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Google and keywords

Research a search, and how winnable it is

Look up searches in Keywords, see how hard each one is for your site, and ask CitedSEO to write about any of them.

Written By Damian

Last updated About 2 hours ago

To research a search, open Keywords, type a topic or two in the search box and press Find searches. CitedSEO looks up what people search around those words, groups the searches one page could cover, and adds them to the list marked New, each with its searches a month and its Personal difficulty: how hard it is for your site to rank, from 0 to 100, with a word for it from Very easy to Very hard. Write this on any row has CitedSEO write about it straight away.

The search box in Keywords: Topic, Questions and Competitor, the box with Find searches, and the searches made lately

ChoiceWhat it finds
TopicSearches people make around the words you type. The button reads Find searches.
QuestionsOnly the searches phrased as a question about those words. The button reads Find questions.
CompetitorSearches a competitor ranks for in Google’s top 20 and you don’t. Press one of your competitors to start.
  • Separate topics with commas, up to 5 at a time.
  • Competitor lists the competitors in Settings › Business. Sites everyone publishes on, like dev.to, stay on your list but get no button, since their searches cover every subject.
  • The numbers are for your site's search market, which the top of the page names ("Numbers are for searches in United States, English").

A search takes a little while. Under the box it reads "looking now, new finds will be marked New", then how many it found ("hubspot.com · 10 they rank for and you don’t, yesterday"). Searching is included in your plan, up to 20 different searches a day: the 21st says "You’ve run 20 searches today. More tomorrow." The same search again on the same day costs nothing.

You don't have to search for CitedSEO to find searches: it researches around your topics, your Search Console searches and your competitors each week on its own. The box is for anything you want to look at now.

What a row shows

Each row is a keyword group: searches Google answers with mostly the same results, so one page can cover them all. The row is named by its most searched search, with "+2 more like …" for the rest.

  • Topic: the topic it belongs to on Topic clusters.
  • Searches: searches a month for the whole group, with a small chart of the last year. A dash means no monthly numbers yet, never 0.
  • Personal difficulty: the number and its band, for the most searched search.
  • Position: where your site ranks for it, once you connect Search Console.
  • Status: the page of yours that covers it (marked Written when CitedSEO wrote it), New page planned, Writing since …, or Write this when nothing covers it yet.

Press a row to open it: every search in the group, Searches a month, Your position, what advertisers pay a click, the last year month by month, What happens next, and Who ranks now, the top 10 results, each a link to the page. A result marked Forum or Out of date is one that looks beatable. It doesn't change the difficulty.

An opened row: who ranks now for the search, with its personal difficulty and why it's that number

How winnable a search is

Personal difficulty starts from the keyword data's own difficulty, which comes from the links to the pages ranking now, and is the same for every site. CitedSEO then pushes it up toward 100 when the sites on page one are stronger than yours, and when the search is searched a lot. It's never lower than the keyword data's number. Point at it, or open the row, to see why: "Difficulty 28 of 100 for your site, up from 14 because the sites on page one are stronger than yours".

DifficultyBandWhat it takes
1 to 14Very easyThe least competition, where a new page has its best chance with no links to it.
15 to 29EasySome competition, within a new site's range with a page that answers the search well.
30 to 49PossibleMore competition, so it takes a well-made page that answers the search better than what ranks.
50 to 69DifficultLinks from other sites as well as a strong page.
70 to 84HardLinks from well-known sites as well as a strong page.
85 to 100Very hardThe hardest there is, taking a lot of links and promotion.

A search with no difficulty, or nothing known about the sites on page one, is Unknown, never easy. The list puts the easiest first.

What CitedSEO picks, and what you can ask for

On its own, CitedSEO only picks searches under 50, the number shown in green: from 50 up, a page needs links from other sites to rank, and CitedSEO doesn't make links. It also leaves out searches people make to reach a particular site or to buy something, and ones whose purpose it can't tell. Those it picks become content gap cards in Opportunities.

You can ask for any search, whatever its difficulty. Write this "Counts as your OK, and goes ahead of our own picks": CitedSEO starts writing it straight away rather than waiting for the queue, and the row reads Writing since the day you asked, linking to Articles.

Pressing Write this on a search: the row changes to Writing since today

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