Keyword research with the Explorer

The Keyword Explorer is Rankion's answer to Ahrefs/Semrush — faster, more integrated, agentic. This guide shows you how a seed keyword turns into a complete topic cluster.

Open the Keyword Explorer

In the menu under SEO Suite → Keyword Explorer. The Explorer is part of the phase-2 SEO tools and uses the same data foundation as AI visibility tracking — search volume, difficulty, SERPs, trends. More background in Keyword Explorer & Research.

Quick research

Enter a seed keyword (e.g. vegan protein). Click Start research. Via the API:

curl -X POST https://rankion.ai/api/v1/keywords/research \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"keyword": "vegan protein", "country": "us", "language": "en"}'

Cost: 5 credits. The response comes back synchronously with the full data.

What the data means

The response contains:

• search_volume — average monthly searches
• kd_score — keyword difficulty (0–100). >70 = hard, <30 = easy to take
• parent_topic — overarching cluster keyword (important for topic architecture)
• traffic_potential — estimated click potential if you're in the top 3
• serp_urls — the current top 10 URLs in Google for this keyword
• monthly_searches[12] — the trend over the last 12 months (seasonality!)
• related[90] — up to 90 semantically related keywords
• questions[11] — up to 11 People-Also-Ask questions — gold for FAQ sections

Rule of thumb for picking topics: search_volume × (100 − kd_score) is your sweet-spot indicator. High searches, low difficulty = priority 1.

Cluster with A–Z expansion

An A→Z expansion systematically extends your seed keyword with long-tails (vegan protein weight loss, vegan protein bodybuilding, …, vegan protein zero carb). That way you build a 100+ keyword cluster in one step.

curl -X POST https://rankion.ai/api/v1/keywords/{id}/expand \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN"

Cost: 10 credits. Asynchronous, returns HTTP 202. Duration 2–3 minutes. Poll via:

curl https://rankion.ai/api/v1/keywords/{id}/expansions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN"

Once status: completed, you have a list of all long-tails plus volume, difficulty and intent classification per keyword.

Build storylines from keywords

The cluster is the raw material. A storyline is the editorial map built from it:

1. Pillar page — the main article on the parent topic
2. Cluster articles — 10–30 detail articles on long-tails, each with an internal link to the pillar
3. FAQ section — built on the questions[] from the research

In the Explorer, mark keywords with stars or tags and export the list — either as CSV or directly as article assignments into the editor. Then continue with Your first article with the AI Content Editor.

Tips

• Set country + language precisely. de_DE and de_AT often have very different SERPs.
• Track brand keywords separately. Your own brand doesn't belong in the topic cluster but in the AI visibility project — see Track AI visibility (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini).
• Check seasonality. If monthly_searches[12] shows a clear peak (e.g. "Christmas gifts"), publish articles 8–12 weeks ahead of time.
• Questions are mandatory. They serve featured snippets and at the same time get cited by LLMs particularly often.