Read Keyword Metrics

The keyword table gives you eight or nine numbers per row. This explains what each one is for and, more usefully, which ones to trust when they disagree.

The Metrics

Volume

Estimated monthly searches in the market you selected.

It is an estimate, and it is an average. A term with strong seasonality shows a middling annual average whether it peaks in December or in June, so check the trend alongside it.

High volume attracts competition. A term with 50,000 searches is being targeted by everyone who can see it.

Trend

Whether interest is rising or falling over time.

More decision-useful than volume for planning. A rising term at 500 searches is often a better investment than a falling one at 5,000, because you are writing for where demand is going.

KD, Keyword Difficulty

How hard it will be to rank.

Read this relative to your own site, not absolutely. A difficulty that is unrealistic for a new site is routine for an established one. If you are starting out, work the lower end of the range and build up.

Competition

Competitive pressure on the term, drawn from advertising data.

Useful as a cross-check on difficulty rather than as a separate decision. When difficulty is low but competition is high, the term likely has commercial value that has not yet produced strong organic content, which is an opportunity.

CPC and Top Bid

CPC is the average cost per click. Top bid gives low and high top-of-page bid estimates in USD.

Even if you never advertise, these are the best available proxy for commercial value. Advertisers do not pay well for traffic that does not convert. A low-volume keyword with a high bid range is frequently worth more to a business than a high-volume keyword with no bid interest at all.

Top Clicks

Click volume going to the top results.

Worth checking against volume. When volume is high but top clicks are low, something is absorbing the clicks before organic results, usually AI answers, featured snippets, maps, or the fact that the query is being answered on the results page. Ranking first for such a term delivers less traffic than the volume suggests.

Opportunity

A combined read on whether the term is worth pursuing, weighing volume, difficulty, and competition together.

A reasonable starting filter when you have hundreds of rows. Do not let it override intent, which it cannot judge for your specific business.

Intent

What the searcher is trying to do.

The most important column on the table.

Intent, and Why it Decides Things

Intent tells you what kind of page the searcher wants. Getting it wrong means writing something that will not rank regardless of quality, because it does not answer the query the searcher was making.

• Informational. They want to understand something. Write a guide or explainer.
• Commercial. They are comparing options before buying. Write a comparison, roundup, or review.
• Transactional. They are ready to act. A product or service page serves this better than an article.
• Navigational. They are looking for a specific brand or site. Rarely worth targeting unless it is yours.

Match your article type in the wizard to the intent. Informational wants a how-to guide or ultimate guide. Commercial wants a versus article or roundup.

How to Weigh Them Together

A workable order:

1. Intent first. Can you serve it with the kind of page you are willing to write?
2. Difficulty second. Is it realistic for your site now?
3. Trend third. Is demand growing or shrinking?
4. Commercial value fourth. Does CPC or bid range suggest this traffic is worth having?
5. Volume last. Enough to matter, given everything above.

Volume last is deliberate. Choosing keywords by volume is the most common way to end up with articles that rank for nothing.

Notes

Metrics are estimates from search and advertising data. Treat them as comparative rather than exact. The difference between 480 and 520 searches is noise. The difference between 480 and 4,800 is real.

Metrics are per market. The same keyword has different numbers for the United States and the United Kingdom.

Some country and language combinations return fewer metrics. You can still work with the keyword list.

Refreshing metrics on a saved list costs 50 credits for up to 1,000 keywords. Research itself is free.