1. Find Keywords With Forums Ranking on the First Page Search Results
The most useful feature of Keyword Chef is being able to automatically analyze the search results in bulk. Instead of providing a keyword difficulty number, Keyword Chef will count the number of easy to outrank websites on the first page search results known as the SERP Score. These easy to outrank websites include forums, free blogging sites, social platforms, and more. You can easily customize which sites are counted by selecting predefined categories or adding a list of weak competitors.
For example, if you wanted to find keywords where Reddit was ranking on the first page, or even just on the top 3 or 1 results, you can do that in the Custom SERP Score settings.
The SERP Score will only appear when you click the magnifying glass on the keyword row or click the Get All SERPs button (for paid users only). Hovering over the SERP Score will show the SERP Preview Window with the counted sites highlighted.
2. Find Keywords a Competitor Is Ranking For
Have a weak competitor and want to find all the keywords they are ranking for? This is what you can do with the Domains Reports. The Domains Report tab will automatically appear when all the SERPs have been loaded. You’ll be able to see a list of all your competitors and find the keywords they are ranking for from your report. To make this even easier, Keyword Chef will color weak sites green and sort them at the top.
3. Topical Clustering
Covering every keyword on a particular topic is a great way to build authority with Google. As these pages are also closely related, it makes interlinking much easier too. In Keyword Chef, you can easily organize keywords this way.
To do this, select the Keywords Filter when viewing your report. By clicking a word from the list, you’ll be able to filter keywords that contain the selected word. Clicking the word once will turn it green and show keywords containing that word. Clicking the word twice will turn the word red and will ignore those keywords instead.
4. SERP Based Clustering
While topical clustering can be useful, what if you wanted to group keywords based on similar search intent? You can do this by checking the SERP of one keyword and comparing the results with the SERP of another keyword. If there is a high percentage of matching links in both SERPs, then Google believes the keywords have the same search intent.
While doing this manually is possible, it does take a long time. This is where Keyword Chef can help. When all the SERPs are loaded in your report, Keyword Chef will automatically cluster keywords for you. Next to each keyword, click the Similar badge. This will show you the clustered keywords. You’ll also see the keyword volume and how close the results match (% match).
5. Check AVG Word Count
While word count isn’t specifically a ranking factor, Google does warn us about thin content. Additionally, knowing the avg word count for the first page SERP can quickly tell us how well competitors are covering a particular topic. To make these averages more accurate, Keyword Chef ignores forum and e-commerce sites and even ignores comments in blog posts.
To see the avg word count, hover over the SERP Score. After a second, Keyword Chef will start calculating word counts for each site in the results. When complete, the word count will appear next to each URL with the avg word count on top.
6. Find PAA (People Also Asked) Keywords
Want to find extra keywords for free? When you use the Get All SERPs button (paid users only), the PAA badge will appear next to the keyword. Clicking the badge will reveal the top 4 PAA questions. You can use these keywords as sub-topics in your main article or create new articles about them.
7. Import Keywords From Other Tools
Importing keywords can be a great strategy to save credits. You can find keywords from other free and paid tools and import them into Keyword Chef. This will help you save credits by checking only the keywords you want. Keep in mind that importing keywords still costs 1 credit per imported keyword.
To get started, click the import icon next to the search bar on the Discover page and paste in your keywords. Keyword Chef will automatically remove any duplicate keywords as well.
8. Geo-Targeting
By default, Keyword Chef will get global keyword volume with US-based SERPs. To change the default country, click the globe next to the search box. Here, you’ll be able to select the country you wish to target. This is useful if you want specific country data, otherwise Global is preferred.
9. Ignore Keywords You Already Rank For
Knowing which keywords you already rank for is important to avoid keyword cannibalization. For large sites, knowing which keywords you are already ranking for is no easy task. After all, there could be keywords you are ranking for that you didn’t even know existed.
Thankfully, it’s easy to ignore these keywords in your report. When viewing a report, click on the Custom SERP Score button. Next, go to My Sites, where you can enter your domain. When your site appears on the first-page search results for a keyword, you can choose to hide or grey out the keyword in your report.
10. Perform Wildcard Search
Found a type of keyword you want to modify using the alphabet soup method? You can do that in Keyword Chef by using the Wildcard Search. For example, if you found the keyword, “can you cook steak in the oven”, you can easily modify the keyword for other foods by replacing “steak” with an asterisk, such as “can you cook * in the oven”.
11. Check Keyword Seasonality
Just knowing the latest month’s search volume for a keyword can be misleading. Oftentimes, keywords have some seasonality to them. This means throughout the year, the search volume may be higher or lower compared to its average. For example, “how to build a snowman with fluffy snow” will get more traffic in the winter than in the summer. In Keyword Chef, you can see the Avg, High, and Low search volume for the past 12 months. This will tell you the seasonality and help you decide if a keyword is worth going after.
12. Filter by Search Intent
Oftentimes, publishers want to target specific types of keywords. If you are going after buyer intent keywords, you can use Keyword Chef to find Best and vs keywords. Other times, you may want only questions. Keyword Chef allows you to focus on the right search intent. To see all the keyword categories, click on the Category dropdown next to the search bar.
As a bonus, Keyword Chef will automatically remove junk keywords for you, such as “near me” and dozens of othes.
13. Find Keywords With Missing Snippets
Targetting the featured snippet section in the search results is an easy way to jump the rankings. For example, if you are ranking #7 in the SERPs, you can get to position 0 simply by winning the snippet.
In Keyword Chef, you can find all the keywords without snippets by checking the Missing Snippet checkbox in the Volume/SERP filter.
14. Favorite and Ignore Keywords
A great way to keep track of keywords you want to target is by favoriting them. You can do this in Keyword Chef by clicking on the keyword to make it bold. Clicking on the keyword will make it grey. You can then easily filter by these keywords using the status filter.
15. Share Your Reports Publicly
Working with writers and want to share your report with them? You can make your reports shareable by clicking the privacy icon on the My Reports page. When the report is shareable, anyone with the link will be able to view the report but not make changes.