Keyword research runs

All keyword research in RankYak happens in runs, and every run is listed on the Research tab of the keywords page. Each run shows what started it, how far along it is, and what it found, so your topical map never changes without a visible reason. This page explains the kinds of runs you will see, how to start research of your own, and how the review step works.

The research tab

Go to Keywords in the left menu and open the Research tab. Every run appears here with its state: researching, ready for review, approved, or failed. Typically you will see a few kinds of runs.

• Core topics: the first research, started automatically when you confirm your core topics during setup.
• Goal research: research you started from a goal you described.
• Keyword import: a list of keywords you added by hand.
• Scheduled research: runs RankYak starts on its own to keep your map growing, when automatic research is enabled.

Starting your own research

Click New research on the Research tab. You may start a run in two ways.

If you would like RankYak to do the exploring, describe a goal: what you want to rank for, a product you are launching, or an audience you want to reach. RankYak researches new topics around your goal and fills them with the keywords you can win.

If you already have keywords in mind, switch to the keyword list and enter them one per line. Each keyword is enriched with search volume and difficulty, grouped with keywords that share its search results, and filed under a topic.

Reviewing a research

When a run finishes, its findings wait for your review before they count anywhere. A run's findings are keyword clusters: groups of related keywords that one article covers, each represented by its strongest keyword. Open the run to see the clusters it found, grouped by topic, with each keyword's metrics beside it. Reject the clusters that do not fit your site, then approve the rest. Approved clusters appear on your topical map and become available for the content plan; rejected clusters are archived, the same way archiving works anywhere on the map.

Of course, you may prefer to skip the review. The Auto-approve found keywords setting in your project settings approves every finished run automatically.

Automatic research

Two settings in your project settings control how much of this runs on its own.

• Automatic keyword research lets RankYak start scheduled runs that expand your topical map with new topics and keywords, until your cluster target is reached.
• Auto-approve found keywords skips the review step for every finished run.

Both switches start off, so you drive each research yourself until you turn them on; see your free trial for how the guided first pass uses them.