How to Analyze Keyword Competition

Competition is a property of the result set you need to enter, not just a universal score attached to a phrase.

Read the intent

Identify what most ranking pages are helping users do. Your page type and angle should make sense in that context.

Inspect ranking strength

Consider site authority, page relevance, content quality, backlink support and how specifically each result satisfies the query.

Look for mismatch

A SERP full of broad pages for a specific question may be an opportunity. A SERP full of highly focused, authoritative answers is a different challenge even if a metric looks low.