Keyword ideas finder

The tool takes one term and returns up to fifty searches that contain it, strongest demand first: "invoicing software" gives "invoicing software for small business", "free invoicing software", "best invoicing software for freelancers" and the rest. For each it shows the average monthly searches, the provider's difficulty estimate (0 to 100, how many links the top ten hold) and its reading of the searcher's intent: informational, commercial, transactional or navigational.

Above the table, a reading of the pattern: how many of the searches are questions, how many are comparisons or best-of searches, how many ask about price or a free option, and how many combine real demand with a difficulty of 30 or under. Those last ones are the pages to write first.

The head term is held by the sites with the most links. The longer searches that contain it are held by whoever answered them, and many are answered by a forum thread, a thin page or nobody. Together they are most of the searches that exist. A site with no rankings yet takes them one at a time, and each page that ranks for a long search is a signal on the head term it contains.

The pattern of the list is a brief. A list that is mostly questions wants guides; a list that is mostly "best" and "vs" wants comparisons; a list with "free" and "pricing" in it wants the pricing page to answer those searches in its title. The same fifty rows tell three founders three different things to build.

• Difficulty under 30 with demand is the first page. Green in the table.
• Difficulty over 60 means the top ten hold many links; a new site ranks there in a year, not a month. Keep the search as a heading on a stronger page.
• Intent commercial means the searcher is comparing; the page is a comparison or a list. Informational wants a guide. Transactional wants a product or pricing page.
• Two rows with the same words in another order are one search: Google returns the same page for both. Write one page.
• A question with no difficulty figure is often answered by nobody worth the name; check it in the SERP checker.

Example: yourproduct.com types "time tracking". Fifty rows come back; nine are questions ("how to track time for freelance work"), fourteen are comparisons ("best time tracking app for consultants"), six mention free or pricing, and seven have a difficulty under 30 with more than fifty searches a month. The first month's plan is those seven, as three guides and a comparison.

1. 1

   Start from the term your product is

   The category name, not the brand: "invoicing software", "time tracking", "api monitoring". Two or three words.

2. 2

   Copy the searches and group them

   Rows that one page would answer go together. The group's total demand is the page's worth.

3. 3

   Check the easy ones on the results page

   Difficulty is an estimate; the SERP checker shows who actually holds the search and what kind of page wins.

4. 4

   Write the first page for the group with the best ratio

   Demand over difficulty. Put the head search in the title, the others as headings, the questions answered in two sentences each.

5. 5

   Run the finder on each heading later

   A heading that gathers its own long searches becomes its own page when the first one ranks.

Fifty rows a call, ten calls an hour from one address, two hundred a day in all, because each list is paid for on your behalf. The searches contain the term as typed; related searches that use other words ("billing app" for "invoicing software") are not on the list. Difficulty and intent are the provider's estimates; the results page is the check. Six markets are offered.

Each run is a keyword lookup that costs a few cents at a provider, so the tool runs for a signed-in account only: a free account, no card, five paid checks a day and forty a month across the paid tools, counted per account. The same input asked twice in a day is answered from memory and is not counted. The free check on the home page is not counted either. A day's budget for the tool as a whole is capped as well, so a busy day ends with a plain message rather than a bill.