Every SEO strategy starts with keyword research.
Expensive SEO software like Ahrefs and general Google tools like Google Search Console, Google Keyword Planner, and Google Analytics are absolute requirements. But there are times where using them to find traffic-generating keywords either (a) takes too long or (b) isn’t the best UI for doing so.
Keywords Everywhere is a browser extension that gives you the details of keyword search volume, cost-per-click (CPC), and competition data directly on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Keywords Everywhere: Our FAVORITE browser extension
Keywords Everywhere is a powerful and easy-to-use browser extension available for Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge. You can use it to quickly get valuable data directly on Google, YouTube, Amazon, and other popular search engines.
Since it’s an extension rather than an independent keyword research tool, you don’t have to leave the search engine result page (SERP) to get keyword data (like you would with other keyword research tools).
Here’s what it looks like when I search for “black cats”:
Now, you might wonder, “What makes it so great, though?”
A lot of things.
It’s affordable for (literally) anyone.
Unfortunately, the free version no longer gives you a basic idea of how well a keyword might perform. As of June 1, 2023, Keywords Everywhere became a paid tool for all but its 200+ optimized ChatGPT prompts and social media tools like the Instagram hashtag generator.
Now, if you want to use the tool for search engine optimization, you have to choose from one of the following plans:
This isn’t a bad thing, though. It means that for just $1.75 per month, you can access:
- Monthly search volume, CPC, and competition data for almost any keyword imaginable
- Traffic metrics and the top 10,000 keywords for any URL or domain
- SEO metrics (e.g., on-page difficulty, off-page difficulty, brand queries)
- Moz link metrics like Spam Score, Domain Authority, DA Trend, Referring Domains, and Backlinks
- Trend charts with data since 2004
- Keyword widgets that help you discover People Also Search For (PASF), related keywords, and long-tail keywords related to the initial query
And you can access these things for up to 100,000 keywords per year before needing to purchase more credits!
Compared to expensive Ahrefs credits and a subscription that costs several hundred per month, this is peanuts.
It offers advanced analysis and filtering options.
In addition to its basic features, you can use it to perform on-page analysis and content gap analysis to find opportunities for optimizing your website and outranking competitors.
Plus, you can import keywords (up to 10,000 at once). Keywords Everywhere’s Bulk Trends feature allows you to quantify keyword data for all those keywords at a time and export the results into a CSV file.
It supports multiple search engines, Google properties, and ecommerce sites.
Here’s a rundown of all the places you can use Keywords Everywhere to discover valuable keyword data:
- Google apps (Google Trends, Search, Search Console, Analytics, and Keyword Planner)
- YouTube
- Bing
- DuckDuckGo
- Amazon
- eBay
- Etsy
This means that you can perform keyword research for multiple platforms and target audiences, all within one convenient tool. And you can use it for a full-funnel multichannel marketing strategy, making it one of the best ecommerce SEO tools and B2B SEO tools on the market.
There’s virtually no learning curve.
If you’ve used Google, you’ve pretty much used Keywords Everywhere. It augments Google search results, so you can see data at a glance without having to learn how to use a new tool or switch between multiple SEO tools.
You can find keyword ideas at any time.
Since it runs in the background and shows you related search terms and PASF widgets whenever you perform a Google search, you can find new keyword ideas even when you aren’t thinking about it.
When I’m doing keyword research for Linkflow or a Linkflow client, this is awesome — I can get inspiration even when I’m not specifically working or going out of my way to.
Getting started with Keywords Everywhere
Setting up Keywords Everywhere is simple. Let’s walk through the steps together.
1. Download the browser extension.
You can download Keywords Everywhere from the home page of their website.
From there, you can access the Chrome Web Store, Firefox Add-Ons store, or Microsoft Edge Add-Ons store.
Once you click on the appropriate link for your browser, it should take you to the corresponding add-on page. Then, click the button to add it to your browser.
2. Get your API key.
To use the paid features of the extension, you need an API key. This key is what allows you to access the data (which is sitting in other tools) and features like bulk trends, metric widgets, and advanced analysis tools.
Once you download the extension, click “Get API Key” from the upper left corner.
Then, enter your email, and you’ll receive it there.
3. Paste your API key in the browser extension.
From any web page, click on the icon for the browser extension.
Then, click “Settings.”
It’ll take you to a form page. Paste the number key in the corresponding box and click “Validate.”
4. Select your data sources and metrics.
You’ll notice two options for keyword data sources:
- Google Keyword Planner
- Google Keyword Planner + clickstream data
You can either use data from Google Ads, or you can supplement it with clickstream data. You might see more accurate monthly search volume, CPC, and other data if you choose the latter. I’ve personally not found it to make much difference, but it’s worth experimenting with.
Under that, you can select which metrics you want to display on Google (more on these later).
Note that the volume and difficulty are typically inflated. They show higher monthly search volume data on most keywords and lower Keyword Difficulty compared to Semrush and Ahrefs.
