Getting Started with Keyword Clustering

You can use our Keyword Clustering toolset to group or split your keywords based on SERP results. Have you ever been confused as to when to target two different keywords with the same piece of content? Or when to serve a longer-tail keyword with a more specific page?

We designed our Keyword Clustering toolset to help you with these decisions.

If four or more of the SERP results are identical for two different keywords, Keyword Clustering groups those keywords. If fewer than four of the SERP results are identical for two different keywords, the tool splits them.

To get started, upload a Keyword List to Keyword Clustering:

Your Keyword List will need to contain at least 10 keywords for the Keyword Clustering toolset to allow for selection. You can upload as many keywords as you like. But keep in mind that the more keywords your Keyword List has, the longer the report will take to finish loading.

After you’ve uploaded your Keyword List, our tool will start working. And once it completes its report, you’ll be able to view the results:

The rows that you initially see are the unique primary keywords or the most search-variant keywords from keyword groups. Use the expand feature to see the keywords that were grouped:

The Monthly Search Volume result shown for a keyword in Keyword Clustering is an aggregate of the Monthly Search Volumes of all the keywords grouped with it.

You’ll notice that some longer-tail keywords are split out into separate rows without any keywords grouped into them. This signals that you should think about serving these longer-tail keywords with more specific pages on your website, as the search results are substantially unique for them.

You can return back to your previous reports using the History dropdown:

And if you’d like, you can add keywords to a new Keyword List quickly:

You can filter rows by Primary Keyword, Monthly Search Volume, and Competition:

Keyword Clustering offers an alternative, secondary view. To access the secondary view, click on the four-square button:

Our secondary view is a little experimental in the sense that in this view, Keyword Clustering tries to group your primary keywords into different categories:

You can then click into a category to see the keywords contained within that category.

Keyword Clustering FAQs:

Can I export the results?

Yes, click on the Download button shown at the top right-hand side of the table:

What happens if I enter a seed keyword without uploading a Keyword List?

In this case, the toolset will try to automatically find and cluster keywords for you. This approach is experimental and may not capture all of the keywords within a given space. We recommend doing your initial keyword research with our other toolsets and then uploading a Keyword List as the primary workflow.

If you do want to start by entering a seed keyword without a Keyword List, we recommend using a broad keyword (for instance, “car insurance”).

Are the SERP-based grouping thresholds configurable?

Not yet, but this is something we are working on.

Why is my report taking so long to load?

If you’ve uploaded thousands of keywords from a Keyword List, our Keyword Clustering toolset might run slowly. If, for some reason, the report still isn’t loading as fast as you’d expect, please reach out to Nate Matherson at [email protected]