A competitor keyword export can contain hundreds of rows while leaving you with no obvious page to build. Grouping those rows by landing URL changes the unit of work: you can see a template, a calculator or a comparison page solving a particular task. The next step is to explain what your own version would help a reader accomplish.
A worked example of page grouping
Imagine an invented keyword sample for a scheduling product. Its homepage receives 700 estimated search visits from brand queries. A meeting-template page receives 120 and 80 from two related queries, and a time-zone calculator receives 150 from another query. The observed sample totals 1,050; the template page contributes 200, or about 19% of that sample.
For a new scheduling product, the brand-heavy homepage mainly describes existing brand demand. The template and calculator expose tasks a visitor can perform. A content brief can therefore start with the template workflow even though its sample contribution is smaller. Inspect the actual pages before assuming which part of the experience attracts visitors.
Filtering changes the share before it changes the page
Return to the fictional sample with 1,050 estimated search visits. The homepage contributes 700 from brand queries, the template contributes 200 and the calculator contributes 150. If you exclude those brand queries, the remaining sample is 350. The template now represents about 57.1% of the filtered sample, compared with about 19% before filtering. Its estimated contribution is still 200.
That is a useful view for studying non-brand acquisition, but it needs a filter label. If one export includes brand demand and another excludes it, their page shares answer different questions. Keep the row value, the sample total and the active filters together when you compare pages or report that one format dominates.
Vaneform’s Landing pages view is calculated from the current keyword selection. Its export uses fields such as sample_keyword_count, sample_etv and sample_share_pct to preserve that meaning. If a page disappears after a filter change, inspect the underlying selected terms before interpreting the disappearance as a loss of search traffic.
What “top pages” means in a keyword sample
DataForSEO’s ranked-keyword endpoint returns observed terms and their ranking results for a target. Vaneform’s page analysis groups available keyword rows by their URLs. This provides a view of the pages represented in that sample. Pages reached through direct visits, email, paid campaigns or queries outside the sample can have a different importance to the business.
Keep a missing URL or missing estimate visible in your working sheet. Avoid assigning an unknown contribution to the homepage. When a page’s search estimate changes, check which rows were added or lost before concluding that the page itself gained or lost visitors.
In Vaneform, open Site keywords, select Non-brand terms when that filter matches your question, and switch to Landing pages. The page totals follow the current keyword filters. Export CSV before changing filters so you retain the exact sample behind your brief. A brand term naming an integration can still be relevant; inspect it before excluding it.
A completed brief for the template opportunity
Continue the scheduling example. The brief below is a proposed page for a small team leader who needs to prepare a recurring meeting. It turns the observed topic into work an editor and a product owner can actually assess.
The reader should leave with a usable weekly agenda: a blank version, a completed example for a five-person team, and notes explaining how to assign an owner and time budget to each item. The page opens with the template, then explains the decisions in the completed example. A long general introduction to meetings would delay the task.
The proposed URL is /templates/weekly-team-meeting. Its original contribution is the completed agenda and the reasoning behind it. The product action is saving a recurring agenda, if your product supports it. Before publishing, ask someone unfamiliar with the draft to create their next agenda from it and note where they get stuck. That exercise checks usefulness more directly than adding another section for a keyword variant.
Validate the page after publication
For a site you own, review the page’s queries, impressions and clicks in Search Console over comparable periods. Check that the queries match the task in your brief. A page attracting unrelated queries may need clearer positioning; a page attracting the right queries but few useful actions may need a better example or more direct workflow. Google’s report provides page and query dimensions for this inspection.
Which URL deserves a content brief?
Start with the page that best matches a task your audience has, even if another row has a larger number. Open it and record the actual output: a usable file, a calculation, a product choice or an explanation. Then try to reproduce the result. This reveals whether the opportunity is in the subject, the format or a missing detail that prevents completion.
Review URL variants before treating them as separate opportunities. A redirected address may lead to the same resource, while a language version or a functional query parameter can change the experience. Preserve the original URLs in your notes and combine them only after inspecting what the user receives. A clean-looking URL list is less important than understanding the distinct tasks.
For the selected page, identify what your team can contribute without reproducing the competitor’s wording. A completed example based on your workflow, a transparent calculation or a better-supported resource can justify the effort. If your planned page would merely repeat the current explanation, return to the unresolved reader question and find a more specific contribution.
Before commissioning a series, build one brief to completion and review the resulting draft against it. Check whether the asset exists, the example works and the next action follows naturally. A successful first resource gives you a basis for deciding whether nearby queries deserve more pages or simply belong as supporting sections.