how to do a keyword research analysis

How to Do Keyword Research for SEO: A Beginner's Guide

Published: April 04, 2024

While Google keeps us on our toes with all the algorithm updates they keep rollin' out, one thing has stayed pretty consistent for inbound marketers looking to optimize their websites for search: keyword research.

In this post, we’ll define what keyword research is, why it’s important, how to conduct your research for your SEO strategy, and choose the right keywords for your website.

Table of Contents

What is keyword research?

Why is keyword research important, elements of keyword research, how to research keywords for your seo strategy, how to find and choose keywords for your website.

Keyword research is the process of finding and analyzing search terms that people enter into search engines with the goal of using that data for a specific purpose, often for search engine optimization (SEO) or general marketing. Keyword research can uncover queries to target, the popularity of these queries, their ranking difficulty, and more.

Keyword research helps you find which keywords are best to target and provides valuable insight into the queries that your target audience is actually searching on Google.

Insights from these actual search terms can help inform your content strategy as well as your larger marketing strategy.

People use keywords to find solutions when conducting research online.

So if your content is successful in getting in front of your audience as they conduct searches, you stand to gain more traffic. Therefore, you should be targeting those searches with content that features those keywords in a meaningful way.

Additionally, inbound methodology focuses less on creating content around what we want to tell people. Instead, we should be creating content around what people want to discover.

In other words, our audience is coming to us for helpful content that provides the answers they’re looking for.

In a nutshell, all of this starts with keyword research.

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Conducting keyword research has many benefits, the most popular being:

Marketing Trend Insight

Conducting effective keyword research can provide you with insights into current marketing trends and help you center your content on relevant topics and keywords your audience is in search of.

Traffic Growth

When you identify the best-fitting keywords for the content you publish, the higher you’ll rank in search engine results — the more traffic you’ll attract to your website.

Customer Acquisition

If your business has content that other business professionals are looking for, you can meet their needs and provide them with a call-to-action that will lead them into the buyer journey from the awareness stage to the point of purchase.

By researching keywords for their popularity, search volume, and general intent, you can tackle the questions that most people in your audience want answers to.

Keywords vs. Topics

More and more, we hear how much SEO has evolved over just the last 10 years and how seemingly unimportant keywords have transformed our ability to rank well for the searches people make every day.

And to some extent, this is true, but in the eyes of an SEO professional, it’s a different approach. Rather, it’s the intent behind that keyword and whether or not a piece of content solves for that intent (we’ll talk more about intent in just a minute).

But that doesn’t mean keyword research is an outdated process. Let me explain:

Keyword research tells you what topics people care about and, assuming you use the right SEO tool, how popular those topics actually are among your audience.

The operative term here is topics, plural. By researching keywords that are getting a high volume of searches per month, you can identify and sort your content into topics or buckets that you want to create content on.

Then, you can use these topics to dictate which keywords you look for and target.

There are three main elements I have discovered that you should pay attention to when conducting keyword research.

1. Relevance

Google ranks content for relevance.

This is where the concept of search intent comes in. Your content will only rank for a keyword if it meets the searchers’ needs.

In addition, your content must be the best resource out there for the query. After all, why would Google rank your content higher if it provides less value than other content that exists on the web?

2. Authority

Google will provide more weight to sources it deems authoritative.

That means you must do all you can to become an authoritative source by enriching your site with helpful, informative content and promoting that content to earn social signals and backlinks.

If you’re not seen as authoritative in the space, or if a keyword’s SERPs are loaded with heavy sources you can’t compete with (like Forbes or The Mayo Clinic), you have a lower chance of ranking unless your content is exceptional.

You may end up ranking on the first page for a specific keyword, but if no one ever searches for it, it will not result in traffic to your site. It's like setting up a shop in a ghost town.

Volume is measured by MSV (monthly search volume), which means the number of times the keyword is searched per month across all audiences.

• Make a list of important, relevant topics based on what you know about your business.
• Fill in those topic buckets with keywords.
• Understand how intent affects keyword research and analyze accordingly.
• Research related search terms.
• Use keyword research tools to your advantage.

I’m going to lay out a keyword research process you can follow to help you come up with a list of terms you should be targeting.

That way, you’ll be able to establish and execute a strong keyword strategy that helps you get found for the search terms you actually care about.

Step 1. Make a list of important, relevant topics based on what you know about your business.

To kick off this process, think about the topics you want to rank for in terms of generic buckets.

You’ll come up with about five to 10 topic buckets you think are important to your business, and then you’ll use those topic buckets to help come up with some specific keywords later in the process.

If you’re a regular blogger, these are probably the topics you blog about most frequently. Or perhaps they’re the topics that come up the most in sales conversations.

Put yourself in the shoes of your buyer personas . What types of topics would your target audience search that you’d want your business to get found for?

Drill down into your website’s traffic sources, and sift through your organic search traffic bucket to identify the keywords people are using to arrive at your site.

Repeat this exercise for as many topic buckets as you have.

Remember, if you’re having trouble coming up with relevant search terms, you can always head on over to your customer-facing colleagues — those who are in sales or service. Ask them what types of terms their prospects or customers have questions about.

Those are often great starting points for keyword research.

Here at HubSpot, we use the Search Insights Report in this part of the process. This template is designed to help you do the same and bucket your keywords into topic clusters, analyze MSV, and inform your editorial calendar and strategy.

Featured Resource: Search Insights Report Template

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Step 3. Understand how intent affects keyword research and analyze accordingly.

Like I said in the previous section, user intent is now one of the most pivotal factors in your ability to rank well on search engines like Google.

Today, it’s more important that your web page addresses the problem a searcher intended to solve than simply carries the keyword the searcher used. So, how does this affect the keyword research you do?

It’s easy to take keywords at face value, but unfortunately, keywords can have many different meanings beneath the surface.

Because the intent behind a search is so important to your ranking potential, you need to be extra careful about how you interpret the keywords you target.

Let’s say, for example, you’re researching the keyword “how to start a blog” for an article you want to create. “Blog” can mean a blog post or the blog website itself, and what a searcher’s intent is behind that keyword will influence the direction of your article.

Does the searcher want to learn how to start an individual blog post? Or do they want to know how to actually launch a website domain for the purposes of blogging?

If your content strategy is only targeting people interested in the latter, you’ll need to make sure of the keyword’s intent before committing to it.

To verify what a user’s intent is in a keyword, it’s a good idea to simply enter this keyword into a search engine yourself and see what types of results come up.

Make sure the type of content Google is displaying relates to your intention for the keyword.

Step 4. Research related search terms.

This is a creative step you may have already thought of when doing keyword research. If not, it’s a great way to fill out those lists.

If you’re struggling to think of more keywords people might be searching about a specific topic, take a look at the related search terms that appear when you plug in a keyword into Google.

When you type in your phrase and scroll to the bottom of Google’s results, you’ll notice some suggestions for searches related to your original input.

These keywords can spark ideas for other keywords you may want to take into consideration.

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Discover opportunity for growth in your keyword strategy with this easy-to-use template.

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Keyword Research – An In-Depth Guide to Help You Rank Higher [+Template]

Keyword research can help you effectively reach more of your audience. By understanding exactly what they are searching for, you can create targeted content to meet their needs. But, in order to maximize your impact, you need to take a systematic approach using the most accurate keyword research tools . In this post, we’ll break down the complete step-by-step guide to how to conduct keyword research and the tools to use to achieve real results.

What is keyword research?

Keyword research is the process of finding the words and phrases your target audience is searching for on Google. Whether they are looking to find information like, pizza delivery options in your city, or are ready to purchase a product or a service, once you identify the high-value keywords they are searching related to your business, and their intent, you can optimize your search strategy and rank higher on Google.

Why does keyword research matter to you?

Using the right keywords (also known as search terms) gives your content the power to climb higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). This is exactly why keyword research is a pillar in search engine optimization (SEO).

If you set up your keyword research properly, scaling your ongoing SEO efforts and powering your growth will be fairly easy to execute.

It is important that your primary research is comprehensive and hones in on search intent because it will be the foundation of your search engine optimization strategy. Think of it as the base of all your future subject-specific SEO efforts to bring you new leads like a passive income. During this initial phase of research, your goal is to gather as many relevant keyword phrases as you can that could reach your audience.

In this blog we will guide you through how to conduct keyword research:

• Scan your website for keywords
• Dig deeper into your keyword data with Google Search Console
• Take advantage of competitor analysis tools
• Find the most valuable phrases with the keyword generation tool
• Consolidate your keyword data
• Categorize keywords by user intent and semantic search
• Analyze long-tail vs. short-tail keywords
• Choose the right mix of keywords to focus on

You can download our keyword research template below and apply what you learn as you go.

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How to do keyword research

1. scan your website for keywords.

