How does keyword research work?
Connect your own Ahrefs or Semrush API key for keyword volume and difficulty in Keywords & prompts, or start from Search Console and a starter prompt set without one.
Keyword research in WriteWorks shows the real search demand behind the topics you write about, then helps you turn the best keywords into prompts tracked across 10 AI engines. This article explains where keyword data comes from, what works with and without a connected provider, and how to set it up.
You will find it under Research → Keywords & prompts. It has four areas: Research, where you look up a keyword; Discover, which suggests candidate prompts from the queries you already rank for in Search Console; Your prompts, the prompts you are tracking and the lists you have grouped them into; and History.
Keyword figures — search volume, difficulty, related terms and SERP results — come from your own Ahrefs or Semrush account. You connect your API key under Settings → Integrations, and WriteWorks uses it to pull live figures. If you connect both, Ahrefs is used. The two return slightly different data: Ahrefs provides volume, difficulty, related terms and SERP results, while Semrush's standard API does not offer per-keyword SERP results, so Semrush users get volume, difficulty and related terms only. The same data also enriches the page scans behind Opportunities.
If you do not connect a provider, you are not blocked. You can still generate a starter set of prompts anchored on your brand profile, and Discover still works from your Search Console data. The keyword box simply shows a prompt to connect a provider until you add a key.
How to connect a provider
- Open Settings → Integrations.
- Choose Ahrefs or Semrush and paste in your API key. The Ahrefs card links to where you can find your token.
- Save. WriteWorks checks the key before saving it, so an invalid key is flagged straight away.
- Open Keywords & prompts and research a keyword to see live volume and difficulty.
A few things to keep in mind
- Your key stays with your organisation and is health-checked daily, so you will see if it stops working.
- Tracking a prompt starts collecting answers across all 10 AI engines in the background.
Tip: no provider yet? Start with Discover and the starter prompt set, then add a key later whenever you want volume and difficulty numbers.
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