Where the keywords come from

The Keywords page is the pool the calendar plans from, described as "Every keyword behind your calendar, where it came from, and the one number that justifies it."

Reading it is the highest-value twenty minutes you can spend on the calendar, because this is where a plan you would not publish becomes visible before anything is written.

The four bands

Scheduled: "Already on a day. Not chosen again." These are the keywords behind the days on your grid.

Ready to schedule: "Measured demand, waiting for a free day." The queue, ordered by opportunity: "Highest opportunity first. This is the order they get scheduled in as days come free."

Not yet confirmed: "Found, but nobody has confirmed anyone searches for them." Keywords that were discovered but have no measured demand behind them yet. They stay out of the calendar until that changes.

Set aside: found, measured, and decided against. Each row says why in one sentence: too big to win at your site's authority, a search for somebody else's site, a misspelling, a term from a neighbouring field, or not your subject. Nothing is silently dropped, so a keyword you expected to see is either on the grid or here with its reason.

Where a keyword comes from

Each row says where it came from and why it is there. The sources:

Your Search Console queries, which are the strongest, because Google has measured that people search this and that your site already appears for it.

Your own pages, mined during the audit from what you already publish.

Competitors you named in the brief, through what they rank for and you do not.

A blog you pointed the calendar at, whose articles were read and the searches behind them worked out.

A topic you typed yourself.

Beside each keyword sit the numbers that justify it: searches a month, its difficulty on a 0–100 scale, and a priority score. Where the keyword came from a broader subject, the row says so.

How a keyword is judged

Before anything reaches the grid it goes through the same checks an SEO would run by hand.

Its difficulty is measured, and compared with what your site can realistically win. A brand-new domain is held to easy searches; the ceiling rises with your authority. A search you already rank just off page one for is exempt, because Google has settled that question.

Head terms are refused however easy they look: "digital marketing" is the whole market competing for one phrase.

Phrasings are folded. "seo tools", "tool seo" and "tools for seo" are one search and get one article.

Then every remaining keyword is read against your brief — twice, independently — and kept only if both readings agree it is a subject your business has standing to answer, for a person who is actually your buyer. When in doubt it is set aside, with the reason.

The demand check

A keyword nobody searches for produces an article nobody reads, however well written.

So keywords that have not been confirmed by search data sit in the third band and are not scheduled. Check demand looks one up against the market and moves it if it holds up.

This is why the third band is worth reading. A plan built only from your own pages will find plenty of phrases that appear on your site and that nobody actually searches for.

One exception, deliberately. A topic you type yourself goes straight in and skips the check, because you know your market better than a keyword tool does. See refreshing your topics.

One keyword, one day

A keyword scheduled onto a day is not chosen again. That is what the first band's description means.

It stops the calendar writing four near-identical articles about the same search, which is what happens when a keyword tool hands you five phrasings of one question.

Auditing the plan

The habit worth building, before anything is written.

Read the scheduled band. Ask of each row whether you would be happy to publish that article under your own name. Anything you would not, remove from the grid: the keyword returns to the pool rather than being destroyed.

Read the third band. If it is full of phrases that have nothing to do with your business, the brief is probably wrong. Fix the brief and refresh, rather than fighting the symptoms one day at a time.

Read the sources. A plan whose keywords all come from your own pages is a plan that will restate what you have already published.

When it is empty

Before a build there is nothing to show, and the page explains what will fill it: Rankbench will mine your Search Console queries and your own pages.

If the pool empties later, the calendar says so on the grid and tops itself up on its next daily run.

Where to go next

Reading the calendar is where these become days. Refreshing your topics is how you change what the pool contains.