How Studio finds and groups keywords
When you click Plan my site, Studio researches your market and turns the results into a plan: a list of pages, each with its own group of keywords. This article explains what happens in that run and how to read the result.
Where the keywords come from
Section titled “Where the keywords come from”Studio uses up to three sources:
- Your competitors. Studio searches Google for your service in your location, reads the top 30 results, and picks the first five real businesses. It skips directories, listing sites and marketplaces such as Yelp, HomeGuide and Thumbtack, even when they rank first. It then collects the keywords those five sites rank for.
- Search demand in your city. Studio adds what people in your city search for your trade.
- Related services. Only with Main + related services: Studio adds keywords for services usually offered alongside yours (for a plumber, things like water heaters, drains and sewer lines).
Studio filters the list down to your location and to keywords with buying intent, then groups the keywords into page topics with AI. Each group becomes a planned page.
Follow the run
Section titled “Follow the run”While the run works, Planning your project shows each step with a check mark when it finishes:
- Confirming your request
- Searching Google for competitors
- Choosing the best competitors
- Finding the keywords they rank for
- Finding search demand
- Finding related services
- Building your keyword list
- Grouping keywords into page topics
Stay on the page until Studio opens your project. If your connection drops, the progress up to that point is saved.
Review pages
Section titled “Review pages”Some keywords should not become normal pages. Studio sets them aside in review pages, marked with a dark red header and a warning icon:
- Products / Retail: products, parts, stores and showrooms (for example “faucet parts” or “plumbing supply”).
- Off-Niche: keywords that are not your main service, such as brand names, job and training searches, and other trades.
- Unclustered: keywords the grouping did not place. Move them to the right page by hand.
Review pages are not built. If a review page holds something you do offer, click the green check (Approve: make this a normal page). It then gets competition data and optimization like the rest. See Work with your plan.
Every keyword ends up in exactly one page. None are dropped or duplicated.
Read the keyword numbers
Section titled “Read the keyword numbers”Each keyword in the plan shows a row of numbers:
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Vol | Monthly search volume |
| Trend line | Monthly searches over the last 12 months: green when rising, red when falling |
| CPC | Cost per click |
| KD | Keyword difficulty, 0 (easy) to 100 (hard), from DataForSEO |
| inTitle | Competing pages with the keyword in their title. Filled in after the competition check. |
| inURL | Competing pages with the keyword in their URL. Filled in after the competition check. |
Competition data
Section titled “Competition data”The competition check measures inTitle and inURL for every keyword on your planned pages. Studio uses these numbers to score pages and write the SEO.
- With Let me review the plan, it runs after you click Optimize. Before that, the Competition metrics card in the plan sidebar shows the number of keywords, the Xags cost and how long it will take.
- With Build it for me, it runs on its own after Studio selects the pages.
How long it takes depends on the speed you chose at setup. Priority with up to 40 keywords takes about 10 seconds. Priority with more keywords takes about a minute. Standard takes about five minutes. You can leave the page while it runs. A keyword that fails to load is tried a second time.
What it costs
Section titled “What it costs”| Step | Cost |
|---|---|
| Google competitor search | 0.0982 Xags per query |
| Keyword mining | 0.5847 Xags per competitor site mined |
| City search demand | 0.6753 Xags per project |
| Related services (Main + related services only) | 2.3819 Xags per project |
| AI keyword grouping | about 1 Xag per 1,000 tokens |
| Competition, Priority, up to 40 keywords | 0.6335 Xags per keyword |
| Competition, Priority, over 40 keywords | 0.076 Xags per keyword |
| Competition, Standard | 0.038 Xags per keyword |
AI grouping is priced from the real AI work, so it varies. See What a Studio project costs.
Troubleshooting
Section titled “Troubleshooting”| Message | What to do |
|---|---|
| “Finished — but no location keywords were found for these competitors.” | Try a broader location or a simpler service term. The project is still created, and you can add keywords by hand. |
| “Your keywords are saved. Try grouping them again…” | Click Try grouping again. Only the grouping runs again, and the research is not charged twice. |
| “Our keyword data provider is having trouble right now…” | Nothing was charged and no project was created. Try again in a few minutes. |