To start your keyword research process, the first step is to open your website and identify the main categories. Note any very obvious keywords you will need to include. The keywords you find during this process are the first ones you should add to your initial list to gain high-level insight into your website’s main goals.

At this stage don’t focus on the specific terminology used, you can tweak the wording later, focus on understanding what your website is aiming to do and/or sell to understand how you will generate search traffic.

• Pro Tip: Pay special attention to how your content is organized. Look for where the content and product pages are located. If you have a menu, those keywords are (yes, you guessed it) key. You can also find additional crucial industry words by scanning your site as a whole, including content featured on your homepage, blogs, product pages, feature descriptions, mission statements, and FAQ. If you sell a product, both the product and its category would be included .

Below you can see an example of important keywords on Similarweb’s homepage that would need to be included during this stage of SEO research. Words like ‘digital research’ and ‘investing’  relate to how our content is organized. As you go through your own website these are the types of phrases you are searching for in this stage of your keyword research.

2. Dig deep into your keyword data in Google Search Console

Take a look at the data you already have. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel – yet. If you have access to Google Search Console, (which can also be visible through your Google Analytics account), you can navigate to the performance section and look at the search results reported there. The list you create here will give you a thorough review of your strongest keywords that are already working.  If a term is performing well, you need to ensure you continue to include it in your SEO strategy , and possibly, even double down on your content efforts to win traffic from the term.

• Pro Tip: To use the Performance section effectively, set the data range for the page at 6 months, exclude all branded queries to compile a list of general terms that your audience is searching for, and then download the list it creates as a CSV file.

3. Take advantage of competitor analysis tools

Use competitive data tools to analyze your website and gain more insight into your current performance. Keep in mind that the keywords you will find differ for macro-level SEO and local SEO. You could conduct macro-level keyword research for specific countries using Similarweb. This will help you drill down and understand the topics and keyword opportunities that are trending in countries that interest you.

To do this, you can use Similarweb’s website analysis tool , and first, insert your own URL. Next, click on the Keywords section and filter out all branded keywords. After that, navigate to the “Competitors” section of your website analysis. Note the top three competitors you have and then run an audit on their websites too. For each audit you run, go to the Keyword Analysis section, filter out the branded search queries and export the reports for internal use. Remember that competitors’ traffic data can be as valuable as ranking data for your analysis, so don’t give up on any exported dataset yet – many of them will come in handy for your SEO strategy.

• Pro Tip: It can also be useful to filter out results that fall outside of the top 50 rankings in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) to weed out many irrelevant queries.

Combine the keyword list you created for each of your competitors’ sites with the one you made for your own site. You should merge the exported Excel files into one. Now you can consolidate the ranking and traffic data for each of your competitors and then remove any duplicate keywords.

Alternatively, you can decide not to consolidate your competitors’ ranking and traffic data and use only the keyword data. At this point you have the basis of the research: You found out what your website is ranked for, what phrases your competitors’ websites are ranked for, and what real people search for. Now it’s time to inspect your entire search potential.

You can also perform micro-level research using Navads . Navads, acquired by Uberall in 2018, is the leading location data provider for the databases that power the navigation and mapping industry. It has a local search tool that helps you rank higher in map search results.

4. Find the most valuable phrases with Keyword Generation Tool

Your next step is to use a keyword tool to discover more keyword ideas, synonyms, and suggestions. You can use Google Keyword Planner to discover new keyword ideas. Another and often easier option is to use a keyword research tool like Similarweb’s Keyword Generator Tool and insert keywords by the categories you found on your website during stage one. Diving into more specific categories ensures the keywords the tool suggests are relevant to your topic.

Consider your target audience: Who are they? How do they search for what they need? What words or phrasing do they use? Are they primarily on desktop or mobile? This is also the perfect time to further research “interesting” phrases you may have found through competitive keyword research .

• Pro Tip: Since branded terms are usually irrelevant to SEO, be sure to filter out brand terms when you conduct your keyword research. You should also filter out irrelevant keyword phrase suggestions such as price and jobs. 

Again, in this stage, the goal is to compile a comprehensive keyword list for each of your chosen categories, so add as many relevant keywords as possible. You will probably discover that the broad category you started off with needs to be broken down into subtopics to make your keyword list usable for technical SEO and content marketing purposes. For example, digital marketing is a huge category that includes SEO, pay-per-click (PPC), media planning , marketing strategies, and more. So, each of those subjects should become its own subcategory at this stage since they each require research into specific keyword terms.

After you’ve broken down your main category into more easily digestible bite-sized subcategories, each subcategory should have its own keyword list that you can download. Now, it’s time to download those lists and take some time to review each. If you find that one of your categories is still quite wide, meaning it contains many search queries and very large volumes, you can break it down further into more detailed subcategories until it’s manageable.

Once you’re happy with your subcategory lists go to Google Keyword Planner. This tool allows up to 10 base phrases per ‘research,’ so group all phrases from the same subcategory together to find the best relevant keyword suggestions. ‘Research’ in SEO keyword planning refers to the maximum number of starting keywords that you can use in Google Keyword Planner to find related keyword suggestions.

5. Consolidate your keyword data

At this point, you’re probably wondering why you have so many keyword lists, but don’t worry that means you’re on the right track! These lists are your data sources for all search volumes and trends, and also for your competitors’ ranking and performance data. In fact, now it’s time to combine all of the lists that fall into the same subcategory by migrating all the data to one master Excel file. Once you’ve combined them remove any duplicate keywords. The reason you are merging the lists you’ve made is so you can effectively organize and implement your keyword research when it’s go-time.

• Pro Tip : Perform search trend and rank calculations on your data lists. Then consolidate the sources and remove duplicate phrase entries. Finally, pull all the competitive data related to your research (competitors ranking, traffic shares , etc.). Now you can calculate competitive keyword difficulty and value easily and build a data-driven SEO strategy. For example, you can identify recent changes in search volumes as well as competitor’s weak spots, and adjust your strategy accordingly.

To understand how to most effectively implement your keyword research, map out your data and insights against the current content on your website. Ask yourself:

• Which terms do you already have pages for?
• Which ones do you need to create pages for?

These questions will allow you to understand how to prioritize your efforts and successfully execute your keyword strategy.

6. Categorize keywords by user intent and semantic search

Start by dividing the phrases you’ve compiled into smaller groups based on topic similarities. From there you can break them down into large categories, like digital marketing, subcategories like SEO, and topic words like keyword research. For your topic keywords with semantic similarities, you want to keep in mind the users’ search intent for every query and effectively reach your potential customers.

People can use the same keywords to mean different things, so an important part of this process is decoding the user’s search intent.

For example, if someone searches for toilet paper what do they mean? Are they looking for places to order from, popular brands, or keeping tabs on which stores have toilet paper in stock? This is why you must understand search intent to categorize your keywords and ultimately reach your relevant target audience. Once you understand your target audience’s intent you can analyze the most relevant search phrases for them and for your business, and decide what are the right keywords for you.

In general, there are four main intent categories:

• Informational: These generally include “how-to” questions and “what” questions. For example, ‘how to disinfect plastic.’   
• Commercial investigation : Specific Attributes, versus, best, for example, ‘Walmart vs Target.’
• Transactional : This includes searches where the user has the intent to buy or download, for example, ‘buying waterproof kid’s toys.’
• Navigational : This includes branded queries, like ‘Facebook updates.’
• Pro Tip : Taking the time to thoroughly complete this step will help you to achieve very high clarity in your groups and ensure your SEO optimization efforts will have the largest impact possible.

Remove all remaining terms that are still irrelevant to your SEO goals such as queries that include times, locations, and competitor names. What you deem irrelevant will change based on your individual site and industry, so there is not a hard and fast rule to follow.

Optimization gaps are pages that are optimized for the wrong search intent, that have missing content, or are missing the right meta elements . To do this, continue re-dividing your keyword groups into smaller and smaller groups until you’re left only with keyword groups of semantically related search queries .  

7. Analyze long-tail vs. short-tail keywords

Within your keyword groups, it’s important to ensure you have a mix of short-tail and long-tail keywords . Short-tail keywords are more competitive and more to rank for because they are broader searches. On the other hand, long-tail keywords typically contain over three words and are less competitive because they are geared toward more specific searches. A good mix of the two types allows you to develop a keyword strategy that balances long-term and short-term wins.

For example, which of these keyword phrases do you think would be easier to rank for?

Toilet paper

Reusable toilet paper

[Did you pick the second one? Good!] The more competition there is for a keyword, the harder it is to rank.

As you can tell, long-tail keywords are more specific so they have a much clearer search intent than short-tail keywords. They also usually drive higher-quality traffic to your site since people are looking for something specific, which results in a more qualified lead. At many times data will show long-tail keywords can also produce larger traffic volumes when accumulated than short-tails for a specific topic, in those cases, it will be a strategic decision to focus on long-tail keywords that offer higher relevancy and match the audience’s search intent. This is another reason to make sure you don’t only pick high-volume phrases, but look at the big picture and choose the right keywords for SEO that offer maximum relevance and potential.

