How every number is calculated

Evidence labels

Observed data was fetched during your run: your pages, robots.txt and sitemap, competitor pages, and autocomplete suggestions from Google, YouTube, Amazon and Bing. Benchmark data comes from a named publication with a date. Modeled values come from the formulas below. AI-inferred items were suggested by Claude and should be checked. Not checked means we didn't have the data; it is not a failed check.

Keyword universe

Keywords are built from your services combined with patterns that match your business model (for a local service: "service near me", "service in city", "best service in city", "service cost"…), your category's common questions, your own seed keywords and live autocomplete suggestions. Duplicates are merged and each keyword keeps its strongest source.

Search volume (modeled range)

Volume = category demand per million internet users × effective internet users for your scope × language factor × service position × pattern share. Effective users are the country's internet users for national scope, 8% of them for a region, or the city's population × 0.7 for local scope. The midpoint is shown as a range from 0.5× to 1.6×, rounded to the buckets keyword tools use. With DataForSEO connected, measured Google Ads volumes replace modeled ones for the top 100 keywords and are labelled Observed.

Keyword difficulty (modeled)

Difficulty starts from the category's typical organic competitiveness, then adjusts for intent (local results are easier, comparison results harder), length (each word beyond two lowers difficulty), aggregator-heavy categories, the market's price tier and global scope. It is a relative 0 to 100 score for prioritising, not a third-party metric.

Cost per click

CPC = the category's 2026 Google Ads average from LocalIQ × the country's price level relative to the US × an intent multiplier (transactional 1.2, local 1.1, commercial 1.0, informational 0.35, brand 0.5).

Clicks and traffic value

Each keyword gets a realistic target position from its difficulty (KD under 25 → #2, under 40 → #4, under 55 → #6, under 70 → #9, otherwise outside the top 10). Expected clicks use First Page Sage's 2026 CTR curve, blended between the "AI answer shown" and "no AI answer" curves by how often AI answers appear for that intent. Local keywords also count the map pack. Traffic value is clicks × CPC: what the same visits would cost as ads.

Opportunity score

Keyword score = 27% volume (log scale) + 22% intent value + 14% CPC + 27% winnability (100 − difficulty) + 10% relevance. The report's Opportunity index = 45% average of the top 10 keyword scores + 25% average winnability + 15% breadth of strong platforms + 15% commercial value.

Platform fit

Each platform has a baseline fit for ten business models, adjusted by category (for example Pinterest for interior design), by your goal, by scope (Maps matters less for national sellers), and by country rules (TikTok unavailable in India, WhatsApp less central in the US). Live autocomplete from a platform adds a small boost. Tiers: Core 75+, Strong fit 60 to 74, Worth testing 45 to 59.

Forecast and revenue

The 12-month forecast applies an S-shaped ramp to potential clicks, with the midpoint later for harder keyword sets. Revenue = clicks × visit-to-enquiry rate × enquiry-to-customer rate × customer value. Defaults are half the category's paid-search conversion rate, a typical close rate for your business model and an average customer value adjusted to your country's price level. You can change all three in the report.

Site audit scoring

Each check passes, needs improvement or fails, with severity P0 to P3 weighted 10, 6, 3 and 1. The score is the weighted share of passes (improvements count half).

Limits

Modeled numbers are directional. Rankings vary by device, location and personalisation. Lab timings from one fetch are not real-user Core Web Vitals. AI suggestions can be wrong. Nothing here guarantees rankings or revenue.