AI keyword research tool

Why an agent needs real keyword data

Ask a chat model for the search volume of a keyword and it will give you a number. That number is a guess. Models have no live keyword database, so the volumes, difficulty scores and "top ranking pages" they list are made up to look plausible.

SEO Skill gives your agent the real thing through an MCP server: your own Search Console queries, plus keyword, SERP, competitor and backlink data from your DataForSEO or Ahrefs account. The agent still does the thinking (grouping keywords, spotting gaps, picking a target), but every number it quotes came from a source you can check.

Set up keyword research in your agent

1. Add the hosted MCP server to Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, ChatGPT or any client with remote MCP, and sign in with Google. The commands are at the top of this page.
2. Save a DataForSEO or Ahrefs key on your account page. The provider bills you directly, and SEO Skill adds nothing on top. Every DataForSEO result says what the request cost.
3. Ask for keyword research in plain words, like the prompts below.

Prefer a terminal? npm i -g seo then seo start gives you the same research as the seo research command, with the key kept on your machine.

Start from the searches you already get

For a site that already gets traffic, start with the searches Google already shows it for. Before you spend a credit, ask for the queries where you are close:

Show me the striking-distance and quick-wins queries for example.com

The SEO report lists striking distance keywords just outside the top positions and pages that rank but get fewer clicks than they should. The ai-queries section finds searches that read like AI prompts and follow-ups, which often name a gap in your content. This is Search Console data, so it is what people actually typed.

For every query with its page, clicks and position, ask for an SEO keyword report. To pick which searches to work on first, the keyword opportunities page shows how each one is scored by the clicks it could win.

Find long-tail keywords from a seed

Give me keyword ideas for "invoice template" and "invoice generator" in the UK

Keyword ideas take up to 5 seed keywords and return the searches that contain each one, highest volume first. That is where the long tail lives: the "free invoice template for contractors" searches that one focused page can win when the head term cannot.

Size keywords with volume, difficulty and CPC

Get search volume, keyword difficulty and CPC for this list of 40 keywords

Keyword metrics take up to 100 keywords at once. Read cost per click next to volume: a keyword advertisers pay $20 a click for usually has buyers behind it, even at 50 searches a month.

Check who ranks before you pick a keyword

Show the top 10 for "ai tools for keyword research" with each site's Domain Rating

Difficulty scores are a provider's model. The results page is the evidence. A SERP request lists the ranking pages for up to 5 keywords, each with its domain's authority and a free column of Domain Rating by Ahrefs, and the sites an AI Overview cites when Google shows one. A page one full of sites weaker than yours is a better bet than a lower difficulty score.

To decide whether a set of keywords needs one page or several, ask for a SERP overlap. It counts how many top 10 pages each pair of searches shares. Lots of shared pages usually means Google treats them as one topic.

Find the keywords your competitors rank for

What does competitor.example rank for that example.com doesn't?

Ranked keywords list what a site, a subfolder such as competitor.example/blog/, or one page ranks for. Top pages show where a competitor's search traffic comes from, and competitors finds the domains that share your keywords. Your agent can set those beside your own Search Console queries to find the gaps. The two sources stay apart: a provider's estimate never gets added to your clicks. The keyword gap analysis page walks through that comparison, and SEO competitor analysis starts one step earlier, with who your search competitors are.

See whether AI answers cite you

Keyword research for AI search starts from the questions people ask. With a DataForSEO key, your agent can ask ChatGPT search, Google AI Mode and AI Overviews up to 10 questions and see whether each answer cites or mentions your site, and which sites it cites instead. A run of 10 questions costs about 7 cents. The AI visibility checker page covers it in full.

A real example from this page

We researched this page the way it describes. Keyword ideas for "ai keyword research" and "keyword research mcp", then keyword metrics, from DataForSEO for the US in November 2026. Searches are monthly, and KD is DataForSEO's keyword difficulty from 0 to 100:

The head terms belong to the big keyword tools, and a new page will not move them. The SERP for "ai tools for keyword research" told a different story: four of its top six results came from sites with a Domain Rating under 20. That is the kind of keyword a focused page can win, so it is one this page aims at.

What each research action returns

Every request takes a two-letter country code. Backlinks are covered on the backlink checker, link gaps on the backlink gap analysis page, and both in the seo research docs.

What keyword data cannot tell you

Search volumes are estimates. DataForSEO reports Google Ads' 12-month average, Ahrefs uses its own model, and the two can differ several times over for the same keyword, so compare keywords within one provider. A keyword with no data has an unknown volume, not zero. Difficulty is each provider's own score. When you want to know what your pages actually get, your Search Console is the number to trust.