How to use the Matching terms report

In this report, we show keyword ideas that contain your target keyword or phrase.

Toggle for “Questions” to see keywords phrased as questions or “All” to see all keyword ideas.

You can also choose between two modes:

• Terms match. This mode shows you all keyword ideas that contain all the words from your query in any order. For example, if your seed keyword is “lose weight”, then “how much weight can you lose in a month” would appear here.
• Phrase match. This mode shows you all keyword ideas that contain your target keyword or phrase in the order it’s written. For example, if your seed keyword is “lose weight”, then “how to lose weight” would appear here.

Below are some actionable ways to use this report.

Find high-volume, low-competition keyword ideas

Set the search volume filter to a minimum value of 500 and the Keyword Difficulty (KD) filter to a maximum of 10.

Here are some potential weight loss-related keywords that may be worth targeting.

NOTE. The numbers suggested for the search volume and KD filters will vary based on the breadth of your niche. Feel free to play around with the filters until you get a list of keywords you’re satisfied with.

Find keywords with SERP features

SERP features are anything in the search engine results pages that are not traditional search results (i.e., ten blue links.) For example, here’s a featured snippet:

Depending on your goals, you can filter for different types of SERP features. For example, you can filter for featured snippets, knowledge panels, people also ask boxes, and so on.

Find informational keywords

Informational queries are those that searchers use to gain more knowledge on a topic. Typically, they have modifiers like:

• how
• what
• who
• where
• why
• guide
• tutorial
• resource
• ideas
• tips
• learn
• examples

Enter these modifiers in the “Include” box. Select “Any word.”

Click “Apply” to see queries that include one or more of the modifiers in your list.

Find transactional keywords

Transactional keywords are queries where searchers likely have purchase intent (i.e., they're looking to buy something). Typically, they have modifiers like:

• buy
• coupon
• order
• purchase
• cheap
• price
• pricing

Enter these words in the Include box. Select “Any word.”

Click “Apply."

See keyword ideas based on terms

Looking for keyword ideas with particular modifiers or terms? You can find them easily in the “Terms” column.

Click on the modifier that best fits what you’re looking for.

Find relevant questions and subtopics

Let’s say you own a gardening website and want to find topic ideas.

Enter a few seed keywords (e.g., “plants"). Then click the “Parent topics” toggle.

Parent Topic determines if you can rank for your target keyword while targeting a more general topic instead. To identify the Parent Topic, we take the #1 ranking page for the keyword and find the query responsible for sending the most search traffic to that page.

You can now see keyword ideas listed by these “Parent topics”.

A topic worth considering here is "perennial flowers."

Clicking it shows us a cluster of long-tail queries with the same Parent Topic (“perennial flowers”.)

Some of these could make great subtopics for your post.

See SEO metrics for the top-ranking pages

Click the “SERP” button beside any keyword to see the SERP Overview.

This shows the first page of search results for your keyword along with important SEO metrics.

Analyze these metrics to assess the ranking difficulty of your target keyword.

Keep learning

Check out this video to learn how to do keyword research:

Or read some of the articles on the Ahrefs blog:

• How To Do Keyword Research for SEO
• What Are Long-tail Keywords? How to Find and Use Them