8. Choose the right mix of keywords to focus on

When creating your keyword plan you need to consider the following information and how they fit into your SEO strategy:

• Search volume: You should be closely evaluating the search volume of the keywords you are targeting. A keyword with a high search volume is more likely to be competitive, or harder to rank for. In order to rank higher on a high-volume, highly competitive keyword, you need to have site authority for the topic. One way you can build authority: create content on lower volume-related keywords. This shows Google that you are an expert on the topic and boosts your standing. Knowing the search volume for any given keyword helps you strategize to create the most effective approach given the characteristics of your website.
• Organic click-through rates (CTRs): This metric will give you an idea of how likely people are to click on posts that rank for a specific keyword. For example search terms like “what is the weather,” which are often answered on the Google Search Result page, may have a lower click-through rate since the user gets their answer question without needing to take another action.
• Keyword search trends: Trending keywords are constantly changing, so you need the most up-to-date data to stay on top of what’s trending in search. Similarweb has a keywords trends feature where you can quickly see what keywords are driving traffic now. Trends can change based on current events, pop culture developments (think Meghan and Harry’s Oprah interview ), or even seasonal events like Black Friday. Watch for specific times to rank for keywords because that’s when it matters.
• Your competitors’ keywords:  You can gain a lot of insight from keywords your competitors are ranking on. Using Similarweb’s Website Analysis, you can see the market share that each competitor has for specific keywords.
• Long-tail and short-tail keywords: As discussed earlier, you want to be sure you are focusing on the long-tail and short-tail keywords that make sense for your search strategy and your site’s level of authority.

Now you have sorted and expanded on your data strategically. This means you can easily estimate the difficulty as well as the value of ranking for a keyword or a topic and build an SEO strategy that takes everything into account and can be easily deployed. You can make smarter choices in creating or optimizing content, easily discover and address content gaps , and scale your activity without duplication hazards.

Put your keyword research to work

Boom. You did it. You just completed your initial keyword research. You now have small keyword groups you can use to map out and optimize pages from your site and create new pages for keywords you know will win SEO traffic. The list you have now enables you to easily manage on-page optimization and keyword use, as well as mitigate the risk of duplicate content.

This blog was written in collaboration with Sarah Mehlman , Content Manager at Similarweb.

Keyword research FAQs

Keyword research is the process of finding the terms and phrases that your target audience is searching for on search engines.

Why should I use keyword research?

You should use keyword research to discover the right terms that will help you climb higher on the SERP, and therefore increase the traffic to your website.

How do I conduct keyword research?

You can conduct keyword research with SEO tools. Similarweb’s SEO tools allow you to discover keywords your target audience is searching for, and the terms that are driving traffic to your competitors.

by Limor Barenholtz

Director of SEO at Similarweb

Limor brings 20 years of SEO expertise, focusing on Technical SEO, JavaScript rendering, and mobile optimization. She thrives on solving complex problems and creating scalable strategies.

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Keyword Research: An In-Depth Beginner’s Guide

Keyword research is the foundation of search engine optimization. This guide covers what it is and how you should do keyword research.

Keyword research is the foundation of search engine optimization, and without it, you cannot expect to create sustainable and repeatable visibility.

Today, SEO is a much wider discipline than in the early days of the industry and has been segmented into many verticals.

But, at the core, SEO is about finding opportunities online and capturing relevant traffic to a website through visibility in search engines. Keyword research is at the heart of that SEO strategy.

This guide explains what keyword research is, why it’s important, and how you can make a start for a successful SEO strategy.

What Is Keyword Research?

Keyword research is a process of finding words, queries, and phrases that users are searching for, which means a keyword that has search volume.

Research involves connecting the relevance of keywords to a website and its individual pages so that the user can find the best page to answer their query, known as search intent.

Keyword research also involves categorizing search queries into the different stages of a user journey and different categories of search, such as transactional, navigational, and informational.

Good keyword research enables users to find what they need:

• Shoppers who want to buy something can find the right product page.
• A user that wants to know ‘how to’ can find a page that explains a process in-depth.
• Users who want to research a person or brand can find out about that entity.

Keyword research should also carefully consider if ranking on a keyword is worth the effort it would take to rank highly and get visitors. Not all traffic is equal.

Download the ebook, How To Do Keyword Research For SEO .

Why Keyword Research Is Important For SEO

A search engine is an information retrieval system built around the queries that a user inputs to find an answer or relevant information to their search query.

The predominant focus of Google is to connect a user with the best answer to their query and the best website page so that a user is satisfied. Understanding this underlines SEO.

Good keyword research is the foundation of how a business can connect with its potential customers and audience. Understanding this helps to understand a good SEO strategy.

A business strategy starts with understanding its audience and their needs.

• What do they want?
• What do they need?
• What keeps them awake at night?
• What could solve their problem?

Keyword research is an extension of understanding your audience by first considering their needs and then the phrases, keywords, or queries they use to find solutions.

Keyword research is also important for SEO because it can show you where the opportunities are by knowing what your audience is searching for.

This will help you to find new areas of business and to prioritize where to focus attention and resources.

Keyword research will also help you to calculate where you can expect a return on investment to justify your efforts:

• Can a keyword deliver relevant traffic that has the possibility to convert to an end goal?
• What is an estimation of that traffic, and how much is each visitor worth to your business?

Basically, keyword research is the ultimate business research tool.

Read more: Why Keywords Are Still So Very Important For SEO

Keyword Research Basics

Monthly search volume.

Monthly Search Volume (MSV) is a predominant measure of keyword value. It’s a useful metric as a starting point to consider if anyone is searching for that keyword, but it shouldn’t be used in isolation or as the only measure of value.

Just because a keyword has a high MSV doesn’t mean it is the right keyword for you to rank on.

High-volume keywords generally deliver ‘browsing’ traffic at the top of the funnel. They are useful for brand awareness but not for direct conversion.

Low-volume keywords can be much more valuable because they can deliver users who are ready to buy a product.

Read more: A Complete Guide To Keyword Search Volume For SEO

User Intent

User intent refers to what type of result they want to see when they search for a query – the intention of their search.

You will hear user intent talked about a lot in keyword research, as it is one of the most important factors in the process.

User intent is important in two ways, firstly because your primary aim in creating content and pages on a website are to provide a user with information that they want to know.

There’s no point in creating a page about what you care about – your user only cares about their problems and needs.

You can have the best page in the world about the history of cupcakes, but if a user searching for [cupcake] wants a recipe for cupcakes, then they will not click on your link.

Secondly, Google considers relevance when serving results pages (as we said above, they want to deliver the best result for a query). So, the better your page fits user intent, the better it might rank.

Read more: How People Search: Understanding User Intent

When Google considers which pages it will show in search results, the algorithm will look at other pages that users are clicking on for that query.

If we have a query such as [cupcake], Google has to consider if a user wants to know what a cupcake is, how to make a cupcake, or wants to buy a cupcake.

By looking at a search result page, you can get a good idea of user intent from the other results.

Reviewing the search results page of a query should be part of your research process for every keyword you want to consider.

Keyword relevance and user intent are much the same things. It’s about knowing what the user really means when they search. This is more ambiguous for head keywords and less so for long-tail queries.

Long-Tail keywords

Long-tail keywords are called long-tail because they fall to the right of the search demand curve – where the graph looks like a long tail stretching to the right.

The search demand curve is a graph that shows keywords with high volume to the left and lower search volumes to the right.

Longer queries that are more focused fall to the right. Head terms with broad meaning and high volume fall to the left.

The value of long-tail keywords is that they are usually highly focused terms that convert well, as users are actively looking for something very specific.

For example, [iPhone 13] is a head term with high volume (2.7 million MSV), and [Best affordable iPhone 13 cases] (210 MSV) is a long-tail keyword with far fewer searches but would have a high conversion rate.

Long-tail keywords are useful to include in a keyword strategy because they are usually much easier to rank for and achievable for a new website, and the cumulative volume of many long-tail keywords adds up to considerable targeted traffic.

This is a much more stable strategy than focusing on one high-volume ambiguous keyword.

Read more: Long-Tail Keyword Strategy: Why & How To Target Intent For SEO

Types Of Search Query

There are four types of keywords that are useful to understand as they categorize the different user intents and can help when planning a keyword strategy.

• Informational – users looking for information or an answer to a question (top of the funnel).
• Navigational – users wanting to find a specific brand, site, or page (brand searches).
• Commercial – users researching brands, products, or services (middle of the funnel).
• Transactional – users ready to complete a purchase or action (bottom of the funnel).

Local keywords can also be considered another category.

