Keyword Explorer – Moz’s New Keyword Research Tool

For quite a while, SEO’s have had limited options when it comes to keyword research.  Most use a combination of Google Ads’ Keyword Planner and manual searches to gather related search query suggestions and assess the current search results.  Moz is now trying to take the keyword research tool to a new level with their latest creation, Keyword Explorer.

You can get a full overview of the tool on the Moz Blog (there is also a video and slideshow available to view).

Here is a quick summary of what Keyword Explorer (KWE) has to offer:

• It has taken the Google Ads Keyword Planner data and added anonymous clickstream data to predict a more accurate search volume range with (according to them) about 95% accuracy.
• Keyword Explorer provides several metrics to help prioritize and develop effective keyword lists including Volume, Difficulty (a legacy Moz metric that has been updated), Opportunity, Importance and Potential. These last three metrics are new to most;
  • Opportunity estimates CTR for organic search results
  • Importance is a metric you can set based on business priority
  • Potential combines all of these metrics to help define and prioritize a keyword list.
• It provides keyword suggestions that are pulled from Google Keyword Planner, Google Suggest, Related Searches, cross-over keywords from pages that rank for a phrase, topic-theming and keywords from their clickstream. This makes what was once a very manual process quite streamlined (in my opinion).
• Keyword Explorer allows for easy upload/import and exporting so that you can slice and dice the data any way your heart desires.
• It allows for the creation of several keyword lists (depending on your subscription) that can easily be compared in one dashboard.
• Keyword Explorer also details the actual search results and SERP page features by keyword. You can assess how news, videos, social media posts, map listings, shopping ads, images, etc. make up the SERP for each keyword. It will also tell you if a Knowledge Graph is present, Ad location(s) (top and/or bottom of the SERP), and how many organic listings appear.

Currently Keyword Explorer has a database of about 500 million English language keywords and they expect that to continue to grow in the coming months.  Search Volumes represent US volume only (not Global English usage).  They hope to add volume metrics for other geo-regions in the future.

Our SEO Specialists are eagerly testing this new keyword research tool and will be sharing the new data with our clients. If you would like to see a sampling of data specific to your business, contact us today.