The Keyword Strategy Builder (previously Keyword Manager) (available only with a paid subscription) provides a deeper analysis of up to 10,000 keywords at a time.
This tool helps you visualize and build an entire SEO content strategy using Topics and Pages.
When you enter your seed keywords, Keyword Strategy Builder creates a clear map of pillar pages and subpages, guiding you on what pages to create for your website and what keywords to use.
When you refresh the metrics, you’ll see if any SERP Features or top competitors for a keyword have changed since Semrush’s last update.
Creating a List and Adding Keywords
You will create a list and add keywords to start using the tool. Keywords can be added to the Keyword Strategy Builder in several ways:
- From the Keyword Strategy Builder homepage
- From the Keyword Magic Tool main table
- From the Keyword Gap tool
- From Organic Research (Positions and Position changes tabs)
- From Keyword Overview
- Imported manually
To add keywords from the Keyword Strategy Builder homepage, you can create either a structured list (1) or a regular list (2).
For a structured list, enter up to five seed keywords, and the tool will create a list for you with topics, pillar pages, and subpages.
Generating a structured list can take some time, but you’ll receive an email when it's completed.
After the tool creates your list with topics and pages, you’ll see something like this:
You’ll see each pillar page and subpage’s intent, KD%, volume, and number of keywords.
To add keywords from Keyword Overview to Keyword Strategy Builder, hover over the + sign next to the keyword and start a new list or choose an existing list to add this keyword to. By clicking the + sign, you will send the analyzed keyword to the default Keyword Strategy Builder list.
To add keywords from Keyword Magic Tool to the Keyword Strategy Builder, click on the checkbox next to the individual keyword and select the blue “Add to keyword list” button.
Alternatively, you can click on the + sign next to each keyword and send the selected keyword to your Keyword Strategy Builder list.
The Keyword Gap tool offers the same options for adding keywords; use either the blue “+ Add to keyword list” button or the + sign next to each keyword.
This process is the same for your keywords in Organic Research. Simply click the add to Keyword Strategy Builder button or the + sign in your Organic Research Reports.
Locate the “Add keywords” button at the top right of the Keyword Strategy Builder screen to add keywords manually. The following window will allow you to add up to 10,000 keywords to the Keyword Strategy Builder (add one keyword per line or separate by a comma).
List Types
It is possible to create a structured, clustered, or regular list in Keyword Strategy Builder.
As mentioned above, you can create a structured and regular list from the Keyword Strategy Builder homepage.
Creating clustered lists from regular lists with the “Cluster this list” button is possible.
A structured list shows the Topics and Pages report and Table report. Structured lists construct a website content plan with pillar pages and sub-pages.
A clustered list shows the Topics and Pages report, Mind Map report, and Table report. Keyword clustering is the process of grouping similar keywords based on search intent. You can find more information about keyword clustering here.
A regular list shows only the Table report.
Topics and Pages
First, you will see the Topical Overview widget in the Topics and Pages tab. This widget categorizes and prioritizes your keywords into Topics and Pages. It creates a clear map of pillar pages and subpages, guiding you on what pages to create for your website and what keywords to use.
A Topic is a group of keyword clusters, organized by theme and importance, designed for your website's main Pillar pages and their Subpages.
Pages consist of a list of Pillar and Subpages, each with keywords specifically associated with them.
Click on a page to see the keywords and metrics.
You will see a detailed overview of the topic keywords for the Pillar and Sub-pages in the Page Details list by clicking on a chosen Topic Overview.
Each page and subpage is linked to specific keywords that can be targeted together with a single page to promote the website effectively. With each page, it’s easy to see the keywords' total volume and average difficulty.
Your list of pages will be ordered based on having high search volume and low keyword difficulty. You can adjust the sorting of your pages in different ways.
A green “high ranking potential” tag indicates a combination of high volume and low keyword difficulty.
The Intent column shows the page's intent, which should dictate the type of content you use to cover the topic.
The Write content button lets you send this cluster straight to the SEO Writing Assistant.
Expanding a page reveals all of its keywords and the content references for the page. The trash can icon allows you to remove a keyword from your Keyword Strategy Builder list.
Table
The Table report is another way to view your keywords.
With your keywords in the Keyword Strategy Builder, you can analyze their:
- Intent
- Page
- Volume
- Trend
- CPC
- Competitive Density
- Keyword Difficulty %
- SERP Features
- Click Potential
- Top Competitors
- Last Changes (Last Update)
To narrow the focus of your report, use the filters above the table. You can filter by keyword, databases, SERP features, search intent, tags, or by a specific metric.
Mind Map
The Mind Map report is another way to view your clusters. You can see each seed keyword used to generate your list and every cluster related to those seed keywords.
Inside the purple circle is the name of your list. Then, you’ll see your seed keywords branching out toward the clusters.
