or beat it.
Intent also determines business value. A buyer keyword like "best project management software for agencies" signals someone close to a purchase decision. An informational keyword like "what is project management" signals someone at the beginning of a long journey. Both can be worth targeting — but for different reasons and different pages.
4. Business Fit
This is the filter most content teams skip because it feels subjective. It isn't.
Ask: if this page ranks and gets 1,000 visitors a month, how many of them are potential customers?
A project management tool writing about "how to write a to-do list" will get traffic. Some of it might convert. But compare that to "project management software for remote teams" — same effort to rank, much tighter alignment with what you actually sell.
Score each keyword 1–3 on business fit. A 3 means ranking for it puts your product or service directly in front of people who need it. A 1 means it's tangentially related and you'd be relying on content conversion over a long funnel.
Building a Comparison Framework That Works
Put these four dimensions into a scoring system. Here's a simple version:
| Keyword | Volume | Difficulty | Intent Match | Business Fit | Priority Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| best CRM for freelancers | 2,400 | 52 | Commercial | 3 | High |
| what is CRM software | 8,100 | 78 | Informational | 1 | Medium |
| CRM pricing comparison | 600 | 44 | Commercial | 3 | High |
| contact management tips | 1,200 | 35 | Informational | 2 | Medium |
The "priority score" here isn't a formula — it's a judgment call after you've looked at all four dimensions together. But making those dimensions explicit forces you to stop defaulting to volume as the tiebreaker.
A few observations from this table:
- "What is CRM software" has the highest volume but the worst combination of difficulty and business fit. It's not the right place to start.
- "CRM pricing comparison" has lower volume but is a clear buyer signal with manageable difficulty. That's a high-value target.
- Low-difficulty keywords with solid business fit are almost always better starting points than high-volume, high-difficulty terms — especially if your site hasn't built significant authority yet.
Sequencing: What to Prioritize First
Once you've scored keywords, sequencing is about where you are in your site's lifecycle.
If your domain authority is low (DR under 30): Prioritize low-difficulty, long-tail keywords with strong business fit. You need to build topical authority and get some pages ranking before you earn the right to compete on harder terms. Read more on head terms vs. long-tail keywords to understand why this order matters.
If you have moderate authority (DR 30–60): Start mixing in commercial-intent keywords in the KD 40–60 range. You can compete here, and these pages often convert better than pure informational content.
If you have strong authority (DR 60+): You can target head terms — but only where your content can genuinely be the best result for that query. Authority lets you compete; it doesn't let you phone it in.
One more sequencing principle: prioritize keywords where you can build internal links from existing content. A new page linked from three relevant pages on your site ranks faster than an isolated one. Look at what you've already published and ask which new articles would fit naturally into that existing web.
The Gap You Might Be Missing
Most content backlogs are built from keywords you thought of yourself or found by searching manually. That's a starting point, not a system.
Your competitors are ranking for hundreds of keywords you don't even know exist. The gap between your indexed content and theirs is where a lot of traffic is being lost. If you want to see that gap mapped — every keyword they're capturing that you aren't, with traffic estimates — tools like Rankfill can surface that automatically and build it into a prioritized content plan.
But even without that, the framework above will let you compare whatever keyword list you have and make defensible decisions about what to write next.
FAQ
How do I compare keywords when they have similar difficulty and volume? Go to intent and business fit. A keyword that's 10% closer to a purchase decision is worth more than one with marginally higher volume. Also check the SERP — if one has featured snippets or People Also Ask boxes, those can drive clicks even without a #1 ranking.
Should I always target the lowest-difficulty keywords first? Not always. If a low-difficulty keyword has no real business value, ranking for it doesn't help you. Difficulty is a tiebreaker within a business-fit tier, not the primary selector. See how to define keywords that actually drive organic traffic for more on filtering by value.
My keyword tool gives different difficulty scores than another tool. Which do I trust? They're all estimates based on slightly different inputs. Use one tool consistently so you're comparing apples to apples. The absolute number matters less than relative differences within your list.
How many keywords should I evaluate before picking one to write about? Enough to make a comparison meaningful — usually 10–30 per topic cluster. Evaluating 200 at once leads to paralysis. Work in clusters: pick a theme, evaluate the keywords in that space, and choose the best entry point into it.
What if a keyword has high difficulty but a competitor is ranking with weak content? That's an opportunity. High difficulty scores reflect the authority of ranking domains, not content quality. If the top results are thin, outdated, or poorly structured, a well-researched article from a site with reasonable authority can outrank them. This is worth validating manually in the SERP before you commit.
How often should I revisit my keyword priorities? At minimum, quarterly. Search volume shifts, competitors publish new content, and your own domain authority changes over time. What was out of reach six months ago might be winnable now.