Keyword Research in Python: Ideas, Search Volume, Difficulty and Intent for ~$3 per 1,000 Keywords

#seo #python #marketing #api

Most keyword research comes down to one loop: start from a few seed terms, expand them into everything people actually search, then keep the ones with real volume and a difficulty you can win. Here's how to run that loop from code, paying per keyword instead of per month, plus what a real run returns and where the data falls short.

Three ways to expand seeds

Disclosure: we (SteadyScrape) built the tool below and get paid when it's used.

Keyword Research Tool: Ideas, Volume, KD & Intent (steady-scrape/keyword-research-explorer) is an Apify Actor with three modes:

Mode	What you get
`ideas` (default)	The widest topical list. All seeds are researched together.
`suggestions`	Long-tail phrases that contain each seed (`coffee grinder for espresso`).
`related`	Google's "searches related to" for each seed, up to 4 levels deep. Good for topic clusters.

Every keyword comes back with monthly search volume (plus the last 12 months), CPC and top-of-page bid range, keyword difficulty (0–100), search intent, SERP features and trend percentages (vs last month, 3 months and 1 year ago).

What a real run returns

We ran the Actor's prefilled example input: one seed, coffee grinder, in ideas mode, 25 keywords, minimum volume 10, United States / English.

25 keywords returned (out of 615,725 ideas available for that seed), in about 3 seconds.
Cost at the Free-plan list price: $0.02 run + $0.02 database request + 25 × $0.003 + $0.00005 Apify start fee = $0.115.

A few of the rows:

Keyword	Volume	CPC	KD	Intent	Yearly trend
coffee maker	201,000	$0.83	32	transactional	0%
ninja coffee maker	135,000	$0.57	7	transactional	+50%
coffee machine	90,500	$1.02	35	transactional	+22%
cold brew coffee maker	49,500	$0.77	1	transactional	-33%
best coffee makers	40,500	$1.10	18	commercial	-18%
coffee pods	27,100	$2.40	5	transactional	0%

Be aware that ideas mode is broad: the same 25 rows also included coffee shops, 7 brew coffee and a few roaster brand names. That's useful for mapping a whole topic, but for a tight list use suggestions mode (every keyword contains the seed) or add includeWords / excludeWords.

Example: low-competition topics for a content calendar

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("steady-scrape/keyword-research-explorer").call(run_input={
    "seedKeywords": ["coffee grinder", "espresso machine"],
    "mode": "ideas",
    "limitPerSeed": 200,
    "location": "United States",
    "language": "English",
    "minSearchVolume": 50,
    "maxKeywordDifficulty": 40,
    "excludeWords": ["repair"],
})
for row in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(row["keyword"], row["searchVolume"], row["keywordDifficulty"], row["searchIntent"], row["trendYearlyPct"])

Filters (volume, difficulty, intent, include/exclude words, questions only) run before you're charged, and duplicates across seeds are removed for free.

Turning the list into content

Questions only (questionsOnly: true) gives you FAQ and blog-post titles straight away.
Group by searchIntent: commercial terms for comparison pages, informational for guides.
serpFeatures tells you when a featured snippet, People Also Ask box or AI Overview is on the page.
The trend fields flag seasonal or rising topics before you commit.

Limits worth knowing

Volumes come from a licensed keyword database refreshed monthly, so they're monthly averages, not live counts. Expect the same order of magnitude as Google Keyword Planner, not identical numbers.
Google only. Not for YouTube, Amazon or Bing volumes.
The Apify Free plan is capped at 3 seeds and 100 keywords per run (enough to try it on your own topic).

Cost

$0.003 per keyword (less on paid Apify plans: $0.0027 / $0.0024 / $0.00225), plus $0.02 per run with results and $0.02 per keyword-database request, and Apify's $0.00005 start fee. ideas mode makes one request for all seeds; suggestions and related make one per seed; every extra 1,000 keywords is one more request.

The test run above: $0.115 for 25 keywords.
100 ideas for one seed: $0.02 + $0.02 + 100 × $0.003 = $0.34.
1,000 ideas from 5 seeds: $0.02 + $0.02 + 1,000 × $0.003 = $3.04.

Runs with no results, seeds that return nothing and filtered-out keywords aren't charged.

Try it on the Apify Store: the prefilled example input runs the same test shown above. If you already have a keyword list and only need volumes, there's also Keyword Search Volume, and to find the keywords your competitors rank for and you don't, Competitor Keyword Gap.

Built by SteadyScrape (steady-scrape). More tools: https://apify.com/steady-scrape

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