How does Keywords for an Idea work, and how do I read the answer?

Keywords for an Idea is the tool under Tools in the left menu. It finds the keywords for one piece of content: a post, a video or both. It needs no site on your account, and every signed-in account can use it. For the short version, see How do I get keywords for a post or video?.

Starting one

1. Open Tools and press Get Keywords. On the Add a Site page, Get keywords for one post or video instead opens the same form.
2. Under Your idea, describe the piece the way you would tell a colleague: what it is about, who it is for, and where you want it to rank. One or two sentences is enough; the box takes up to 2,000 characters.
3. Under Market, pick whose searches to use: United States, United Kingdom, Canada or Australia, all in English.
4. Press Find Keywords · 5 Credits.

There is no second step to confirm. One run goes from your words to the answer, on the same page. You can close the page; we email you when it finishes.

A good description reads like this:

I want to make a video and a post on how to evaluate guest posts and whether a site is a good one to get a link from. I need keywords so it can rank on YouTube and Google. What is a good primary keyword and some supporting keywords?

Price, time and limits

• 5 credits an idea. Your balance is checked when you press the button, and the credits are charged when the work starts.
• About two minutes.
• Two runs at a time. As with everything else, an account can have two runs queued or running at once.
• Fewer than 5 credits? You still see Tools and the form, but the Find Keywords · 5 Credits button stays off. A box under the form offers the One site plan, $29 for 100 credits, or a plan from $59 a month for 300 credits (See All Plans). There is no free step and no daily allowance for this tool.

What happens while it runs

The page shows four steps and refreshes itself.

1. Reading your idea. We read your words as written and set down:
   • a working title, and whether it is a post, a video or both, for Google, YouTube or both;
   • one sentence on what the searcher is trying to do;
   • a few phrasings of the whole piece, from your own words, best first;
   • the sections the piece needs, in reading order, with the searches people type for each;
   • the defining words the keywords must keep: a brand, a situation or an audience;
   • the many ways people phrase what they want, your own phrases, and any words to leave out.
2. Finding the searches. We look up keyword ideas from short phrases of your idea, add every phrasing and section search from step 1, and ask Google autocomplete what people type next. Keyword ideas that share no topic word with your idea are left out, and so are phrases with any of the words to leave out. Google's monthly searches are measured for every phrase that came without them.
3. Judging every phrase. Each candidate is checked against that one sentence: does the person typing it want the whole piece, one part of it, or something next to it, and are they on the other side of the trade? The reason is kept on each phrase.
4. Choosing the keywords. An editorial pass picks the primary, the other phrasings, the keywords for each section and the related topics, each with a reason. Fixed checks then make sure it uses only phrases the run found and did not set aside, with the search counts we measured, each search once. If that pass fails, or names no primary that passes the checks below, fixed rules choose instead. If the piece is meant for YouTube, we read one YouTube results page for the primary.

To stop it, press Stop This Run. The credits come back.

How the primary keyword is chosen

By meaning, never by volume. The primary is the phrase that says what your piece is, and it may have no measured searches at all.

To be the primary, a phrase must:

• be wanted by people on your side of the trade, for this piece, not for something next to it;
• not be a search for a tool, a product, a sign-in or a file;
• keep the defining words;
• be ten words or fewer;
• name the whole piece, not one section of it, unless the read of your description phrased the piece that way.

The editor's choice is tried first, then the read's phrasings of the piece in order. If the editorial pass fails, the rules take:

1. the read's first phrasing of the whole piece that was not set aside, whatever its volume;
2. then any other phrasing from the read;
3. then a phrase from the keyword databases that names the whole piece and keeps the defining words, closest to your own words first;
4. only last, the most searched phrase kept on the subject.

Search volume, where it is measured, helps order the keywords inside a section. It never picks the primary. In the example above, a bigger search such as "guest post sites" wants something else, so it is not the primary however many people type it.

The answer, top to bottom

At the top: the working title, the market and the date, your request in italics, and Judged against: the one sentence every phrase was checked against. Remove This Idea takes the idea off your list.

Primary keyword

• The keyword, with a Copy button. Build the title around it.
• Its Google searches a month in your market. When the exact phrase has none measured, the card says so: it is the phrase that says what your piece is, and the phrasings and section keywords below carry the volume.
• When recorded: the difficulty, what advertisers pay a click, whether searches are rising, flat or falling, and the search intent.
• Sometimes a Broader search to also target line: one bigger search worth covering too, with its searches and the reason.
• How it was checked, closed until you open it: five checks, each Strong, Fair, Weak or Unknown, with a note and, where there is one, a How we know list naming where each value comes from.
• An evidence badge: Moderate evidence when the primary has 100 or more searches a month, Thin evidence otherwise.
• Why this one, open by default: what you asked for, why this phrase, how it was judged against your request, and its Google searches.

