In this blog post, we’ll explore how to build a content calendar using the Keyword Strategy Tool in Semrush. This powerful tool helps streamline your SEO content marketing efforts by identifying highly relevant target topics for your audience, ensuring your search intent aligns precisely with their needs.
Traditionally, keyword research and content planning have been manual and time-consuming processes. However, the Keyword Strategy Tool simplifies this by making SEO planning more efficient and enjoyable. It significantly reduces the time required to create a well-structured content calendar, allowing you to execute your content marketing strategy faster.
Now, let’s dive into this powerful SEO tool from Semrush and explore how it can help you build a successful content strategy!
Why a Well-Structured Content Strategy Matters
A well-structured content strategy is essential for SEO success.
Your content should:
✔ Be well-organized and aligned with your product or service offerings
✔ Engage your audience and address their pain points
✔ Support your marketing funnel, starting with top-of-the-funnel informational content
A recent study by Rand Fishkin and Sparktoro found that over 60% of Google searches are informational. If you focus only on highly competitive, low-search-volume transactional keywords, you’re missing out on significant traffic and revenue opportunities—in other words, you’re leaving money on the table.
The Solution: Data-Driven Research & Authority Positioning
To build an effective content strategy, you need to:
✅ Conduct thorough research to identify trending topics in your niche
✅ Understand common industry questions and address them in your content
✅ Position yourself as an authority to build trust and credibility
By taking these steps, you can increase brand awareness, drive more traffic to your site, and ultimately generate more revenue for your business.
The Challenge of Manually Organizing Keywords and Planning Content
Traditionally, keyword research and content planning have been tedious and time-consuming processes. The overwhelming number of potential topics can make it difficult to create a focused, streamlined SEO strategy. Without a structured approach, keyword organization often leads to confusion, inefficiency, and missed opportunities.
However, the Keyword Strategy Builder simplifies this process by helping you develop highly targeted content clusters that are easy to interconnect through internal linking. The tool structures its export by displaying pillar pages (main topics) alongside related subtopics, allowing you to expand your content strategically. This approach helps you:
- Target long-tail keywords for broader search coverage
- Ensure comprehensive topic coverage in your industry or niche
- Improve site structure and user experience with effective internal linking
Why Manual Topic and Keyword Research Falls Short
Before using the Keyword Strategy Builder, I relied on the Topic Research Tool in the Content Marketing section of Semrush. While this tool remains valuable for market research, it has limitations:
✅ Pros: Helps identify industry websites covering relevant topics and ranking for target keywords.
❌ Cons: Requires manual effort to build structured content clusters, making the process time-consuming.
In contrast, the Keyword Strategy Builder provides a more efficient, structured approach. Once you identify competitor websites ranking for specific keywords, you can enter those keywords into the Keyword Strategy Tool to uncover even more relevant search terms and content opportunities.
Beyond Basic Keyword Research
Traditional keyword tools like the Keyword Magic Tool or Google Ads Keyword Planner are useful for generating keyword ideas, but they lack the structured framework needed to build a comprehensive content calendar.
By leveraging advanced SEO tools like the Keyword Strategy Builder, you can:
- Automate keyword discovery and organization
- Build a scalable, data-driven content marketing strategy
- Enhance search visibility and drive long-term SEO success
Using these tools, you can streamline your content strategy, save time, and focus on creating high-quality, optimized content that meets your audience’s needs.
What is the Keyword Strategy Builder?
Overview of the Tool and Its Capabilities
Semrush’s Keyword Strategy Builder is a powerful suite of tools designed to simplify and enhance your keyword research and content planning process. It streamlines the often complex tasks involved in SEO strategy development, making it easier to discover, organize, and optimize keywords for your content.
Key Features and Benefits
- Keyword Discovery & Organization
At its core, the Keyword Strategy Builder helps you identify and structure relevant keywords. Simply enter seed keywords related to your business or industry, and the tool will generate a comprehensive list of:
- Long-tail keywords
- Question-based keywords
- Competitor keywords
For each keyword, it provides valuable metrics, such as:
- Search volume (how often a keyword is searched)
- Keyword difficulty (how competitive it is)
- Competitive density (how many advertisers are bidding on it)
These insights allow you to prioritize your efforts and focus on the most impactful keywords for your strategy.
- Content Planning & Keyword Grouping
Beyond keyword discovery, the tool helps you organize keywords into logical groups and topics. This enables you to create a structured content plan that aligns with your audience’s needs and search intent. With the Keyword Strategy Builder, you can:
- Create keyword lists for specific SEO campaigns
- Assign keywords to content pieces
- Track your progress over time
This systematic approach ensures your content remains targeted, relevant, and well-optimized for SEO success.
