A Simple Keyword Research Routine for Busy Beginners

You checked one keyword in two tools. One called it easy, the other called it hard, and with two different answers to the same question, you decided the problem had to be you, even though the disagreement was built in from the start.

Each tool estimates difficulty with its own model and its own data, so neither number is the real one. Being confused by that is the reasonable response.

What you’re after is simple keyword research you can finish in one sitting, with free sources, that ends with a topic you can actually write.

Here’s a 15-minute routine that does that. It uses each free source only for what it can honestly tell you, and it stops when you have one topic that passes the 3-Sentence Rule. If you’re a Wealthy Affiliate member wondering what happened to Jaaxy, that’s answered here too.

Why Your Keyword Tools Keep Disagreeing

Difficulty, authority and volume figures are estimates, and each tool vendor builds them from its own data with its own formula.

Two tools looking at the same keyword are working from different data and different ideas of what makes a keyword hard, so they land on different numbers. Neither tool has made a mistake, and neither has the true figure either.

Authority scores work the same way. A domain authority figure is a tool vendor’s own estimate of how strong a site is, calculated by that vendor from its own data.

It doesn’t come from Google, so it’s worth reading as one company’s opinion of a site rather than as a number that decides where you rank.

When I’m choosing a single post to write, I set the scores aside and ask two narrower questions. Do real people type this phrase? And can I answer it well? Free sources can answer both, which is why the routine below doesn’t need a paid tool.

The obvious worry is that without volume numbers, you can’t know whether anyone searches a phrase at all. Autocomplete covers most of that. Google says its predictions reflect real searches, so a phrase that shows up as a prediction is usually one people type.

What a prediction won’t tell you is how often. You can judge size later, once your site is in Google Search Console, Google’s free tool that shows how your site appears in search, and you can see the real queries that bring people in.

Paid tools like Ahrefs or Semrush do have a genuine advantage: they’re faster at estimating volume across a long list of keywords. That speed matters if you’re running several sites and planning months of content at once. It matters far less when you’re picking the next post to write, which is the only job this routine is built for.

The next question is which free source to trust for what, because each one tells you something different.

What Each Free Source Can Honestly Tell You

Here’s what each source actually shows you, what it can’t show you, and what it costs to use.

Autocomplete does most of the work in the routine, and the step-by-step below covers how to use it. Three of the other sources need a little care.

Google Trends shows relative interest on a 0 to 100 scale, which is useful for seeing whether a topic rises and falls with the seasons. It can’t validate a specific, longer question, though, because very small queries show up as 0, as the Google Trends data FAQ explains. A zero can’t tell you whether nobody searches a phrase or just too few people to register.

Keyword Planner gives you search estimates rather than exact counts. Before it shows keyword ideas, you have to enter billing information on your Google Ads account, as Google’s Keyword Planner help page sets out. You can create an Ads account without running a campaign, but a card on file is still a card on file, so Keyword Planner sits outside the free routine below.

Search Console is different from the rest because it shows your own site’s data: the queries your pages appeared for in Google. It’s real data about your site rather than a vendor’s estimate, but it only becomes useful once your site has impressions. An impression is counted each time one of your pages appears in someone’s Google results, whether or not they click.

A brand-new site has few of those yet, so it starts using Search Console later. When you get there, the Queries tab in Search Console is the report to open.

Ubersuggest offers a limited set of free features once you sign up, with paid plans beyond that. It can be handy for a quick check, but the free side won’t carry a regular research habit on its own.

What Happened to Jaaxy, and What Ace Does Instead

If you came here looking for Jaaxy, it was retired in the Wealthy Affiliate relaunch on 8 October 2026, and there’s no keyword tool inside the platform today. The routine in this post replaces it.

Ace can still help in two places. It can brainstorm different ways to phrase a topic, and it carries your target keyword into the Writer when you start a draft. What it doesn’t give you is search volume or competition numbers. Asked directly, Ace says it has no keyword data tool and points you to Keyword Planner or Ubersuggest for numbers.

The Wealthy Affiliate homepage says Ace works out what people search for, but it doesn’t show you any demand figure behind its suggestions, so you can’t see how it judged them. Treat its topic ideas as brainstorming and check them with autocomplete like any other phrase. If you’re weighing what the platform still does for you without Jaaxy, my full Wealthy Affiliate review walks through it.

The 15-Minute Routine, Step by Step

Set a timer for 15 minutes and split it into three blocks of about five minutes each: collect, sort and test. When the timer ends, you choose from what you have, even if the list feels unfinished. That’s the stop rule, and it’s what keeps a research session from swallowing the time you meant to spend writing.

Your first run will feel rushed while the steps are still new, which is normal, so let the timer decide anyway.

The core routine costs nothing and needs no card. The first five minutes are the collect block:

1. Start from one seed topic in your niche. One seed keeps the session focused. Start with three and you’ll reach the end of the timer with three half-finished lists and no topic.
   
