Defining DJ Score and explaining how you can use this metric to drive SEO and content strategy
Bret Sexton
When operating inside the DemandJump platform, you will navigate across multiple tabs as you generate content briefs, analyze insight reports, and review suggested keyword phrases and questions. When you decide on a keyword phrase you would like to use for a specific piece of content you will notice that our system does not put the same value on each keyword. This is because not every term garners the same amount of traffic. For example, you might discover that two keyword phrases that sound the same receive different scores, this is due to the fact that one phrase is being used by your audience more often to gain some information. It is then in your best interest to go with the higher value phrase or question.
In this article, we will define DJ Score and explain how you can use this metric to drive SEO and content strategy. But, before jumping into the importance of DJ score, it is important to talk about the metric marketers typically use when making all of their content planning decisions: Estimated Search Volume.
What Is Estimated Search Volume?
Estimated search volume is a measure of the total number of searches that are performed through search engines, expressed as the average monthly volume during the previous 12-month period. It can provide useful comparisons and trends for high-volume searches. However, search volume estimates may often fail to register the underlying uniqueness that exists within consumer search behavior.
While it is still a helpful metric, we do not believe it is the only metric that should be used to drive SEO and content strategy. This is why we have created a new metric, DJ Score.
What Is DJ Score?
A DJ score is calculated based on how connected a keyword interacts with a network of similar searches, how closely it relates to the initial topic, and the estimated volume. This prioritized ranking is decided through our technology that understands the most connected and important keyword phrases that your target market is searching for.
On the DemandJump Platform, some areas may represent a DJ Score as a number. The scores range from 0 to 100, with a score of 100 being the most important, and 0 being the least important. In other areas, this metric is labeled as Priority and represented with adjectives like Very High, High, Medium, or Low.
DemandJump focuses on the search results that have the highest relevance, so anything 75 or below will be automatically filtered out.
Why Is DJ Score Important?
DJ Score is important because it takes into account both the volume of a single term and how important the term is in the larger content ecosystem. Over time, search engines have gotten better at using Natural Language Processing to better understand search intent.
Google has outlined the importance of creating quality content to help you rank organically. This means keyword stuffing is a thing of the past and you now need to know the bigger picture of what the content is about. This is where DJ Score comes into play. We have created this metric to help you understand the network of content needed to help you rank well in this new world of SEO.
How Do I Use DJ Score?
To get the most out of DJ Score, you should run an Insight report on the term you are targeting for your pillar page. Then navigate over to the Topic Summary tab to see what the DJ score is for the generated keyword phrases. For example, let’s say we are writing a pillar page we want to rank for ‘Baseball Teams’. The first step would be running a Consumer Insight report for ‘Baseball Teams’. Among the results, we may see keywords such as ‘best baseball teams’ or ‘baseball team hats’. In addition to these types of keywords, we will likely also see results of top teams such as ‘Chicago Cubs’ or ‘New York Yankees’.
This is a result of Google and Bing getting smarter over time and starting to learn that when searching for ‘Baseball Teams’ there is a high likelihood that you are looking for the name of a particular team.
DJ Score takes the guesswork out of what content you should create. Simply sort by DJ Score, then start chipping away.
If you have any additional questions, send us a note using the blue message icon in the bottom right of your screen. We’d love to chat with you!