How To Do Keyword Research

Now that you have a better understanding of the basics of keyword research, we can look at where you would start with your research and keyword strategy.

1. How To Find Keyword Ideas

The first stage of keyword research is to brainstorm ideas for seed keywords, and there are several ways to do this.

Your Target Audience

Everything starts with your audience and what they want. Think about their needs, wants, and especially their pain points and problems.

Start to compile your wide list of words, ideas, and topics that surround your niche or business.

Think About Questions

Question-based keyword queries are valuable as they can help you to capture featured snippets and can be a way to jump rank on highly competitive keywords.

Ask your sales team and review CRM data to find the questions that your audience is asking.

Also, think of question modifiers that will start to build out your list:

• What [is a road bike].
• How to [ride a road bike].
• When is [the best time to service a road bike].
• What is [the best road bike].
• Where is [road bike shop].

Current Site Queries

If your site already has some online history, then Google Search Console can tell you what Google thinks your website is relevant for. This is insightful to tell you if your site is conveying the right message and to find opportunities.

If Google is showing a lot of queries that have nothing to do with your product or brand, then you need to apply more keyword focus to your pages.

Look for queries that are position 10 or greater, have reasonable impressions, and you think are relevant to your business.

These are potential quick-win opportunities that you can capture by making improvements and optimizing pages for the query.

Read more: A Complete Google Search Console Guide For SEO Pros

Competitors’ Keywords

Your competitors are a gold mine of information because they might already have invested in extensive research.

A business should be constantly monitoring its competitors anyway, so keep an eye on what content they are producing and the terms they target.

A keyword gap analysis will help you find opportunities your competitors are targeting that you might not have considered.

Read more: Competitor Keyword Analysis: 5 Ways To Fill The Gaps In Your Organic Strategy & Get More Traffic

Seed Keywords

Start with high-level ‘seed’ keywords that you can use as a starting point to then open up variants and related queries.

Seed keywords are ‘big’ head terms such as [iPhone], [trainers], [road bike], or [cupcake].

For each seed keyword, start to think of topics that are related:

• Road bike maintenance.
• Road bike training.
• Road bike clothing.
• Road bike lights.

Also, use question modifiers and buying modifiers such as:

• Best [road bike].
• Buy [road bike].
• Price [for women’s road bike].
• [road bikes for hire] near me.
• Reviews [of road bikes under $1,000].

When you have finished this process, you should have a raw list of potential keywords grouped in topics – such as maintenance, clothing, training, etc.

2. How To Analyze Keywords

Once you have your raw list, it’s time to start to analyze and sort by value and opportunity.

Search Volume

Search volume will tell you if anyone is actively searching for this term.

For a first-stage strategy, you should aim for keywords with a mid-range and long-tail volume for quick wins and then build up to approach more competitive terms with higher volumes.

Head keywords with super high volumes (like ‘iPhone’) are not the best keywords to focus on as they can be too ambiguous and rarely have a specific intent.

Also, the amount of work that is needed to rank can be too high a barrier for entry unless you have an established domain of significant authority.

If a tool shows a keyword with zero search volume, this doesn’t always mean you should discard the term.

If the keyword is shown in the tool, then there can be value to consider targeting it in your strategy. However, make sure you know your audience and what is relevant to them before you invest resources in a zero-volume keyword.

Read more: Why You Should Target Zero Search Volume Keywords

Search Intent

After you have sorted your raw lists by search volumes, it’s then time to review the intent for each keyword that you would like to target.

The SERP will tell you everything that you need to know, and you should always review SERPs for clues on how to construct content and rank.

Look at the other listing that rank highly:

• Are they ‘how-to’ guides that indicate it’s informational?
• Do the titles say ‘buy,’ ‘best,’ or include product names?
• Is there a shopping carousel that indicates a buying keyword?
• Is there a location map that indicates it’s a local search?

Tag each keyword type and then consider which are the strongest keywords from each group.

You can also use a research tool that will tell you the type of keyword.

Topic Clusters

Grouping keywords into topic clusters is an advanced keyword strategy that can help to strengthen the topic authority of a site.

To do this, you would start with a high-volume head keyword and then research a series of keywords that supports that head term.

After creating pages of content that target each keyword, you use internal linking to connect pages with the same topic.

Read more: Keyword Clusters: How To Level Up Your SEO Content Strategy

3. How To Choose Organic Keywords

After sorting the volumes, intent, and topics, you will need to decide if you have a chance of ranking on a term by looking at how much competition there is for each keyword.

Keyword Difficulty

Keyword difficulty is one of the most important keyword metrics when doing your research.

If a keyword is so competitive that you need hundreds of thousands of dollars to rank, then you need to get strategic.

The easiest way to calculate keyword difficulty is to use a research tool that gives a score for each keyword.

Or, you can refer to Google Keyword Planner Tool and look at the CPC and level of difficulty. The higher the CPC bid, the higher the competition.

If you are starting out, first approach the lower competition keywords that are achievable and then build your way up to more competitive terms.

Read more: Why Keyword Research Is Useful For SEO & How To Rank

Connecting To Your Objectives And Goals

Unless a keyword can actually deliver a result for you – do you want to target it?

As we said above, targeting head terms is not the best strategy as they will, at best, deliver browsing or drive-by visitors. Unless you are a big brand with a big budget that is aiming for brand awareness, this is not the best application of your resources and budget.

Choosing your keyword priority should start with what can give you the best return in the shortest time frame.

Good keyword research is not just about trying to target a high-volume popular keyword. A good keyword strategy is about finding the right keywords for your needs and outcome. Always keep that front and center.

Read more: How To Calculate ROI For SEO When Targeting A Set Of Keywords

Watch John Mueller talk about ranking for head keywords in this video from the 38:55 minute mark.

Using Keyword Research Tools

Doing your research without a tool is limited; for the most in-depth keyword research, you need help to find keyword opportunities you had not thought of.

The following keyword research tools are all free versions that you can start out with.

Google Keyword Planner

The original keyword tool has evolved over the years, but it still remains one of the best free keyword tools and a good starting point to find seed keywords and keyword ideas.

The Google tool is aligned with Google Ads, so the data is skewed towards paid ads but is still valuable for research.

You need a Google Ads account to access the tool. Google will try to force you to set up an active campaign, but you can access the account by setting up an account without a campaign.

Without a campaign running, you will only get limited search volumes displayed in ranges, but the tool is still useful for its suggestions of keyword ideas. If you have an active campaign, Google will show you the monthly search volume.

You can add up to 10 seed keywords and get a list of suggested keywords, and run competitor URLs in the tool to find keywords they are targeting. Doing this is a great place to start building out raw lists of keywords to work from.

Read more: How To Use Google Keyword Planner

Read more: 9 Creative Ways To Use Google’s Keyword Planner Tool

Google Trends

Google Trends offers data based on actual search query data. It doesn’t provide search volumes, but the data in Google trends can be compared with actual search volumes from other tools so you can get a comparative feel of what the actual volumes are.

Where Trends excels is to identify trending topics and subtopics in a niche and to find geographic search trends in a local area. Trends will recommend related keywords that are currently growing in popularity.

As part of a keyword strategy, this can show you where to focus resources and when to stop investing in terms.

Read more: How To Use Google Trends For SEO

Google Autocomplete

Previously known as Suggest, Autocomplete is integrated into the Google search box to help users complete their search with what Google calls ‘predictions.’

Google takes its predictions from common searches and trending searches.

As the suggestions are all variations around the topic you are typing, the results shown give you an insight into other related terms that users could be looking for.

Checking the predictions that Google provides in Autocomplete can help you find more variations and keywords to consider.

Read more: Google Autocomplete: A Complete SEO Guide

Answer The Public

Answer The Public is a powerful tool that scrapes data from Google Autocomplete and connects a seed keyword with a variety of modifiers to produce a list of variants.

Answer The Public will quickly provide a list of suggestions, especially based on questions that you can use as a raw list to then review.

Read more: More Free Keyword Research Tools

Paid Keyword Research Tools

Free keyword tools are great to get you started and to create raw lists of keywords that you can then drill into.

However, for the best results, you might want to invest in a paid competitive analysis tool that can help you get monthly search volume and keyword difficulty data.

Some tools will also help with assigning topics and clustering for more advanced keyword strategies.

Anyone who does keyword research in-depth or to an advanced level will have their own process. They will also use a variety of tools and a combination of paid and free resources to get the best results.

Read more: Best Keyword Research Tools

Advanced Keyword Strategies

Now that you have an understanding of how to get started with keyword research, experiment with a few different websites and niches. Doing the work yourself is the best way to learn.

Once you have a better understanding in practice, move into more advanced methods and strategies to take your keyword research to the next level.

