Adding and managing keywords
How to add keywords, what the cap does when you cross it, and which keywords are worth a slot.
Adding them
Open the site, then Keywords, then paste one per line. Duplicates within a site are refused rather than silently merged, so a paste of 200 lines with 30 repeats adds 170 keywords and tells you about the 30.
The cap, and what happens at it
Every plan has a keyword cap and the cap counts active keywords. Adding past it is refused with the numbers stated: "You have 123 of 125 keywords." Raise the plan, or pause something.
An extra country doubles a site's checks, and each country's copy of a keyword counts separately against the cap. That is worth knowing before adding a second country to a site that is already near its limit.
Pausing rather than deleting
A paused keyword stops being checked and keeps every position it ever had. Deleting one removes it from the list and still keeps the history, because positions are never deleted on any plan. Pause is almost always the right choice: a keyword you stop caring about this quarter is often one you care about next quarter, and the graph is worth more unbroken.
Keywords 48 tracked, Computer, Australia
Sample data
| Keyword | Position | Last 30 days | Volume | Top ranking page |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| rank tracker australia ★ priority | 3▲ 1 | soon | /pricing | |
| white label seo reports ★ priorityworking on | 4▲ 7 | soon | /reports | |
| seo audit tool | 7no change | soon | /audit | |
| keyword rank checker AI, not cited | 9▼ 6 | soon | /docs/keyword-rank-checker/ | |
| wordpress seo plugin AI cites you | 2▲ 1 | soon | /plugin | |
| search console clicks nearly there | 12▲ 3 | soon | /docs/search-console/ | |
| woocommerce seo plugin working on | 6▼ 1 | soon | /plugin/shop | |
| seo reporting software ★ priority | 1no change | soon | /reports |
Which keywords are worth a slot
- One clear page should be able to answer it. If no page on the site is about it, the keyword is measuring the absence of a page rather than the ranking of one.
- Prefer the phrasing with the buying intent. "seo audit tool" and "what is an seo audit" are different jobs and usually different pages.
- Track a handful of competitor-shaped terms on purpose. The whole top 20 is stored per check, so you will see who else is in the race whether you asked for it or not.
Marking what you are working on
A keyword can be flagged as working on. Flagged keywords get their own page in every report, which is the page a client reads first. Flag the ones you agreed to move, not the ones that are already fine.
When to stop adding
The useful size of a list is the number you will read. For most single sites that is between twenty and eighty.
Past that, the list stops being something you look at and becomes something you search. That is fine on an agency account with a reporting workflow around it, and it is usually a mistake on your own site, where the whole point is noticing something on a Tuesday morning.
If you find yourself adding keywords because the plan allows more, the plan is not the reason. Add one when you can name the page that should answer it.
Keywords that are worth removing
Your own brand name, mostly. You rank first for it and you will keep ranking first for it, and watching that happen every day costs a slot.
Phrases with no page. A keyword measuring the absence of a page is a note to yourself in an expensive place. Write the page, then track it.
Phrases you will not act on. If the honest answer to "what would you do if this fell to 30" is nothing, it is not worth a slot.
Two countries, one site
An extra country is a flat monthly add-on for that site rather than a second site, so the keywords, the crawl and the history stay together. Each country's copy of a keyword is checked separately and counts separately against the cap, which is the thing to plan for before you add one.