What are Key Terms and How to Use Them?

In the world of GEO, relevance is everything.

To ensure your content is engine-ready, it must speak the language of both search engines and generative AI systems. That’s where NLP-extracted Key Terms come in.

At Scalenut, we leverage advanced Natural Language Processing algorithms to surface critical semantic terms—those that appear most frequently across the top 10/20/30 ranking pages for your target keyword, depending on your preferred competition benchmarking. 

These aren’t just keywords—they’re contextually rich phrases that align with searcher intent, help your content rank better, and ensure it's more discoverable by AI systems.

How to Use NLP Key Terms in Your Content Brief?

When building a content brief in Scalenut, the Key Terms feature provides an essential edge. These terms are algorithmically extracted from the top-performing URLs and AI engines, ensuring your content mirrors what’s currently working in SERPs and AI responses.

Here’s how- 

STEP 1 

Log in to your Scalenut account and head to Article Writer / Cruise Mode. Enter your primary keyword and target location to generate the report. Once the report is ready, click on its status to open the AI Editor.

STEP 2

On the GEO AI editor, navigate to the Research section and click on the ‘Detailed Report’ tab.

STEP 3

The default screen displays Competition Overview. But, you can switch directly to the Key Terms by clicking on the option.

STEP 4 

Here, you’ll see a list of NLP Key Terms along with insights into how and where they are used in ranking pages—in body content or headings.

For example, in the below image, you can see the usage of the key term ‘Content Marketing’ in the main content for ranking URLs. You can also see the use of the keywords in headings by clicking on the ‘Headings’ section.

STEP 5

You can sort these Key Terms by clicking on the ‘Adjusting Arrow icon.’ You can sort them based on their frequency in the content, importance, and heading presence.

How to Read the Key Terms Research?

Let’s take the term “content marketing” as an example from the Key Terms list.

• The Importance score is 10/10, which means this term appears very frequently across the top 30 ranking URLs and is highly relevant to the topic. It’s a critical term that must be included to boost content visibility.
  

• The recommended frequency range is 6–91, which shows how often this term appears in competing articles. To stay competitive and contextually aligned, your content should use the term within this range, depending on length and depth.
  

• The Heading presence column helps you identify whether this term is commonly used in headings like H1, H2, or H3 across top-ranking content. If it appears in headings, it signals high topical relevance, and you should consider adding it to your titles or subheadings for better SEO and AI discoverability.
  

• On the right side of the screen, under Usage Examples, you can see real-time usage of this key term from top-performing URLs (e.g., contentmarketinginstitute.com, business.adobe.com). These examples show how often each term is used and in what context, giving you a benchmark for tone, placement, and depth.
  

• The "Main Content" and "Headings" toggle above the usage examples lets you filter how the key term is used — whether embedded within paragraph text or structurally in headings — giving you further clarity on how to position it in your content.
  

• You can also sort the terms by Frequency, Importance, or Heading presence, allowing you to prioritize terms based on your optimization strategy.

How to Use NLP Key Terms While Writing Your Content?

Once you're ready to write, click ‘Back to Editor’ to begin content creation.

On the right-hand sidebar, you’ll see a list of all NLP Key Terms. Each one comes with a recommended usage frequency based on in-depth analysis of top-ranking content.

You can see the usage of these terms in your content on the left side of the panel, and the number range indicates how often the key term should be used in your content through deep AI analysis. 

You can also check the importance or usage of each term in your content piece. You can do this by simply clicking on the ‘Highlight Usage’ check box.

You can also see the usage of key terms in top-ranking pages on the SERPs by clicking on the ‘quotes icon,’ as shown below. It helps you get an idea of how you can use that particular term within the content. 

Further, you can sort these key terms on the basis of importance, unused terms, and heading usage in the ranking pieces. 

You can also click on the ‘robot icon’ at the far right for AI to generate content for that key term. The AI will ensure it uses the key term in the content it generates for you - wherever you place the cursor, the robot icon will start writing. 

You can add a key term by simply clicking on it.

To select/deselect the key terms, simply use the box beside the key terms on the left to make your choice. Uncheck the key terms you want to exclude.

If you wish to add your key terms, use the ‘Add Keyterms’ option available on the panel.