Keep in mind that AhrefsBot is the most active SEO crawler on the internet. You’ll always get the most accurate search data with Ahrefs.
You’ll have a few options below this:
- Highlight data — If you want, you can highlight keywords on the SERP (e.g., if search volume is higher than an amount or falls within a certain threshold).
- Supported websites — You can disable Keywords Everywhere on sites you don’t want to use it with. For instance, you might disable Amazon and social media sites if you only want to use it for Google-related SEO and don’t want to ruin your browsing experience elsewhere.
- Miscellaneous — You can hide buttons and metrics that get in your way and change where the search data appears.
5. Purchase a subscription.
Head back to the icon. This time, click the link at the bottom that says “Purchase a subscription” in the bottom left corner.
Select the subscription you want, enter your card info, and you’re off to the races.
Keyword data on the SERPs
There are nine main types of keyword data Keywords Everywhere will display on search results pages. To see for yourself, just type something into Google’s search bar.
1. Search volume
The first thing the keyword tool will show you is right underneath the search bar.
- Search volume — The monthly search volume for that search term.
- CPC (cost per click) — How much Google Ads users are paying each time someone clicks on their ad for this search term. For SEO purposes, this gives insight into how competitive the term actually is.
- Competition — How many advertisers are bidding on the keyword in Google Ads, on a scale from 0-1 (1 being the most competitive).
- 12-month trend bar — A teeny tiny visual representation of all that.
You can quickly estimate the potential traffic value of ranking for a term by multiplying its monthly volume by the cost an advertiser would pay per click.
For example, the term above has 3,600 monthly traffic and a CPC of $1.97. So each month, ranking for this term would be worth a max of $7,092 (3,600 x 1.97 = 7,092), compared to running ads for it.
2. Trends chart
Every time you perform a search, the tool will show you a widget displaying the search trend since 2004.
This is handy because you can find new and upcoming keywords before they become popular, eliminate those that are declining, and plan content according to seasonal or cyclical patterns in search volume.
3. SEO metrics
There are four metrics you’ll see above the trends chart:
- SEO Difficulty — How hard is the term to rank for on a scale from 1-100? 1 = easy, 100 = near impossible.
- Brand Query — Is this a branded search term? Branded terms are hard to rank for (unless you are the brand).
- On-Page Difficulty — How well-optimized is the content in the top 10 slots from 1-100? If there’s tons of great content, you’ll have a harder time outranking them, but tons of weak content signifies an opportunity.
- Off-Page Difficulty — How much backlink equity do top-ranking pages have from 1-100? High values here mean you’ll need more domain authority to rank.
4. Related keywords
This is a widget on the right-hand side that lists keywords related to your search term, plus their search volume, CPC, competition, and 12-month trends.
This is great for finding other keywords you might want to rank a piece of content for. It’s also helpful for finding new keyword and content ideas.
You can click on any of them to expand another widget that lists related terms. This goes as many levels deep as you want, which is great for building out content strategies.
5. PASF keywords
The “People Also Search For” section tells you what search engine users look for in addition to your search term.
It’s good for showing what others are most interested in, in addition to your product, service, or content.
You might want to consider some of these keywords for additional pages of content. There’s a chance they fit into the same customer journey, and ranking for them would give you more coverage.
In the example above, the CRM vendor might want to create additional pages for ERP integration, a “top 10” style review page, comparisons with Zoho and Apptivo, and (if it serves that purpose) a page dedicated to real estate agents.
6. Trending keywords
Keywords that are related to your search query and are also trending show up here.
This info comes straight from Google Trends, and there’s an additional column where you can see the 30-day % increase.
If you see something that’s up 1,000%, you might be late to the party. Or, if it’s a hot topic in your industry, now’s the time to give your two cents and get some easy attention.
7. Long-tail keywords
Keywords Everywhere gives you long-tail keyword suggestions right in the right-hand widget
Long-tail terms generally have lower search competition. They also tend to be more specific, meaning traffic from them tends to be more targeted and valuable (assuming you’ve done the keyword research process right).
8. Website traffic metrics
This doesn’t pertain to keywords, but you can check out each page’s traffic data right on the search engine result page.
This gives you a quick rundown of who’s getting most of the traffic and how many keywords they rank for.
It also hints at whether the CTR is high for that term. If the term itself has thousands of searches per month, but the result only gets a few hundred clicks distributed across the top 10 pages, it might not be worth your time.
9. Keyword finder
At the top of every SERP, there’s a button showing the Keyword Finder tool.
It uses Google’s autocomplete API to find thousands of potential keywords. It’s similar to a more comprehensive tool like Ahrefs or Semrush. And you can use it to go down the rabbit hole and find the optimal keywords for difficulty, value, and relevance.
Keyword data everywhere else…
You have 18 other options besides Google search.
They’re all great for finding different types of trends (and potentially content and keyword ideas), though many of them aren’t directly related to organic search.
Based on your other marketing and sales channels, choose the integrations that matter for your customer journey.
