What is keyword research?

Keyword review

Keyword Overview is our basic report for searching any word in the Semrush database. After entering the word or phrase in the search box, you can see the word’s search volume (national, global, and local), intent, number of results, CPC, competition level, volume trend, and more.

• High-level testing of every word in the Semrush database
• Instant assessment of a word’s estimated value and competition
• Access more in-depth keyword research reports in the software
• Option to send keywords from the Mass Analysis tab directly to the Keyword Strategy Builder
• AI-driven personalized insights for keyword research

In digital marketing, keywords connect you with your potential customers. You can target keywords by writing content on your website or using an advertising budget on Google Ads.

But before you bring in any traffic from search, you need to decide which search terms are worth targeting. This is where keyword research comes in.

The Keyword Overview report is the easiest place to start your keyword research and get familiar with Semrush’s reports and metrics.

Word value analysis

When you run a keyword research report, Semrush will provide you with an initial estimate of a word’s value.

• Volume: The average number of times per month a word was searched on Google (national/local).
• Global Volume: The total sum of the monthly search volumes of the word across all of our country databases.
• Personal Keyword Difficulty (PKD): Calculated using artificial intelligence algorithms to analyze the relevance of each domain to a given keyword. Find out how it’s calculated here.
• Topic Authority: The relevance of the domain’s content to the keyword being analyzed. Find out how it’s calculated here.
• Potential SERP position: Your current and potential position for the keyword being analyzed.
• Intent: The purpose of a user’s query on a search engine. Intents can be interpreted by search engine algorithms to display the appropriate results. The direct types of intent are: informational, navigational, commercial, and transactional.
• CPC: The cost to the advertiser for a click on their advertisement in the SERP for that word.
• Competition Level: The density of advertisers bidding on this keyword nationally. A score of 1.00 indicates extremely high competition, and a score of 0.00 indicates no competition. Although this metric refers to paid search competitors, it can also be representative of a keyword’s organic value.
• Trend: How much interest Google users have shown in a given keyword over the past 12 months.

Knowing search volume allows you to estimate how popular a word is. But popularity isn’t the most important thing when choosing your targets.

Checking the intent of a word

You can take your keyword research even further with automated intent analysis in Semrush. We’ve identified search intent for every word in our databases, so you can quickly discover what users are searching for and what they intend to do. The Mass Analysis tab lets you analyze user intent and a number of other important metrics for up to 100 targeted keywords at once.

Tip: Use the Keyword Gap tool to find gaps in the keyword strategies of multiple competitors.

Changes to keywords, questions, and keyword groups

The Keyword Idea widget displays a summary of similar groups of keywords that you can use to find your targeted keywords.

• Keyword variations: Search phrases that include your original keyword as well as additional words that add information. Keyword variations help you find the most popular searches related to your query.
• Questions: Search terms where Semrush sees “who, what, where, when, why, how, whether, can” and more. Great questions for generating content ideas for blog posts, FAQs, and content pages on your site. Answering frequently searched questions can improve your SEO, including voice search optimization.
• Keyword Strategy: Keyword groups for which a page could rank well. Keyword Overview shows a list of example groups and links to the full report in Build Keyword Strategy. Keyword groups are only available for the country-level report.
• Personalized Keyword Difficulty (PKD %): PKD is customized to tailor keyword difficulty scores to your domain, ensuring they are relevant to your unique circumstances. This allows you to identify unique, hard-to-reach opportunities that are relevant to your domain.

This data is pulled directly from our Keyword Magic tool, so you’ll also get the total volume and average keyword difficulty. You’ll be taken directly to the Keyword Magic tool if you click on the number of keyword suggestions.

Checking the trend

Keyword Trending helps you understand the seasonality of your audience and predict when search traffic with a particular search term will hit seasonal peaks.

The trend graph in this report shows whether the search volume for a word changes over the year or remains relatively constant. The columns represent the last 12 months, with the last one always corresponding to the previous month.

For example, if a word analysis is performed in January 2021, the first column (will be on the left) will represent January 2020, and the last – December 2020.

If you see that the trend for a particular keyword is not peaking and it remains at the same level, then you will need to make sure that you are targeting that search query throughout the year.

However, you can plan accordingly if a keyword has a seasonal peak. For example, a keyword like “swimsuit” might increase in the spring and summer.
On a website, you can plan seasonal content or an advertising campaign to target this word.

