1. Help
  2. Keyword Research

Keyword Research

Keyword research is the bedrock of SEO. With a research tool like Keyword Explorer you can figure out what keywords people are searching, what keywords you're already ranking for, the demand for certain searches, and the strength of other sites competing for your target keywords.

Keyword Explorer is a time-saving keyword research tool that helps you find profitable keywords and organize your keywords into lists. Start by thinking about what your potential customers might search for. Enter these seed terms into Keyword Explorer tool to gather more suggestions, filter by metrics, and build lists to organize your keyword research.

What can I learn in this section of the Help Hub?

Within this section of the Help Hub, you can learn…

And so much more! You can use the left hand navigation to explore various articles related to Keyword Explorer or use the search bar to query a specific term. We've also outlined some common customer queries below to help you find the information you need!

Want to learn more about the Moz Tools?

We offer 2 courses from the Moz Academy to help you get oriented in the tools and set you up for success! Sign up today for How to Use Moz Pro and the Insider’s Guide to Moz Pro for tips, tricks, and more. These courses are FREE with a Moz Pro subscription or free trial!

Looking to expand your SEO knowledge?

Moz offers a wide variety of training courses via Moz Academy! The catalog includes courses touching on various SEO topics, from basic knowledge to how to perform keyword research and more. You can view the course catalog and get started on the Moz Academy page. Be sure to also check out the Keyword Research Certification!

Keyword Explorer Overview

Common Customer Queries

  • Monthly volume expressed as a single number shows you a precise volume prediction. Viewing volume this way simplifies the keyword research process and gives you a single number off of which to base your strategy and choices.
  • Volume ranges see less spikiness month to month as compared to a single number. Some SEOs prefer using a minimum and maximum anticipated volume to inform their SEO strategy. You will have the option to toggle between a single number and a range in the Keyword Explorer interface.
  • Monthly volume as a single number is limited to US, CA, AU, and UK. If you are not seeing monthly volume as a single number, this means you are searching within a search engine outside these 4 supported options.
  • You can see when your Keyword Explorer query limit will reset under the search bar. You can upgrade your plan if you need more queries per month.
  • If you see "Data not available", this means that we haven't yet collected data for this keyword. It may be that there isn't data or that we haven't yet collected it from our data sources. We collect new keyword data every month. One way to verify if there is a small amount of search volume is to see if Google Suggest autofills it in when you type in the search box. If it does, that's usually a sign there's at least some volume (even if it's only a few searches a month.)
  • If you’re researching non-US websites using the Ranking Keywords features, you may see limited data available in part due to limitations on international locations. We are working to increase our international keyword volume data. We recently updated our corpus to include UK, Canada, and Australian data and we'll continue to build out this data.
  • There's no single number for these metrics that's always good or always bad, it really depends on your SEO strategy and the other sites you’re competing with. We recommend reading our guide to Keyword Metrics to understand how to use the metrics to find keywords for your business. We also have a great workflow available for determining your difficulty benchmark.
  • If you’d like to see what keywords within our current corpus your site is ranking for, you can use the Ranking Keywords section of the tool. We have a great guide about Ranking Keywords to help get you started.
  • Great question! We have a guide all about how to add keywords to your campaigns from directly within the Keyword Explorer tool.
  • You sure can! Within the SERP Analysis section of the tool, you can see the first page of the search results for your target keyword.
  • We have a guide all about Keyword Lists, how to create them, and how to use them to help you get started.
  • We sure do! We identify SERP features in the SERP Analysis part of the tool and within Keyword Lists.
  • If you’d like to see what keywords within our current ranking keywords corpus your competitors are ranking for and how they overlap, you can use the ranking keywords section of the tool. We have a great section in our guide about competitor overlap to help get you started.
  • Yes! You have the option to purchase extra Keyword Queries per month with subscription add-ons.