The five checks under How it was checked:

Check	The question	How it is set
Fit	Do the people searching this want what the piece gives them?	Strong for your own phrasing or a phrase that wants the whole piece. Fair when it is on your subject but not exactly the piece.
Clicks	Does Google's results page still send clicks to a page, or does an AI Overview answer first?	Always Unknown here: this tool does not fetch Google's results page.
Value	Are there buyer signals?	From what advertisers pay a click: Strong at $2 or more, Fair below that, Unknown when no bids are recorded.
YouTube	How old and how watched are the videos YouTube shows for it?	From the top 10 videos on YouTube's results page for the primary. Strong when at least half are two years old or more and no more than 3 are under a year old; Fair when at least half are a year old or more; Weak otherwise. Unknown when YouTube was not asked for or the page could not be read.
Winnable	Do the pages ranking on Google leave room for a new one?	From keyword difficulty: 30 or below Strong, up to 50 Fair, above 50 Weak, Unknown when none is recorded.

If no phrase passes every rule, this card is replaced by No phrase passed every rule.

Other ways to say it

Up to 5 other phrasings of the whole piece, closest to your words first, each with its Google searches and why it is here. A phrasing with no measured searches says "not measured". Use one in the title or the description; pick a measured one if you want the volume.

Keywords for each section

What the piece needs to cover to answer your prompt, in reading order: up to 8 sections, each with up to 6 searches people type for that part. Use them as headings and in the text. When the fixed rules chose, the list can end with a section called Also searched.

Why not the bigger searches

Up to 5 phrases with more searches that lost, each with the reason it was set aside:

• people typing it want a tool, a product or a page, not a guide;
• it is broader than the piece, and the reason names the word it drops;
• it is a different task, and the reason says how.

Related topics

Same subject, a different need: up to 6 searches, each worth its own piece rather than a section of this one. What we saw gives the reason, and says when Google shows videos for it or buyers search it.

Your phrases

The phrases from your own words, with what we measured for each and where each one ended up: the primary keyword, in the answer above, not chosen for this piece, or not in the keyword databases. Phrases without measured searches stay flagged; we never drop them.

What this is based on

How many searches were measured in your market, how many were judged a fit for your idea, and whether a YouTube results page was read.

• Download All of This (Markdown) saves the whole answer as one file.
• Download Every Keyword (CSV) saves every keyword the run found, kept and set aside, with the columns keyword, volume, cpc, kd, intent, status, dropped_reason, cluster, provenance, current_position, current_url and demand_evidence.

Each keyword list above, from Other ways to say it to Your phrases, has a Copy All button that copies its keywords, one per line. Why not the bigger searches has none.

Sometimes also shown

When the editorial pass could not finish and the fixed rules chose, the answer can also show:

• Questions to answer: up to 6 searches phrased as questions.
• Leave out: searches from the other side of the trade, or that want something the piece does not give.

In that case there is no Broader search to also target line, Related topics can hold up to 8 searches, and Your phrases says "Says what the piece is", "One part the piece covers", "Related, not exactly this piece" or "Set aside" with the reason.

Ideas made with the earlier version of the tool can also show The post or The video with Download Brief, Supporting keywords and Other wordings.

Use it with a site

Under Use it with a site, pick one of your sites and press Attach. While the idea is attached, that site's Start research screen says it starts from the idea's keywords and fills Extra topics with up to 40 of them: the primary, the section keywords and the related topics. Change them under Options. Once attached, the card shows Start that site's research and Detach. If you have no site yet, add one and come back.

Share this answer

Create Share Link makes a read-only link; each link has Copy Link and Revoke. Anyone with the link can read the answer: the same blocks, without the download buttons and without the Judged against line. The Copy buttons still work, and Print / Save as PDF prints the page or saves it as a PDF. Nobody with the link can change anything.

The API

POST /api/v1/asks with {"text": "…", "market": "US"} starts the same 5 credit run; the market is US, UK, CA or AU. GET /api/v1/asks/{id} returns the idea with its brief, its state, its run and, once status is done, its result. If the run comes back failed or cancelled, the credits came back and the run's error says why. GET /api/v1/asks lists your ideas. Short of credits, the API answers 402. See Is there an API?.

Emails

• Started in the app: we email you when the keywords are ready, with a link to open them.
• Started through the API: no email when it is ready, since your own tool reads the answer.
• Failed, or stopped while it ran: the email says so, and that the credits came back.

If it fails or you stop it

The full 5 credits come back, whatever the cause, and the idea shows Ready to start under Your ideas. If our worker restarts, that is not a failure: the run pauses and carries on. If your balance is under 5 credits when the work starts, the run fails and nothing is charged.

What you see next depends on how far it got:

• This search did not finish, when the read had not finished. Open Change the wording and run it again and press Run It Again · 5 Credits.
• Is this what you meant?, when the read had finished. The read is filled in for you to correct: the working title, what the searcher is trying to do, how people search for it, your phrases, what to leave out and more. Press Find the Keywords · 5 Credits (shown when you have 5 credits or more), or use Run It Again · 5 Credits below it.

Your ideas

The Tools page lists your ideas under Your ideas, with the primary keyword, the state and when each started. Open one to see its answer.

What it does not show

• No YouTube search volume. No vendor publishes how often something is searched on YouTube. When the piece is meant for YouTube, we read YouTube's own results page for the primary instead, and the YouTube check shows its top video, how old the top ten videos are and how watched. That tells you what you would be up against, not how many people search.
• No Google results pages or ranking pages. This tool does not read them, so the Clicks check stays Unknown.
• No People Also Ask and no brief. It gives you the keywords; the writing is yours.