How Every Number on This Site Is Verified Against Semrush
A navigator is only as good as their instruments. Every search volume, keyword difficulty score, and CPC figure published on this site is pulled from the Semrush US database and reconciled line-by-line — here's exactly how.
Marketing Data You Can Actually Check
The SEO industry has a numbers problem. Agencies routinely quote search volumes from memory, round figures up until they sound impressive, or cite "industry data" with no source at all. When a business decision — where to invest your marketing budget — rests on those numbers, a fabricated figure isn't a shortcut. It's a navigation error that compounds every month.
We take the opposite position: every figure on this website should be traceable to a source you could verify yourself. When we say draws 1,300 searches a month, that number comes from a Semrush US database export — not an estimate, not a memory, not a sales pitch. Hover over (or tap) any dotted-underline keyword on this site and you'll see the verified volume, difficulty, CPC, and intent for that exact phrase, all drawn from the same dataset.
This page documents the full process — what we pull, how we reconcile it, and what happens when a keyword can't be verified. It's the same evidence-first discipline we bring to client reporting and every free SEO audit we deliver.
VOLUME / KD / CPC / INTENT — RECONCILED LINE-BY-LINE AGAINST EVERY PAGE
TRY IT — HOVER OR TAP A VERIFIED KEYWORD
The Four-Step Semrush Verification Process
Collect Every Claim
Before anything is published, we inventory every keyword, search volume, difficulty score, and cost-per-click figure that appears anywhere on this site — homepage tables, service page market soundings, industry pages, location pages, and case study keyword sets.
Pull From Semrush, US Database
Each keyword is queried directly against the Semrush US database in batch reports — the same Keyword Overview data an enterprise SEO team works from. We record monthly search volume, keyword difficulty (KD %), average CPC, and search intent for every phrase.
Reconcile Against the Page
Every on-page figure is audited line-by-line against the pulled data. If a published number doesn't match the export, the page is corrected — not the other way around. Aggregate claims (like cluster totals) are recomputed from the sum of verified head terms only.
Label Anything Unverified
Keywords that Semrush hasn't verified don't get invented numbers. They either render as plain text with no data card, or — in rare, clearly-marked cases — carry an ESTIMATE label so you always know exactly which figures are export-backed.
What Each Metric on a Keyword Card Tells You
Search Volume
Average monthly US searches for the exact phrase. This is demand — how many times a month customers run that search. Shown in gold on every keyword card.
Keyword Difficulty (KD)
Semrush's 0-100 score for how competitive the organic top 10 is. Local Charleston terms under KD 30 are winnable for a focused campaign; we color-code the badge so you can read it at a glance.
CPC (Cost Per Click)
What advertisers pay per click in Google Ads for that phrase. A $7+ CPC means businesses have proven the search converts — and every organic click you win is a click you didn't buy.
Search Intent
Why the person is searching: informational (learning), commercial (comparing), transactional (buying), or navigational (finding a specific site). Intent decides what kind of page can rank — and what it should say.
What This Data Can and Can't Tell You
Database estimates are instruments, not prophecy — and we'd rather you know their limits than oversell their precision. Semrush volumes are US-national averages for exact phrases: a figure like 1,300 searches a month for captures that phrase, but not its dozens of close variants, so true topic demand usually runs higher than any single keyword's number. Volumes are also trailing averages, which means brand-new search behavior and sharp seasonal spikes show up in the data a few months late.
Very low-volume keywords — under roughly 10 searches a month — often return no data at all, which is why some phrases on this site render without a data card. And no database can report the metric that actually matters most: how many of those searches turn into paying customers for your business. That's why database figures are only where our work starts. Once a campaign is live, we measure real rankings, real traffic, and real leads through position tracking and revenue-tied reporting — the dataset on this site charts the market; your campaign data charts your actual voyage through it.
Refresh cadence: the active dataset was pulled in July 2026 and is re-verified with each significant site update. The footer of every page cites the dataset date, so you always know how fresh the figures are.