Advanced Keyword Research

• B2B Keyword Research Done Right With Practical Examples
• Keyword Clusters: How To Level Up Your SEO Content Strategy
• Building A Keyword Strategy For Comparison Content

Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal

Shelley Walsh is the SEO Content Strategist at SEJ & produces the Pioneers, a series about the history of SEO ...

SEO Keyword Research Guide

Learn the basics of keyword research to help customers find your site, blog, or online shop.

Google’s search algorithm uses over 200 factors to rank websites . To give your website the best chance of standing out from the crowd, it is essential to conduct thorough, high-quality keyword research. Finding the right keywords that appeal to your target audience will allow you to develop and execute a keyword strategy, shooting your pages up the search engine rankings and generating reliable organic traffic.

In this guide, we will discuss the importance of keyword research and walk you through how to systematically find the best keywords for your content and how to ensure they align with user intent. To hone in on a particular topic, feel free to jump directly to that section using any of the links below.

What are keywords?

Keywords, sometimes referred to as SEO keywords, are terms and phrases used to establish and develop online content. From the potential customer’s perspective, they are words entered into the search bar that best describe the products or services they’re looking for or the question they wish to find the answer to. For the marketer, the keywords you carefully choose to include in your content directly inform search engines about the information contained on your webpages, providing a way to rank and suggest your website.

Keywords provide a variety of insights into the minds of your audience , revealing vital information such as what they want and why they want it. Typically utilized for search engine optimization (SEO) or general marketing , incorporating the correct keywords into your content can dramatically improve the success of your business. The goal is to have a customer’s keywords match the keywords on your website.

Why is keyword research important?

The keywords on your website define what your business is about and what you sell. However, the number and quality of keywords included in your content helps search engines such as Google determine where to display your website on a particular search engine results page (SERP) . The higher you rank on the SERP, the more reach and traffic you will garner. In fact, the #1 result for each search on Google receives approximately 32% of all clicks . Even if you can’t be the top ranking website, it is still worth trying for the first few results. As the number of people searching online for products and services keeps growing, your favorable placement on the SERP will draw in more and more clicks over time. Between 2019 and 2020, the traffic for the 1,000 most visited pages increased by 22% .

Through keyword research, you can find the optimal keywords that are in demand but still niche, guessing what consumers want and providing it to them before they even realize it. Including high-quality keywords in articles, blog posts, or product descriptions can help push your website up the rankings, allowing you to attract a larger audience and beat out the competition. This organic traffic generated from the SERP can outperform even paid traffic or ads, producing leads after publishing for years to come.

Getting started with keyword research

Before you begin your keyword research journey to optimize your content , there are some keyword research fundamentals you should familiarize yourself with. First, it is crucial to understand what makes focus keywords and long-tail keywords different from regular keywords.

A focus keyword, like its name suggests, is the primary keyword you focus your strategy on. It is the main word or phrase that you purposefully include in the title, URL, meta description, and text of your website and hope search engines pick up on.

Long-tail keywords, on the other hand, contain 3 or more words. They are specific phrases that shoppers are more likely to use when they are further along in the buying cycle and have a clearer idea of what they want, bringing in more qualified traffic. When there is a lot of competition in the market, long-tail keywords become particularly valuable; they are a good way for websites to set themselves apart. Looking at the search terms “toaster” and “4 slice chrome toaster”, it is easy to imagine which will produce more precise results.

Other concepts that will help you conduct the most comprehensive and advantageous keyword include:

Keyword intent

Knowing how keyword intent plays into keyword research is an integral part of developing a keyword strategy. Because you know your business inside and out, you may not share the mindset of your target audience. Knowing the keyword intent is to put yourself in the shoes of potential consumers and truly understand the purpose of their search.

As you conduct your SEO keyword research, consider whether your content truly matches the consumer’s intent. Do they want to learn something? Are they looking for a specific company or website? Are they comparing products and almost ready to purchase? Or, are they prepared to buy now? A perfect match will compel the consumer to stay on your page for longer and help you rank higher on SERPs.

Learning your audience and figuring out why they want what they want will also help you utilize trigger phrases as a part of your long-tail keywords. Tailor your keywords with trigger phrases associated with different types of consumer intent. For example, if you are selling a product , transactional or commercial trigger phrases such as “best”, “buy”, “join”, and “compare” will help you rank for searches where people have more intent to buy.

Monthly search volume (MSV)

MSV is the average number of monthly searches for a keyword. Using keyword research websites and tools, you can look up the world-wide MSV of a keyword or even narrow it down to a specific city. While a higher MSV means more potential traffic for your website, it also implies heavier competition.

Topical authority

As search engines improve and more emphasis is placed on related terms, natural language, and quality content. You want to showcase your website’s expertise by providing in-depth, interconnected content. Consumers will want to click on your website if they consider you a trusted source of information for a certain topic. Authoritative content and a good reputation will help you rank highly on SERPs.

How to conduct keyword research

Now that you understand the importance of keyword research and have gotten acquainted with some of its most important terms and concepts, you are ready to get started. Follow these next steps to identify the keywords you should be targeting to attract the audience you want and create a foolproof keyword strategy.

1. Make a list of broad topics relevant to your topic

In this first step, you want to create a spreadsheet with general categories or “buckets” for the keywords you wish to rank for. These might correspond to product categories or anything you believe your target audience would be interested in. If you blog from time to time, you may already have some topics you cover regularly.

Keep this list short and simple, with 5 to 10 topics at most. It can be helpful to imagine yourself as a buyer looking for a product or service.

General categories for a website that sells natural and environmentally friendly products might include:

• Healthy environment
• Natural health
• Non toxic home cleaning
• Natural beauty
• Healthy cooking
• Natural pet health

2. Expand each topic with a list of phrases you think your customers use

Next, with these general categories at hand, it’s time to identify the terms and phrases your target customer might type into the search bar to locate information, products, or services.

If you already have data from website analytics software like Google Analytics or HubSpot’s Sources report, look through your organic search traffic bucket to identify keywords consumers already use to arrive at your website.

This is not meant to be a final list of keywords but an opportunity to brainstorm for data points to make your research more targeted and fruitful.

For the environmentally friendly website example above, under the category “Healthy environment”, you might list:

• Compare air purifiers
• Best water filters
• Aroma diffuser
• Essential oil diffuser
• Nontoxic paint supplies
• Hypoallergenic pillows
• Natural ways to reduce allergies
• How to improve indoor air
• How to use sage

Create a list under each general category and add it to your spreadsheet. Feel free to ask your co-workers or employees for ideas, especially those who are customer-facing.

3. Find related search terms

There are many creative ways to add to your keyword lists.

• Search a keyword phrase in Google and scroll to the bottom of the page, where you’ll see a list of related search phrases in bold.
• For a deeper dive, click on one of the related searches and check out the list Google suggests at the bottom of that second page.
• The website AnswerThePublic allows up to 3 free searches a day. It delivers a chart of phrases people are searching for related to your topic.
• You can also type your keyword phrase into Google’s Keyword Planner or one of the paid tools listed below and see what other relevant terms people use.

4. Analyze the strength of your keywords

The easiest way to accomplish this next step is with Keyword Planner or a paid keyword research or SEO tool. Ahrefs , Semrush , Wordtracker , and Ubersuggest are some of the most popular. Wordtracker and Ubersuggest both have free versions you can use to start.

Here’s what you’re looking for when you analyze your keywords.

• What is the exact search term? Make sure your keyword phrase matches the precise search term people use.
• How high is the search volume? If no one uses a keyword phrase, it won’t do you much good to structure a strategy around it. Look for the highest search volume available.
• How steep is the competition? The paid tools differentiate between competition for paid ads versus for organic search. You want a higher search volume with lower organic search competition. That’s the sweet spot.
• Check for related terms you may have missed that have high search volume and low organic search competition.

5. Determine how you rank in your industry

If you’re competing against big brand names that already take up the first page of Google for most of the terms you’ve identified, you’ll want to alter your strategy to identify less competitive long-tail keywords.

Check the SERP for your most desired search terms. If it’s filled with solid brand names that have more influence and market share than your company does (at the moment), go back and refine your list with long-tail keywords.

The one exception to this strategy is if your competitors haven’t been publishing quality content. If you know you can outdo their content in length, quality, and layout, then you may be able to outrank them even if they spend more money marketing their brand.

6. Verify search intent

When a consumer enters a search query into Google, they are on a quest for something and every question needs a matching answer.

Make sure you understand your customers’ intent by typing your keywords into the search engine. What pages already rank for that phrase and what do they offer?

If a buyer is looking for information and you instead try to sell them a product, you may get a click, but they’ll bounce quickly, which will hurt your ranking. However, if a shopper is ready to buy and you deliver a product page, they’ll happily make a purchase.

Make a note in your spreadsheet about the buyer intent for each keyword phrase, or establish a habit for you or your team to check the intent of a keyword before creating content using it.