Hover over a cluster to see its intent, number of keywords, and overall volume.
Intent
The Intent column shows a user’s search intent for each keyword. If you hover over the intent mark, you will see the purpose of the search. This feature enriches your keyword research with an automated intent analysis.
The Intent filter is useful for bucketing keywords as you can quickly group terms by user intent: transactional, commercial, informational, and navigational. Use this data to revise your existing content or create new content matching the intent of the user—the right content will attract the right audience.
After you have filtered by intent, you can export the report for the filtered group and also send the group to other tools (SEO Writing Assistant, Position Tracking, and PPC Keyword Tool).
Tagging Keywords
Adding tags can separate keywords into groups. You can tag your keywords in the Keyword Strategy Builder with checkboxes or simply click the tag field under a keyword.
Then, you can filter your list by tags, export by tags, and send tagged keywords to other tools (Position Tracking and PPC Keyword Tool).
Updating Metrics
The Top Competitors and Click Potential will be listed only after clicking the Update Metrics button. Once clicked, you will see the list of snippets in the top 10 results on the SERP for the keyword at that given time.
Specific metrics, such as search volume or CPC, are displayed monthly from when you added or last updated them. In contrast, metrics like SERP Features, KD%, or Top Competitors can be updated manually to show real-time results.
Please note: Users are limited depending on their subscription level.
Keyword Manager (Refresh Keywords per month)
Free - n/a
Pro - 250
Guru - 1000
Business - 5000
Sending Keywords to Other Lists and Other Tools
The Send keywords button in Keyword Strategy Builder allows you to send all your keywords or only selected ones to other keyword lists. You can choose to copy (in this case, the selected keywords would appear in both lists) or move (keywords are removed from the current list and pasted into another) them to a new list.
The Keyword Strategy Builder lets you send keywords to SEO Writing Assistant, Ads Launch Assistant app, or your Position Tracking and PPC Keyword Tool campaigns in your Projects.
When you send keywords to the SEO Writing Assistant, you’ll be navigated to that tool where you can add your text and grade your content’s SEO potential.
Please note: You can send the SEO Writing Assistant from Keyword Strategy Builder a maximum of 30 keywords and 1 cluster at a time. If you try to send more than 30, you’ll notice a 30-keyword limit, and Semrush will pick the most valuable keywords to send to the tool.
When you send keywords to the Ads Launch Assistant app and already have a subscription, you'll be prompted to go straight to the app’s interface.
From there, you can either pick an existing Search campaign and ad group or make a new campaign to move your keywords over.
If you're new to the Ads Launch Assistant, you'll be asked to get the app and set up a Google Ads account. For more information about the app, check out the article here.
Please note: You can only send your keywords to Search campaigns. This feature is not available for Smart campaigns because of Google's limits, which cap the number of keywords at 10 in Smart Campaigns.
To send keywords to Position Tracking or PPC Keyword Tool, you must first have a campaign set up.
Lists sharing
You can share existing Keyword Strategy Builder lists through the main Keyword Strategy Builder page:
The Share button is located right above your Keyword lists. Once you click the button, a pop-up will appear and ask you to select a list (or several lists) you'd like to share. Then, you will enter a user's email address you wish to grant access to your lists. You can share a list with multiple people by entering each email separated by a comma.
You can decide whether to share with Viewer or Editor access. Users with Editor access can make changes to your lists.
Please note that when other users use the Update Metrics feature on the lists you shared with them, your Keyword refresh limits are affected.
You can also find a Share button to the right of each list:
Clicking on it will open the Share settings of a list, where you can share the chosen list, view all users a list is shared with, change permissions, or stop sharing.
If you are the recipient of a shared list, you can view all the lists shared with you by going to the Keyword Strategy Builder and selecting the Shared with Me tab:
Here, you can see the email of the list's owner and leave shared lists if needed.
Only the Owner of the list can delete it.
Corporate account owners have Editor access to their subusers’ lists by default.
Limits
Limits for using Keyword Strategy Builder depend on your subscription level and are as follows:
Number of total keywords you can add to Keyword Strategy Builder in all of your lists:
- All subscriptions: 100,000 keywords
Number of times you can cluster or structure a keyword list per month:
- Free - 0 times
- Pro - 10 times
- Guru - 30 times
- Business - 50 times
The action of clustering or structuring a list counts against these limits.
Even if you create a new list that has 35 clusters, that action will count against your limits as 1.
Deleting keyword lists does not restore limits. Limits renew each month, so a Pro subscription allows you to cluster a list 10 times monthly.
The number of keywords you can refresh metrics for per month:
- Free - 0
- Pro - 250
- Guru - 1,000
- Business - 5,000
List sharing limits:
- All paid users can share lists with Editor access with other paid users.
- All paid users can share lists with Viewer access with all users (including Free users).
- Free users cannot share Keyword Strategy Builder Lists.