- Post on Twitter? Check it.
- Sell through Amazon in addition to your ecom site? Check it.
- Don’t do either? Uncheck them.
The only exception to this is if you use one of these platforms to get tons of new info about your industry. For instance, if a lot of people in your space are active on Twitter, Insta, etc., keeping those checked means you’ll have a more complete picture of what matters to your target audience.
My personal favorite is the ChatGPT plugin, which comes with 200+ ready-to-go templates. Some are great for SEO and content marketing. Plus, the plugin works with the paid and free version.
Start by opening ChatGPT. Navigate to the bottom left of the side menu and click on “Templates”.
It’ll let you choose a category, like SEO, copywriting, or social media. It’ll also let you choose a subcategory and command, like “local SEO” and “generate FAQ for Google Business profile.”
From there, it’ll prompt you to enter additional information.
Execute the template, and you’ll get the start of your conversation. You can continue it from here with prepackaged commands, or you can take the output it gives you.
These templates are fantastic for defeating writer’s block (though they, like any AI output, are in no way a finished product).
Competitor keyword gap analysis
Keyword gaps are opportunities where your competitors rank for keywords you don’t. I’ve written about how to do this in Ahrefs as part of an SEO competitor analysis.
Now, I’ll show you how I do it with this SEO tool.
1. Click the “Keyword Gap Analysis” button from the dropdown menu.
This is the dropdown menu you’ll find in the corner of your browser window.
2. Enter up to 5 competitors.
These should be direct competitors, not necessarily the companies that outrank you for a particular keyword on search engines.
As an example, Linkflow’s content competes with Search Engine Land, Backlinko, and plenty of other SEO blogs. But our primary business is offering SEO and link building services for ecom brands and SaaS companies.
In other words, those blogs will have tons of keyword and topical coverage for things that don’t concern our agency in the slightest.
3. Click “Find Keywords For My Website.”
This will show you all the keywords one or more of your competitors ranks for, but you don’t. It’ll also give you their performance for each keyword, as well as the stats for each.
From here, you can uncover untapped keywords (things you should be ranking for). You can also find subtopics worth covering within a broader topic (think of this as “related keywords”).
Honestly, the Ahrefs version has a lot more features for this, which is why I prefer to use that. It gives you powerful granularity, like the ability to find competitors’ featured snippets and narrow them down to “striking distance” keywords (those you rank in positions 11-20 for, but they rank in the top 10), and countless other things.
4. Evaluate keywords based on relevancy, difficulty, and trendiness.
Ideally, you want to look for keywords with:
- High relevancy
- Low competition
- A general uptrend
If you have a massive site, enterprise company, and large budget, you can go for high-difficulty keywords. For most, it isn’t worth your time (in the beginning).
How I use Keywords Everywhere
There are quite literally thousands of ways to use this extension. For anything more serious, you’ll have to use Ahrefs and spend the extra money. It just has more filtering options for things like keyword difficulty and SERP features.
But, I’ll show you two of my favorite ways to leverage its abilities.
Preliminary keyword evaluation
When I start the keyword research process, I use the SERP instead of heading straight to a keyword research tool for two reasons:
- It’s faster and easier to see if a keyword’s search intent is the best for my client because the results are right in front of me.
- Ahrefs credits are far more expensive for checking things like search volume data (and again, they’re easier to check on the SERP).
And to get a quick, reliable read on search intent, I scroll down and check for 3-7 things. Let’s say I’m working with a CRM vendor on a SaaS SEO campaign.
I’ll check for some combination of these:
- Advertisements on the SERP
- The type of content (“Top X,” “Best X,” “What Is X?”)
- Top-ranking pages’ quality and relevance (often in that order)
- SERP features like carousels or answer boxes
- Google’s autocomplete suggestions
- Results from YouTube, Pinterest, and Google Images (Google’s “verticals”)
Then, I look up at the volume, trend, intent, and competitiveness. If the term doesn’t meet the criteria for our strategy, I move on.
In Ahrefs, that’d take me a minute or two because I’d need to hop between the SERP and the app. With Keywords Everywhere, it takes me ~10 seconds.
Evaluate keyword meaning
I use the “related keywords,” “PASF,” and “long-tail keywords,” to see if the related keywords are what I’d expect. Sometimes learn that the keyword you entered has a totally different meaning in some other industry, and that’s what Google is showing.
Take “conversion rate optimization” as an example. Don’t use “CRO” as a keyword, unless you want to attract people looking for a “contract research organization”
This difference can also be more subtle than that — for instance, with the same keyword meaning, but for a different audience persona or spot in the funnel.
Keywords just serve as a starting point for B2B SEO.
You have to…
- Know your audience
- Create content that fits their intent
- Match that with search demand
- Optimize for the algorithm’s understanding of that intent
- Also optimize for conversions so it’s actually worth something
And you have to cover every stage of the funnel.
You can’t do that with just a keyword library. But you can do it with Linkflow in your corner.