Keyword research FAQs

How do i get good at keyword research.

Other than getting a better grasp on who your target audience is and what exactly it is that they want, if you wish to improve at keyword research, it is essential to track your results and analytics. For example, using the data on Google Analytics, you can easily discern which keywords and landing pages generate the most traffic and which ones are underperforming. With this knowledge, you can come up with a plan to correct and enhance your strategy. Mailchimp and software platforms like Semrush also offer in-depth articles , guides, and courses you can use to hone your keyword researching skills and learn about broader SEO best practices.

How can I do free keyword research?

You don’t need to spend money or have a subscription to conduct quality keyword research. There are many free tools online that can help you find the right keywords to boost your content. Google Trends, Keyword Surfer, Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool, and Moz’s Keyword Explorer are just some of the free tools readily available to help you gather vital information for marketing and SEO.

How can I maintain keyword rankings?

To maintain keyword rankings, you should always stay up to date on algorithm changes and look for ways to refresh and improve your existing content. No matter how good your content is, it needs to be nurtured to keep up with the constantly changing landscape of the search engine results page. Identifying new opportunities or trending keywords can even help your content rank higher than it did before.

Key Takeaways

Conduct keyword research to scope out trends and blind spots, understand user intent, and find the optimal keywords to build your content around. However, remember that keyword research is only the foundation of your SEO strategy. To truly stand out, ensure that every blog post, article, and product description is more valuable, readable, and complete than your competition’s. Pay attention to the layout and on-page SEO of each piece of content and make your website easy to scan and mobile-friendly.

Also keep in mind that organic SEO is a long-term process. While you may rank quickly for specific terms or phrases, most businesses gradually climb up the SERPs. Level up your SEO strategy and grow your audience with Mailchimp’s tools and expert guidance. Try our marketing CRM software to create stronger connections with your customers from day one or track your performance with our digital marketing analytics reports .

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Copyblogger

How to Do Keyword Research: Steps, Examples, and Tools

In the world of SEO, keywords are like directions to your website. Pick the wrong ones, and you decrease your chances of people finding it. But the right keywords allow your target audience to find your content exactly when they need it.

So, this is your guide to keyword research techniques that will drive more targeted traffic to accelerate the growth of your business.

At Digital Commerce Partners (DCP), the content marketing services division of Copyblogger, we help companies achieve their business goals with tailored strategies.

Keyword research is a foundational element of our meticulously crafted content creation and optimization process. And I’m going to show you how we do it for our clients.

Before I share specific details about how to do keyword research, let’s break down what it is and why neglecting it can be a mistake. 

Want us to scale your traffic?

For the first time, The Copyblogger methodology is now available to a select few clients. We know it works. We’ve been doing it since 2006.

What Is Keyword Research?

The key to attracting organic traffic is understanding how people search — what questions they ask and what information they seek. This is where keyword research for SEO comes in.

Keyword research is about figuring out the phrases people type into search engines to find information they need. 

But how do you go about it? 

Here are three key steps.

• Brainstorm primary keywords: We put ourselves in the shoes of our clients’ audiences. What questions would they ask when searching for similar products or services? 
• Dig deeper into keyword analysis: Once we’ve completed a competitor gap analysis (more on this below), we draft a solid list of potential keywords. Then we analyze our clients’ business goals and past SEO efforts.
• Figure out how to beat your competition: As soon as we have a refined keyword list, we create a strategic SEO content plan for our clients. 

This three-step process should be the foundation of your SEO strategy if you want to attract a specific target audience from organic search results. We know this method works because we’ve been using it on our own sites since 2006!

At DCP, we’ve developed a solid keyword research process that lets us quickly find untapped keyword opportunities for our clients.

Our SEO content strategy helped one of our clients triple their revenue since the beginning of our collaboration, win top-ranking positions for more than 370 relevant keywords, and increase their organic traffic by 301.46%.

When you learn how to do keyword research correctly, it’s possible to achieve similar (or ever better) results. 

How to Do Keyword Research for Ecommerce 

If you manage an ecommerce website or want to launch an online store, you have to find relevant keywords for your:

• Product pages
• Sub-categories
• Informational blog posts

Below you’ll find our step-by-step keyword research process. Mastering this approach will ensure your valuable product pages reach your target audience at the right time. 

1. Identify Primary Keywords

A seed keyword is a broad term that serves as a starting point for generating more specific primary keyword ideas.

Imagine you run an online record store. When brainstorming keywords for your ecommerce business, some initial ideas that come to mind might be “vinyl records” or “used vinyl.” These are your seed keywords.

When using a keyword research tool like Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool , even one seed keyword is enough to find thousands of relevant keywords.

Type your seed keyword into the search bar and hit “Search.”

Semrush will generate a long list of keywords users actively search for online, all related to your seed keyword. You can easily narrow down the list using these filters:

• Search Intent: This helps you understand what a user is looking for (e.g., informational, transactional, commercial, or navigational content).
• Search Volume: This indicates the average number of monthly searches for a particular keyword.
• Keyword Difficulty (KD): This estimates how challenging it will be to rank high for that keyword.
• Keyword Type: This categorizes keywords by their nature (e.g., short-tail, long-tail).

Which look like good options from the keyword list below? 

I’ve highlighted a few examples that seem like a good fit for an online record store. Read on to learn how to analyze keywords further and choose the best ones to support your business goals.

2. Check Your Competitors’ Ranking

An SEO-based content strategy is never complete without assessing our clients’ competitors. Therefore, we always monitor their top-performing keywords. 

This competitive analysis helps us reveal additional keywords that might not have seemed relevant during the initial research phase.

There are many ways to find competitors’ top-performing keywords. At DCP, we always strive for simplicity and efficiency. That’s why we use the following two methods:

• Check the top-performing website pages and keywords they rank for
• Conduct a keyword gap analysis

The first method is a quick way to learn which keywords drive the most traffic to your competitors. 

In Semrush, click “Organic Research,” insert your competitor’s URL and navigate to the “Positions” tab.

By default, the report displays the top traffic generation keyword. However, you can apply various filters to quickly find suitable keywords for your business. 

For example, you can use the following metrics to find easy-to-rank keywords with business potential (more on this below):

• KD: 0–29% (indicates a low competition)
• Search Intent: Commercial, Transactional 
• Search Volume: From 100+

Based on our experience, this method works for businesses with only a few competitors. 

However, if you operate an ecommerce store in a competitive niche, you’d benefit from conducting the keyword gap analysis. 

Semrush’s Keyword Gap Tool allows you to check up to five competitors at a time. 

The keyword gap analysis shows keywords your competitors rank for … but your site doesn’t (yet).

And you don’t have to analyze every competitor one by one and then check whether your site already ranks for these keywords, Semrush can do it for you.

This method is an efficient way to discover more ecommerce content marketing opportunities. 

3. Check Existing Keyword Rankings 

By now, you should have compiled a list of potential target keywords. But don’t rush to create content just yet. We’re still in the research phase.

Before diving into analysis, let’s make sure your site isn’t already ranking for your target keywords. This will save you time and resources and avoid competing with your existing content ( keyword cannibalization ).

There are many ways to analyze existing keyword rankings.

With Google Search Console (GSC), the data comes directly from Google.

Suppose you want to rank for the keyword “SEO tools.” Type it in the “Query” filter and hit “Apply.” If any pages of your website rank for this keyword, the report will show you the URLs, impressions, and clicks.

Don’t have GSC? Well, you definitely should. But you can use Semrush too. 

Go to “Organic Research,” enter your website URL, and open the “Pages” report. This report reveals which web pages rank for specific keywords in search results.

4. Analyze Your Keyword Ideas 

Now it’s time to analyze your keywords and identify the most suitable ones. 

First, consider search volume — are there enough people searching for this term to make it worthwhile?

Next, check the keyword difficulty — how competitive is it to rank for this keyword on a scale from 0 to 100? The higher the keyword difficulty, the stronger the competition is in the top 10 organic search results. 

Ideally, you’d want to target high-volume keywords with low competition.

5. Prioritize Money-Making Pages with Traffic Potential 

Search intent is another important factor to analyze before selecting keywords.

Your target audience is either:

• Researching a product (informational)
• Considering their options (navigational)
• Ready to buy (transactional)

Depending on your website’s domain authority and business goals, you can focus on low-competition top-funnel keywords (to increase brand awareness) and bottom-funnel keywords (to drive sales). 

For example, our custom SEO content strategy for IA Path prioritized their business goals. 

IA Path is a website that offers training and mentorship programs for adjusters, and we helped the company achieve a 10X increase in leads in just six months! 

“The organic traffic and email automation system that DCP set up for me has taken me off the lead generation hamster wheel. Now I sell more and work less.”

Chris Stanley

Founder and CEO, IA Path

How to Research Keywords for Your Blog 

While SEO and content marketing are long-term investments, you can still achieve some early wins.