   
2. Type the seed into Google and write down the autocomplete predictions. Then add question starters after it, such as how, why, which and can, and note what appears. Predictions reflect real searches and are shaped by language and location, as Google’s explanation of autocomplete describes, so you’re seeing how people in your region phrase it.
   
   Do this in a private window while signed out, because predictions also draw on your own past searches, and your own typing shouldn’t count as evidence.
   
   
3. Note the People Also Ask questions on that results page. They give you more questions in the same area, already worded as questions, and they often surface angles the predictions missed. Not every results page shows that box, so if there isn’t one, move straight on to the next step.
   
   
4. Check one forum or community where your readers ask questions. Look for the exact words they use, especially how they describe a problem before they know the proper terms for it. That wording is often closer to what a beginner types into Google than anything a tool suggests.
   
   
5. Optional, if you have a free Wealthy Affiliate account: ask Ace for phrasing variations of your best candidate. Treat the list as brainstorming only, because Ace has no data on how often any of those phrases are searched. Each Ace reply uses a little of your starter credits, which don’t refresh on the free tier, so keep it to one request.

By the end of the collect block, you should have a plain list of 15 to 20 raw phrases in a notes file, typed exactly as people searched them, odd grammar included. Don’t tidy them up yet, because that wording is what you sort by next.

Sort Your Phrases by How the Question Is Worded

The second five minutes is sorting. The wording of a search tells you what kind of post the person expects to find, so group your phrases by how they’re worded:

• “How do I” asks for steps. The reader wants a process they can follow from start to finish.
• “Which” or “best” asks for a choice. The reader wants a few options narrowed down, with the reasons behind them.
• “Versus” asks for a comparison between two things the reader has already named.
• “Is it worth it” asks for a verdict. The reader wants a judgment they can act on, backed by reasons.

Then cut any phrase whose wording asks for a post you can’t serve. If a phrase is really someone trying to buy a product you don’t cover, good writing won’t give them what they came for, so it goes.

Before you move on, keep one caution in mind. The wording tells you what the searcher expects, but page one sometimes rewards a different format than the wording suggests. That’s why you check the live results before you commit to a topic.

What’s left after sorting is a shortlist. The last five minutes decide which one you write.

The 3-Sentence Rule: When to Stop Researching

A topic is ready to write when it meets four conditions:

• It uses phrasing a real reader typed, taken from your collected list.
• You can answer it usefully in three sentences.
• It matches a post you can actually serve.
• It survives the live results check from the sorting step: page one shows the kind of post you plan to write.

The test itself takes a minute or two. Write the answer in three sentences: the direct answer, why it’s true, and what the reader should do. If you can, the topic passes. If you can’t, the topic is too broad or you aren’t ready to write it yet, and either way it’s the wrong post to write next.

Here’s how that plays out for someone whose niche is vegetable gardening. The phrase “best time of day to water tomato plants” passes, because it fits in three sentences:

1. Water tomato plants early in the morning.
2. The soil takes up the water before the afternoon heat evaporates it, and the leaves dry during the day.
3. If mornings are impossible, water at the base in the evening and keep the leaves dry.

Compare that with “gardening tips.” No three sentences can answer it, because it holds hundreds of separate questions, and the person searching it could want any one of them.

Broad phrases like that are also where a new site struggles most, because established sites already cover them from every angle and a young site has little chance of standing out among them. If your seed topic itself feels as wide as “gardening tips,” the question may sit one level up, in choosing a niche.

You might wonder whether three sentences is too thin for a whole post. It would be, if the post stopped there. The three sentences are the core, and the post expands each one: the answer gets its detail, the reason gets its explanation, and the action gets its steps.

That test is where research ends. Once one topic passes, close the notes file and keep the rest of the list for your next session.

From Three Sentences to a First Draft

Your three sentences already give you the skeleton of the draft, roughly one section each. The direct answer becomes the opening, the reason becomes the section that explains why, and the action becomes the steps the reader takes. Turning that into a full outline is its own job, so keep this stage light.

If you write inside Wealthy Affiliate, the chosen keyword goes into the target keyword field of the Writer’s article plan. Ace or your gameplan may fill it in for you, and you can edit it.

The readiness card checks your title length, meta description, slug, length against your target, section headings and that you have at least one link. It doesn’t check the keyword, so confirm yourself that it sits in your title and in your opening paragraph.

Once your posts start earning impressions, the Search Console Queries report becomes the seed list for your next session. Those phrases are real searches that already led people to your site, which makes them a stronger starting point than any seed you’d guess at.

The next step is small. Pick one seed topic, set the timer, and run the routine once. Keep the one phrase that passes the 3-Sentence Rule, and write its three sentences before you close the file.

If you’re deciding whether the Writer and Ace are worth having for that drafting step, it helps to see what each one does and doesn’t do before you commit.

Once you’ve tried it, tell me in the comments which seed topic you tested and whether it passed the 3-Sentence Rule, or which free source gave you the most usable phrasing. I read and reply to every comment.