Research SEO Keywords and AEO Questions for Any Topic

Keyword Research Skill researches, identifies and prioritizes keywords for a topic, niche or website. It activates on requests such as keyword research, find keywords for a topic, what should I rank for, keyword analysis, keyword strategy, what are people searching for, and SEO keywords for a niche. It outputs a keyword research report with seed keywords, priority tiers, long-tail and AEO keywords, semantic terms, keywords to avoid, a cannibalization check, a keyword-to-content map, quick wins, a foundational content plan and a search-intent evidence table.

Use it when selecting target queries, understanding search intent, or turning a business goal into a prioritized content map. The skill starts by asking the owner which keywords, products, audiences, locations and business outcomes matter. If they do not know, it derives provisional candidates from the site, audit findings, competitor language and observed search results, and it does not silently replace owner-supplied priorities with guessed keywords.

Be careful with the numbers. The skill estimates difficulty and volume from semantic analysis and competitive signals, and unless live data is available, all figures are directional estimates and not verified data. It advises validating with a live tool such as Ahrefs, SEMrush or Google Keyword Planner before committing to a content strategy. If neither browser research nor a search API is available, it performs semantic research only and marks volume, difficulty, rankings and SERP observations as unverified. Search intent and competition also change over time, so findings must be checked against current result pages.

The input is a JSON object with the topic, business type, target audience, content goal (rank, convert, educate or all), an optional location, intent focus (informational, transactional, commercial, navigational or all), up to three competitor URLs, user keywords, site context, and a research mode of browser, api, both or unavailable, defaulting to both.

For live research, the skill prefers APIs for repeatable data and browser inspection for real result-page intent, related questions, snippets and current wording, and states which source it used. For each important query it records the exact query and market, the dominant intent (learn, compare, evaluate, buy, navigate or troubleshoot), visible problems and questions, ranking content formats, the conversion opportunity and owning page, and the date, source and confidence. Search intent outranks attractive but irrelevant volume.

The difficulty scale runs from 0 to 20 easy, 21 to 40 moderate, 41 to 60 competitive, 61 to 80 hard and 81 to 100 very hard. Volume labels run from very high at 100,000 and above, high at 10,000 to 99,999, medium at 1,000 to 9,999, low at 100 to 999 and very low under 100. CPC ranges signal commercial value: 0 to 1 dollar is low, 1 to 5 moderate, 5 to 15 high and above 15 very high.

The report has these parts: seed keywords with estimated volume, difficulty, CPC and intent; Tier 1 (target first, achievable), Tier 2 (build toward) and Tier 3 (long-term, high difficulty) keyword tables; long-tail keywords as the fastest wins; AEO keywords in question form with a suggested answer format, such as a definition sentence, numbered steps or a comparison table; LSI and semantic terms; keywords to avoid for wrong intent, being too broad, cannibalization or seasonality; a cannibalization check with a resolution; a keyword to content map in production order; and a quick wins summary of three keywords.

A foundational content plan recommends 5 to 10 pages, defaulting to 10 when there is enough distinct intent, each with a problem, query, intent, conversion path and evidence. It does not fill the table with near-duplicates, and if fewer than five distinct intents are defensible, it explains why and asks whether the owner prefers a smaller foundation or broader adjacent topics. A search-intent evidence table records query, market and date, SERP intent, ranking formats, user problem, source and confidence.

The execution has fourteen steps: define the semantic territory, generate 3 to 5 seed keywords, expand into long-tail variations, generate AEO keywords and LSI terms, collect live evidence before estimating difficulty, estimate volume, assign intent, tier the keywords, run the cannibalization check, build the avoid list and content map, mark which choices need owner confirmation, and verify choices against observed result pages.

It feeds seo-aeo-content-cluster, seo-aeo-landing-page-writer, seo-aeo-blog-writer and seo-aeo-meta-description-generator.

Marketers, founders and SEO specialists who need a prioritized keyword plan that is honest about what is estimated and what is verified.