We bridge the gap by crafting custom content plans that leverage keywords with realistic ranking potential. These keywords can accelerate your performance in organic search results and help you attract your target audience faster. 

To pick suitable keywords for your blog, consider the following:

• Your website’s domain authority
• Which keywords your website already ranks for
• Search volume
• Keyword difficulty
• Users’ search intent
• Your business goals 

For new websites, chasing high-competition keywords is a recipe for slow progress. 

Effective keyword research is about finding keywords your site can realistically rank for, which is why we use specific filters in Semrush Keyword Magic Tool:

• Keyword Difficulty: 0–29% (indicates a low competition)
• Search Intent: Informational (focuses on increasing brand awareness)
• Volume: 100+ (ensures a decent audience size)

From here, you can look through the list and select relevant keywords for your website.

Once you’ve identified your target keywords, the next step is to choose the ideal content type (blog post, landing page, etc.) and format (listicle, guide, etc.) to maximize your reach.

In other words, to create valuable cornerstone content , you need to identify and match users’ search intent.

Example Keyword Phrase: How to Clean Vinyl Records

For example, let’s look at what ranks in the top 10 positions for the keyword “How to clean vinyl records.”

• Content type: blog posts
• Content format: how-to guides

What does this information tell you?

To increase your chances of ranking on Google, you’ll likely have to create an in-depth guide to compete with the top search results.

Remember that SEO today goes way beyond keyword stuffing. Search engines like Google prioritize user experience.

That’s why you have to research related keywords and use SEO copywriting to cover the subtopics that interest site visitors.

Here’s how to find related keywords with Semrush.

• Open “ Keyword Overview ” report for your target keyword
• Navigate to “ Keyword Variations ” or “ Questions ” reports to discover a treasure trove of related keywords.

At DCP, we note related keywords when creating our article briefs and outlines, which are detailed descriptions of the writing assignment for our handpicked writers.

Our briefs for writers include:

• Recommended blog post structure: A clear outline to ensure your content flows naturally.
• Subheadings (H2-H4) made from related keywords: This helps target relevant subtopics and align with search intent. 

Now let’s look at keyword research tools you can use.

Top 3 Keyword Research Tools 

Over the years of working with clients in the ever-evolving landscape of SEO and keyword research, we’ve tested many tools, such as Google Keyword Planner, Moz, Ahrefs, and Semrush.

But not all keyword research tools are created equal …

To help you navigate this landscape, here are the best keyword research tools we recommend based on our rigorous testing and proven data accuracy.

• Ahrefs 

Semrush is an all-in-one online marketing toolkit that provides 55+ features, covering everything from keyword research to competitor analysis and website audits. 

We trust Semrush to help us craft data-driven SEO strategies for our clients because of its massive keyword database (about 25.6 billion keywords!) and accurate data.

Semrush also allows you to approach keyword research in many different ways. 

The Keyword Magic Tool can generate 20 million keyword ideas for a single seed keyword across 142 countries. With such a vast pool, we easily uncover high-impact and easy-to-rank keywords for our clients. 

The Keyword Gap Tool is our go-to feature for rapidly assessing keyword potential within various niches. Additionally, it helps us identify keywords that our clients’ competitors use to dominate search results. 

Armed with insights from these keyword research tools, we create strategic SEO content plans that give our clients a competitive advantage.

Semrush offers a free 7-day trial, perfect for both SEO contractors seeking a budget-friendly option and website owners who want to tackle DIY SEO. Plus, even after the trial ends, you can keep analyzing 10 keywords daily for free!

Paid plans start at $129.95 per month. 

Ahrefs is another major player in the SEO tool arena. 

While Ahrefs began as a link-building tool, it’s grown into a multi-faceted SEO toolkit, including its Keyword Explorer. 

Similar to Semrush, Keyword Explorer analyzes keyword difficulty, search volume, traffic potential, intent, and related keywords. A recent addition, keyword clustering, automatically groups keywords to save you time.

However, Ahrefs doesn’t offer anything similar to Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool to quickly generate thousands of keyword ideas from your seed keyword. 

It’s important to note that Ahrefs has transitioned to a credit system for pricing, which might not be ideal for agencies or owners of large websites. Essentially, actions like opening reports, applying filters, and conducting new searches consume credits. Once depleted, you’ll need to add more credits to your account.

While the most affordable plan starts at $129, it only grants 500 monthly credits. In our experience, this might not be sufficient for comprehensive keyword research.

Years of using both tools for clients’ projects taught us that Semrush and Ahrefs cater to slightly different needs.

If you manage a large website and want to quickly discover suitable keywords, Semrush might be a better fit. Ahrefs, on the other hand, stands out for its robust link building capabilities. 

Moz offers tools and resources specifically designed for SEO and inbound marketing. 

A key component of this suite is the Keyword Explorer tool. This tool allows you to discover relevant keywords, analyze their search volume and difficulty, and gain valuable insights into user intent behind each term.

While Moz stands tall as another potent keyword research tool, it approaches things a little differently than Semrush and Ahrefs. 

For instance, Moz’s database contains 1.25 billion keywords compared to Semrush’s 25.6 billion keywords. 

In addition to all standard keyword metrics, Moz shows you the minimum domain authority for websites ranking in the top 10 search results. In our experience, this saves valuable time by offering a quick snapshot of the competition level.

Moz Pro subscription starts at $99 per month, but the most affordable plan offers only 150 monthly keyword searches. 

If you want to leverage Moz primarily for keyword research, consider taking advantage of their 30-day free trial and potentially upgrading to the Medium plan for $179 per month.

Can You Use Google Keyword Planner for SEO? 

While Google Keyword Planner (KP) might seem like a tempting option for SEO keyword research due to its free access, it has limitations that can hinder your SEO strategy. 

If you’ve ever used KP, you might’ve noticed its search volume ranges are broad. That’s why you can’t accurately estimate keyword popularity.

KP lacks in-depth keyword difficulty metrics — a critical metric for keyword analysis. Without this metric, you won’t be able to assess how competitive it is to rank for a particular keyword in organic search results. 

The tool also doesn’t provide information about users’ search intent. 

Perhaps most importantly, KP prioritizes data relevant to paid advertising campaigns. This means the information you see might not accurately reflect real user behavior in organic search results.

For extensive keyword research, it’s better to use more comprehensive tools that provide accurate keyword data and valuable insights on search intent.

3 Best Keyword Research Tips from an SEO Agency 

At DCP, we’ve written more than 5,645 optimized articles for our clients. This experience has helped us reveal unique insights about how different keyword types and on-page SEO techniques impact rankings. 

As a result, we’ve been able to refine our keyword research process, craft content that resonates with each client’s target audience, drive organic traffic, and convert more customers.

Below are some of our most valuable keyword research tips that help us discover highly impactful keywords for our clients.

1. Analyze Search Intent 

Understanding search intent helps us uncover the “why” behind a search query. 

It’s like having a conversation with potential customers. You need to know what kind of information they’re seeking — are they researching a product, looking for buying advice, or simply trying to solve a problem? 

This could be an informative buying guide for a “browsing” user, or product pages with a CTA for a ready-to-buy customer.

By analyzing search intent, you can tailor your content to perfectly match what users are looking for and attract highly relevant traffic that’s more likely to convert.

Here’s what our former client, SoulSalt, said about our laser focus on users’ needs and search intent, which helped the personal development and coaching company increase their organic traffic by 22,111%. 

“Our SEO is so great that we have clients who sell themselves on us before they even have their first discovery session.”

Lyn Christian

SoulSalt Founder

2. Target Keywords Within Your Ranking Capabilities

Chasing high-volume search terms dominated by industry giants can be a recipe for wasted resources and frustration. 

Instead, understand your ranking capabilities by identifying keywords with search traffic that aligns with your website’s authority and backlink profile. 

Semrush has a straightforward keyword difficulty score which you can use to assess whether your website can realistically rank for your preferred keywords depending on the competition level. 

If your website is new and has close to zero domain authority, consider prioritizing easy-to-rank keywords with up to 29 KD. 

For example, SoulSalt ranked for just 213 organic keywords when our team joined the project. 

With a crystal clear strategy and carefully picked keywords that their website could rank for, they built up to 11,670 organic keywords in two years.

Of those, 3,367 ranked in the top 20 of the Google SERPs.

3. Optimize for SERP Features 

SEO isn’t just about ranking high for keywords. 

The modern SEO game involves optimizing your content to appear in SERP features — those attention-grabbing snippets that appear at the top of the search results page. 

These features, like featured snippets and answer boxes, can help you increase organic traffic and brand awareness even if your website doesn’t snag the top spot. That’s why optimizing for SERP features should be part of your SEO content strategy. 

