In-app tool explainers
The illustrated guide beneath each tool: what it covers, the order it follows, and how to use it to learn a tool without leaving the screen.
Last updated 2026-09-14
Summary#
Scroll past the run button on almost any tool and you reach a long illustrated guide to that tool: what problem it solves, how it works, what every term means, a worked example, and a set of frequently asked questions. These are the explainers. They are built into the product, so learning a tool never means leaving it, opening a help center, and losing your place.
Purpose#
Most SEO tools assume you already know the vocabulary. If you do not know what "referring domains", "keyword difficulty" or "share of voice" mean, a dense report is not just unhelpful, it is discouraging, and you stop using the product.
The explainers exist so that a beginner can arrive at any tool cold and leave knowing what it is for, what to type into it, what the output means, and what to do with it. They are written for someone who has never run the tool. An experienced user can ignore them entirely: every explainer starts closed, as a single Documentation bar, so it never gets in the way of the work.
There is a second purpose. A tool page has to answer "should I even use this?" before it answers "how do I use this?". The explainer opens with the problem the tool solves, in plain terms, so you can decide in a few seconds whether it is the right tool for what you are trying to do.
Overview#
Every tool screen carries an explainer, close to a hundred in all. It always sits at the top of the tool, collapsed into a single bar reading "Documentation" followed by the tool's name, with a Show guide button on the right. The bar is the same on every tool, in the same place, and behaves the same way.
Closed is the default. The tool itself, its input row and its results, are what you see when a screen opens; the guide is one click away and stays out of the way until you ask for it. Press Show guide and it unfolds in place, directly above the tool. Press it again and it folds back. On a merged tool group such as Keyword Overview and Bulk Analysis, the tab strip stays above the bar, because those tabs move you between tools while the bar documents the one you are in.
Every explainer follows the same order. Once you have read one, you know where to find any particular kind of information in all the others.
| Block | What it gives you |
|---|---|
| Hero | The tool's promise in one headline, a plain-language paragraph, and a live-looking demo that types a sample query and reveals the KPIs the tool returns. |
| The problem | What goes wrong without this tool, written as three concrete failures rather than marketing copy. |
| How it works | The steps the tool takes when you press Run, in order. |
| Glossary | Every term the report uses, defined. The heading is usually along the lines of "New to SEO? Start here". |
| Features | Two or three deeper blocks on the parts of the tool that need more than a sentence. |
| Mini grid | The rest of the picture: the smaller capabilities, as a grid of short cards. |
| Worked example | A realistic run from input to conclusion, showing how to turn the output into a decision. |
| Use cases | Named scenarios and who each one is for. |
| FAQ | The questions people actually ask about that tool, as an accordion. |
| Closing | A short summary and a button that takes you back to the input. |
Every screen that produces a result has one, Integrations included, where the guide explains what each connection changes. The screens without one are the workspace and account screens, such as My Reports, Report History, Library and Account, the help screens, and tools still marked In development.
Tip: The glossary block is the fastest cure for a confusing report. If a column heading in your result makes no sense, scroll down to the explainer for that tool rather than searching the web for the term.
How it works#
It reacts to scrolling, not clicking#
Blocks fade in as you reach them. Numbers count up from zero over about a second and a third. Sparklines draw themselves, gauges sweep to their value, and donut charts fill segment by segment. The hero demo types its sample query one character at a time, sweeps a scan line across the panel, and then reveals the KPI tiles one after another.
All of this is decoration on top of static content. If you scroll fast, you see the finished state; nothing is hidden behind an animation you have to wait for.
It respects reduced motion#
If your operating system is set to reduce motion, the animation is switched off and the content is shown in its final state. This applies across the whole explainer, including the hero demo, the charts and the FAQ accordion.
Its buttons stay on your screen#
The call-to-action buttons in an explainer scroll you back to that tool's own input field and focus it, so you can type straight away. They never navigate you to a different tool, and they never fill in a value on another screen. The "see a live example" style buttons render a stored sample result, which costs nothing. See How to run a tool for what the sample banner says.
The FAQ is an accordion#
Each question expands in place. Answers are specific to that tool: what it can and cannot see, how often to re-run it, how it differs from the neighbouring tool in the same section.
It is translated#
Explainer text goes through the same translation system as the rest of the interface, so it appears in whichever of the six supported languages you have selected. See Changing the language.
It is not the result#
An explainer's demo panel shows illustrative numbers, chosen to make the layout legible. They are not your data and they are not a claim about typical performance. Your data is always above, in the result area, under a source badge that names where it came from. See Reading a result.
Screenshots#
See also
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