3. Seamless Integration with Semrush Tools
The Keyword Strategy Builder integrates seamlessly with other Semrush tools, such as:
- SEO Writing Assistant: A tool within SEMrush that helps optimize content for SEO by providing real-time recommendations for keyword usage, readability, and overall content quality based on target keywords and search intent.
- ContentShake AI: An AI-powered tool that helps generate high-quality, SEO-optimized content quickly by analyzing top-ranking pages and creating content that aligns with search intent and keyword strategies.
By centralizing keyword research, content strategy, and performance tracking within Semrush, the Keyword Strategy Builder serves as a comprehensive solution for SEO professionals, content marketers, and businesses looking to improve their organic visibility.
Getting Started with the Keyword Strategy Builder
To begin using the Keyword Strategy Builder, you’ll need up to five seed keywords. While you’re not required to use all five, I highly recommend doing so to maximize your results. You can choose seed keywords that are either very similar or completely different—experimenting with both approaches can help you discover the best strategy for your content.
Once you enter your five seed keywords, the tool will generate a list of main topics, subtopics, and supporting keywords. The export will contain a large dataset, providing you with plenty of topic ideas. You should have no problem identifying 5 to 10 topics that you can cover in the next month or two.
Understanding the Exported Data
When you export the Excel file from the Keyword Strategy Tool, you’ll notice it has two tabs:
- Keywords Tab – This contains a massive amount of raw keyword data, which can feel overwhelming and disorganized.
- Pages Tab – This is where you should focus your attention, as it presents structured insights for building your content plan.
Breaking Down the Pages Tab
The Pages Tab consists of multiple columns:
- Column A: Main pillar topics
- Column B: Indicates whether the topic in Column A is a main topic or a subtopic
- Column C: Suggested blog titles or content topics
- Column D: Relevant supporting keywords
- Column E: Keyword intent (e.g., informational, transactional)
- Column F: Search volume
- Column G: Keyword difficulty score
How to Use This Data to Build a Content Cluster
Start by reviewing Column C, which contains suggested blog titles or content topics. Identify topics that make sense for your content strategy and begin building a content cluster around them.
For example, let’s say one of the suggested topics is “Good Content”—which, on its own, is vague. However, the supporting keywords include “good content,” “high-quality content,” and “content quality”.
Based on this, you could refine the topic into something more actionable, such as:
- “What Is Good Content?”
- “How to Write High-Quality Content for SEO”
From here, you can add this topic to your content calendar, plan supporting content (such as blog posts and videos), and look for related topics that fit within the content cluster of writing quality SEO content.
By following this approach, you can efficiently organize your content marketing efforts and ensure your topics are well-structured, relevant, and optimized for search.
Maximizing Semrush’s Tools for a Smarter SEO Strategy
How to Use the Organic Research Tool for Competitor Analysis & Content Discovery
Another excellent strategy for expanding your content plan and discovering highly targeted topics for new website pages is to leverage the Organic Research Tool in Semrush.
1️⃣ Enter a relevant domain into the Organic Research Tool—this could be a competitor’s website or even a client’s site within your industry.
2️⃣ Once the data loads, navigate to the Topics Tab (a newer feature) and export the results.
3️⃣ In the exported file, Column A will list common topics.
4️⃣ Copy and paste these topics into the Keyword Strategy Builder for further exploration.
By analyzing which keywords your competitors are targeting and the content they’re producing, you can:
- Identify untapped keyword opportunities
- Refine your content strategy based on competitor insights
- Avoid duplicating efforts and instead focus on differentiation
This competitive edge helps you stay ahead in search rankings and develop a data-driven content marketing strategy. Using the Topics tab from the Organic Research Tool in combination with the Keyword Strategy Builder in this way helps uncover a wide range of related topics, many of which you may not have initially considered but are highly relevant to your industry.
Summary: Building a Smarter SEO Strategy
The Keyword Strategy Builder offers an efficient, structured approach to keyword research and content planning. By leveraging its powerful features, you can:
✅ Automate keyword discovery and organization
✅ Build structured content clusters that align with search intent
✅ Integrate seamlessly with Semrush tools for comprehensive SEO planning
✅ Create a scalable, data-driven content strategy that drives long-term success
While SEMrush provides structured instructions for its individual tools, combining them strategically allows you to maximize their potential, discover new content opportunities, and build a more comprehensive SEO strategy. By following this approach, you can gain deeper insights, refine your content plan, and improve your website’s search visibility.
By streamlining your keyword research and content organization, you’ll not only save time but also enhance your overall SEO performance, ensuring your content is well-optimized, relevant, and engaging for your target audience.