Analysis of the organic value of a word

If you scroll down, you’ll see that the Keyword Insights report offers the top domains whose landing pages are showing up organically for the search term you’re analyzing.

You can view the SERP with the blue “View SERP” link and generate real-time data on these top performing sites using the Update Metrics button at the top of the report.

Your potential options show the competitive strength of your domain to rank for that word. This measures your domain’s ability to rank for certain keywords relative to the competition. This is a metric that helps with strategic planning by showing where you stand against your competitors and identifying areas where you can dominate.

If you found your site on this list, congratulations! Google considers your page to be one of the best and most relevant for the given keyword. But don’t miss the opportunity to strengthen and improve your ranking.

Tip: You can export any part of the report in XLS or CSV formats.

Analyzing the value of a word in advertising

If your website doesn’t rank naturally for keywords, you can still get traffic from search by bidding on keywords through Google Ads.

Below the organic listings, you can also find the top ads for PLAs (Product Listing Ads) and Ad Copies (Google Ads) that appear for the keyword in paid search results. Use these as inspiration for writing your own ad copy and analyze the landing pages they point to.

If you’re an e-commerce site, be sure to pay attention to the top product ads. These advertisers are your top competitors on Google Shopping.

The Keyword Ad History widget will show how many sites have been advertising for that word in the last 12 months nationally. Click it and you’ll be taken to the Keyword Ad History report, which will have more data.

With Semrush keyword analysis, you can determine which ads performed best over the past year. With this information, you can discover which strategies are driving the highest ROI and leverage that for continued success in your future search advertising.

If you’ve already used the keyword in question in your campaigns, you can use this data to improve the visibility of your ads in search.

Now that you’re comfortable running a keyword research report, be sure to check out the Keyword Magic tool to go deeper into keyword research.

Tip: To see historical data for a keyword, use the selector at the top.

Local keyword metrics

You can get keyword metrics not only at the national level but also at the local level.

Please note: Domain-based keyword metrics are not available for local keyword research.

This filter allows you to assess the potential for organic traffic for a keyword in your specific location, create a keyword list targeted to specific locations, build better keyword plans for a local SEO campaign, and more.

On the Keyword Overview landing page, enter a keyword, select any local sub-location, city, or region as a location, and click Search to get local data.

This is only available for single keyword searches, not working on them all at once.

Local data can also be requested within the keyword research tool. Here you can easily differentiate what data is local and what points to the national picture.

Viewing any new location will count as a restriction for additional ‘Keyword Metrics Updates’.

When you use the local metrics filter, you’ll find local data for a keyword:

• volume
• Volume trend
• Keyword Difficulty (KD%)
• Level of competition
• Cost per click (CPC)
• Intention
• SERP analysis
• SERP features
• Results

Keyword analysis in an essay

Using the Mass Analysis tab, you can analyze metrics for up to 100 keywords. For each keyword, you will get the intent, volume, trend, keyword difficulty, CPC, competition level, SERP features, and results.

After comparing the keywords, send the ones that best fit your SEO strategy to Build Keyword Strategy, a repository for all the keywords you’ve collected using various Semrush tools.

Note: Local keyword metrics are not available in the Mass Analysis report.

The Mass Analysis report also includes a column management option. By clicking the Gear button, you can choose which data you want to see in your report.

Currently, the Keyword Insights tool only allows you to get historical data for one specific keyword at a time. Mass Analysis allows you to analyze groups of keywords, but the metrics are always up-to-date.

Tip: You can get historical data for keywords in bulk by calling Semrush’s Keyword Group Overview API.. חבילת ה-API סטנדרטית זמין מה Business subscription .

Export options

Export data from a Keyword Insights report (Overview Report) to PDF or create a custom report using the My Report tool. Combine data from traffic analytics, other Semrush tools, Google Analytics 4, Google Search Console, and more to create a custom PDF report. Customize reports to your brand and schedule automatic updates for seamless report automation.

You can export your keyword list from the keyword overview to CSV, XLSX, and hyphen-separated CSV formats.

You can also export the data by copying the data to the clipboard and pasting it into your file. When you select one or more keywords, a “Copy” button will appear at the top of the table. Click Copy and then paste the selected keywords into your file.

You can select keywords one by one by clicking on the individual selection box or in bulk. To select a contiguous group of keywords from the list, click on the first word in the group. Then, hold down the Shift key and select the last word in the group. This will select everything between the two words.