Segment Keywords Into Groups

Segment keywords into groups

What is keyword grouping/clustering?

Keyword clustering is combining similar, relevant queries into groups and using whole groups instead of separate keywords for site optimization. It helps clean up the semantic core by dividing it into manageable groups.

Benefits of semantic keyword grouping

The beauty of keyword clustering is that it gives you a clearer picture of what content to create and how to organize it across pages, what phrases to rank for, and how to promote different segments of your site. 

• Better understand user intent. Topic-focused SEO offers a more thorough response to users: when you put similar phrases together, you target user intent instead of a single keyword and therefore you are more likely to cover this intent.
• Maximize the number of keywords to rank for. With clusters, you can rank for a number of related keywords instead of targeting single queries separately.
• Remove unnecessary keywords. Clustering makes a huge list of keywords more manageable and comprehensive—you will be able to spot irrelevant queries easily. SE Ranking’s keyword grouper software will provide you with ungrouped keywords that don’t match any topic the tool distinguishes and will let you recheck if you need them in your strategy. 
• Understand the potential of segments. Clusters you receive as a result will help you understand how different pieces of content are or should be connected. This process will allow you to see your site from the search engine’s perspective and evaluate different categories you have or should better have. 
• Create an effective site structure or analyze the existing one. Clustering helps you analyze semantic relationships between your pages and improve your site architecture.
• Boost your site’s visibility and authority. Thanks to keyword grouping, you can have a better grasp of semantics and make your content more powerful, which, in its turn, will make your website more authoritative in the eyes of search engines.
• Save time and eliminate errors. If done automatically, keyword clustering gives you all the above-mentioned benefits quickly and efficiently.

Manual vs. automated grouping

There are plenty of tools for automating the grouping process, although some might still prefer doing it manually with the help of Excel or other programs. It’s one thing when you have a hundred words, but when research for a project leaves you with thousands of keywords, imagine how time-consuming it will be to manage all of them manually. Manual clustering will require you to break each keyword into terms, define their intent, and make lists of phrases based on the parameters you need. 

The automated keyword clustering tool in SE Ranking will save you time and effort and will get the job done for you. You’ll get insights into what your keywords comprise and how to segment them into usable groups without the hassle of going over each and every query you’ve collected.

How to use Keyword Planner for creating keyword groups

Google Keyword Planner is a free keyword tool mainly used for Google Ads and PPC.

For SEO, however, you can use it to find keyword suggestions for building your keyword strategy. 

But for the purpose of this post, you can use Keyword Planner as a keyword grouping tool to help you cluster related keywords together. If you have a Google account, login from Google Adwords to access the tool. Once in, type in your topic on the text bar.

The tool will then generate keyword ideas that you can include in your campaign.

From the Keyword ideas page, click on Grouped ideas on the sidebar.

It will show you the keywords organized into groups.

To view the keywords for each group, click on the arrow button to show them.

From here, you can download the keywords ideas and organize them further manually onto a spreadsheet.

Using the Keyword Planner is the easiest and simplest way to group your keywords. It also doesn’t provide you with the most value.

For one, the tool doesn’t tell you how it grouped the keywords together (more on this later).

It also lacks features to help you analyze the clusters properly.

How to group keywords with SE Ranking

Now that we know how powerful keyword clustering can be, let’s dive into the mechanics of doing it using SE Ranking tools. 

Initial keyword research

To sort keywords into topic-centered groups, you need to collect a full list of keywords first. Collecting as many queries as possible is your first fundamental task in the process of building and promoting your website. The initial research process will help you explore what users are searching for in your niche and how your competitors handle keywords. 

SE Ranking’s Keyword Research tool includes Keyword Suggestions where you can find similar and related keywords. Explore the list of low-search-volume phrases to fully grasp your niche and expand the number of keywords to rank for. You can export your findings from SE Ranking and then sort keywords out in an xls. or csv. file.

Creating clusters

Now that you have a full list of keywords existing in your niche, it’s time to create manageable groups and eliminate the queries you won’t need. SE Ranking’s keyword grouping tool filters queries based on their SERP similarities. It looks for matches in the search results for given keywords and clusters phrases that rank for identical pages.

Let’s compare how grouping works if done manually and automatically and then review all the steps you need to take to cluster your queries in SE Ranking.

Manual keyword clustering

To create keyword clusters manually, you can filter the list by their semantics or type of intent. For example, you have a huge list of queries about ‘photo editing software.’ 

• You can identify all the different terms appearing in the search results (say, ‘photo editor,’ ‘photo program,’ ‘picture editor,’ ‘collage creator,’ and so on) and group those keywords that contain identical terms.
• You can group the queries based on their search volume, which will help you work on the site structure: high-volume keywords, brand keywords with lower volume, and low-volume keywords can represent, respectively, your site’s categories, subcategories, and filters.
• You can look for different types of phrases focusing on the search intent (questions like ‘how to install a photo editor,’ ‘is there a photo editor for mac,’ specifications like ‘photo editor for free,’ ‘best paid photo editor,’ and so on). To check the keyword’s intent, Google it and visit the most popular sites from the search results—this way, you’ll get a full picture of searchers’ needles and will be able to segment the queries more effectively.
• You can create tags for different aspects of a keyword: say, usage type (online and offline), transactional intent (buy, download, install, find, etc.), device specification (PC, Mac, Android, iOS, etc.). Then, you’ll have to cross-match the tags and create clusters.
• You can just go over each keyword separately and group them based on any other criteria you want. Manual or automated, keyword clustering largely depends on your niche and particular SEO goals.

Automated keyword grouping in SE Ranking

To start clustering keywords in SE Ranking, you need to select your region and interface language. Focus on the regions you want to promote your website in and perform grouping separately for each language if you’re targeting several of them. Then, you have to choose the level of grouping accuracy and the grouping method—these are the factors that will influence your results.

Finally, you have to insert your keywords—you can add them manually or import from a file. Select if you want to check the search volume on top of grouping (it can also be uploaded separately) and run the tool. Now you need to wait a bit while our robot looks for matching results and groups your keywords based on the given number of identical pages in the top-10 results.

Choosing clustering method and accuracy

Now, let’s dig into how different settings work. There are two major parameters to select: grouping accuracy and method.

How does keyword grouping accuracy work

Keyword grouping accuracy (ranges from 1 to 9) indicates the minimum number of matching URLs for the queries. For example, if you set it to 3, phrases will be grouped together only if they have 3 identical URLs in the search results. The higher the accuracy is, the fewer matches there will be and the fewer keywords will be included in each cluster.

Managing grouping results

Regardless of the chosen settings, each group is named after the keyword with the highest search volume. On the results page, you can access the information about the number of matching URLs, the top-10 results with the keywords included in groups, and snippets containing these keywords. If you choose to perform a search volume check, clustering results will also show this metric.

Once you know which groups work for you, check-mark and export them to your project. Under the project’s settings, you can create and name your own groups, as well as add comments to any keyword. There’s no automation in how to distribute the groups across the website’s pages: you can create several pages to cover a large keyword cluster, as well as combine a few clusters.

It’s reasonable to combine manual and automated approaches: by passing your keywords through an automated tool, you’ll be able to analyze how search engines see those phrases, and regrouping the clusters afterward will allow you to take into account your goals and a particular website’s structure.

You can use the following tools for keyword clustering:

• ZenBrief Keyword Clustering Tool (Free)
• Keyword Clarity
• GEOSCOUT
• Umbrellium
• Cluster AI