Take SoulSalt, for example. DCP’s optimized content helped them get 56 featured snippets for high-value keywords. 

Today, SoulSalt ranks in the top 10 organic results for their target terms, and their SERP features grab user attention at the very top of the page. 

That’s the power of SERP features in action.

Accelerate Your SEO Success with Keyword Research That Works

Picture this: potential customers searching online and finding your website exactly when they need it.

At DCP, we’ll bridge that gap with laser-focused SEO.

Our expert team will analyze your industry and niche, identifying the keywords with a healthy balance of search volume and competition.

Then we’ll create compelling content that resonates with your audience and positions you as an industry leader — not just another website lost in the search results. 

The outcome will be a surge in organic traffic that skyrockets conversion rates and drives business growth. 

Interested in learning more?

Contact us today to discuss how we can help you achieve your business goals through SEO and unlock the true potential of your website.

Jon Nastor is co-founder and head of strategy for Digital Commerce Partners . He’s a music nerd who’s spent the past 12 years as a content-obsessed marketer, prolific podcaster, and hyper-competitive SEO consultant.

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Keyword Research And Analysis: How To Find The Best Keywords For Your Website

Last updated on January 12, 2024.

Which keywords do you want to rank for? To answer this question, a lot of SEOs like to follow their gut instinct. When starting out, this isn’t fundamentally wrong. But if you want to get the most out of keyword research and discover keywords with major potential, you need to take a systematic approach.

Systematic keyword research and analysis will give you the terms that your target group is searching for on Google , giving you the basis for developing a content strategy for your website .

This article will take you step by step through the process of keyword research and give you useful tips and strategies for finding relevant keywords for your website. We’ll also show you how Seobility’s free Keyword Research Tool can help you with this.

You can find an introduction to the tool’s features in the article “ New: Seobility Keyword Research Tool .”

Tip Signing up for a free Seobility Basic plan will let you carry out up to 5 checks per day. And during the free 14-day trial period for Seobility Premium, you’ll have as many as 50 queries per day.

If you’re already familiar with the basics of keyword research, you can jump to the hands-on section here .

Table of Contents

• 1 What is Keyword Research?
• 2 Why You Need Keyword Research
• 3 How Keyword Research Works
• 4 Step 1: Identify the Right Seed Keywords
• 5 Step 2: How to Find Relevant Keywords
• 6 Step 3: Analyze and Prioritize Your Keywords
• 7 Step 4: Develop a Content Plan
• 8 Additional Tools for Keyword Research
• 9 Conclusion

What is Keyword Research?

Keyword research means looking for search terms that your target group will enter into a search engine to accomplish their search intent : Buying something, conducting research, finding information, being entertained, or navigating to a specific website (or part of a website). By knowing these search terms, you can offer tailor-made content on your website to draw searchers to your site and, for example, convert them to customers.

Keyword research is typically based on a combination of creative processes and tool use. These tools have the advantage of providing keywords that you may not have found just by putting on your thinking cap, or that might be overlooked by other approaches. They’ll also save you a lot of time, since a tool is typically faster than searching Google manually.

Another major advantage: Tools provide qualitative and quantitative data about the value of keywords that can’t be found in Google search or anywhere else, such as data about the competition for a keyword, the search volume , cost-per-click prices and link data. This makes it easier to assess whether it’s worth optimizing for a keyword, or whether it’s too expensive compared to the potential return.

Why You Need Keyword Research

Keyword research is important for search engine optimization for several reasons.

• Better visibility : Building the right keywords into your web pages increases the probability that these pages will receive a higher ranking for precisely those keywords. From a quantitative perspective, that potentially means more traffic, for one thing.
• Competitor analysis : You can also get a quicker idea of the competition you’re up against by seeing what keywords your competitors are using to drive traffic to their sites (which is typically part of keyword research). This analysis will help you identify niche keywords that are relatively less competitive and rewarding targets for content and product pages – as well as keywords that you absolutely must rank for in your niche.
• More efficient resource usage : With targeted keyword research, you can better utilize your SEO resources by concentrating on keywords that have more value for your organization. Nobody can rank on everything in the long term. Keyword research in general, and content production in particular, require significant investment of time and money. With the insights gained from keyword research, you can prioritize your use of each of these and also justify necessary compromises. For a short-tail keyword like “bicycle,” the pages that rank will typically be those with lots of links and high domain authority . Experience shows that it is unrealistic for a new website to compete with this.

How Keyword Research Works

Before we get down to business, it’s worth taking a look at the overall process of keyword research. Depending on your needs, it can be very simple – or highly complex. It depends on whether you’re doing keyword research for a few (dozen) keywords or whether your project requires research and categorization of thousands of keywords, as is the case with online shops that carry a lot of products. In this article, we’ll focus on the basic process, which is the same for any type of website.

• Step 1 : The first step in keyword research is to identify your “seed keywords.” Those are the main keywords related to your products and services, and the starting point for deeper research.
• Step 2 : Tools provide you with extensive lists of relevant keywords related to your seed keywords.
• Step 3 : The next step is to prioritize the keywords in these lists to extract ideal keywords, and then to structure them into meaningful keyword clusters.
• Step 4 : As you develop your content plan, determine what content needs to be produced for the most valuable or useful keywords.

Step 1: Identify the Right Seed Keywords

Keyword research always begins with the question: “What should I be optimizing for, anyway?” Usually, no tool can answer this question for you. Ultimately you know best what the goals of your website are.

Based on these goals, you’ll derive your main keywords or “seed keywords”. This basic list (ideally) covers your website’s most important topic areas . It forms the foundation for more in-depth keyword research.

The good news: You don’t need any tools to create your first seed keyword list. Seed keywords are found using classic techniques.

Brainstorming

Perhaps you know your subject so well that you can simply draw relevant terms from your own experience. Alternatively, you can sit down with your customers, colleagues and partners to create an initial list of keywords. The following questions might help you with brainstorming:

• Target group analysis : Who are the primary target groups of your products? What are their needs? How do these target groups search for what you’re offering them?
• Identifying and categorizing core themes : What primary themes emerge from your products and services? How can these core themes be categorized?
• Questions and answers : Which questions related to the core themes are the target groups asking?

These questions should give you a sizable list of keywords and additional questions that your potential customers have. This list will be the basis of your keyword research. If that’s not enough, we have a few more creative ideas for you:

Customer conversations

Conversations with your customers will inevitably lead to discussions about problems that need to be solved. Be sure to take notes in these situations, as discussions can easily lead to content such as FAQs and how-to guides. Actively asking questions can also provide valuable information.

E-mail inquiries

Support or sales inquiries also provide important clues to what visitors/customers are looking for.

Competitor analysis

Reviews and ratings, whether in comments, forums, newsletters or social media, are gold mines for creative keyword research. Don’t just look at your competitors’ own sites, but wherever customers and other interested people are talking about your competitors’ products and services, such as forums, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Regardless of your competitors, these platforms are always an interesting research resource in general.

Print media

Ideas for keywords and topics can also be found in relevant technical print media. Take a walk sometime to a well-organized bookstore with a large selection of technical journals and magazines. It’s fun, and it will give you ideas that your competitors don’t have because they often limit themselves to online research.

At the end of the process, you should have an extensive list of seed keywords to use as a basis for keyword research.

Step 2: How to Find Relevant Keywords

The next step is to identify relevant search terms associated with your seed keywords. These might be variations of the keyword, similar or related terms, or more specific long-tail keywords .

To provide an example of the process below, let’s imagine a sample project. We’ll assume that we’re starting with a new online shop offering foosball tables for sale. As a break from the heavy SEO work, it’s nice to have a little fun with your colleagues in the office every now and then to recharge your batteries for new ideas 🙂

So the seed keyword is “buy foosball table.” Now using the keyword research tool , we need to find out which variations and sub-keywords there are and how much potential each one has. You’re welcome to follow these steps, using your own seed keyword.

Find similar keywords and variations

First enter your seed keyword in the keyword research tool and choose “similar keywords” as the analysis:

After clicking on the “Keyword Research” button, the tool will show you a list of keywords similar to your seed keyword:

Now you can select all the terms that might be interesting for your website. The data to the right of each keyword gives you valuable information about the keyword’s potential, the underlying search intent, and how difficult it might be to rank for that term:

• Search volume : This is the estimated number of searches per month. For example, the phrase “foosball table for sale” is searched for an average of 2,900 times a month. The higher the search volume, the more traffic you can potentially attract to your website with that keyword. However, there’s usually a lot of competition for high-volume keywords, making it harder to achieve a high ranking.
• Search intent : Here you can find out the search intent behind a keyword. Do searchers want to buy something, find information on a topic, learn about a product, or simply navigate to a website? If multiple intents are served in the search results, you will see multiple entries here.
• Competition : Here you can see whether the competition for a keyword is high, average or low. According to the keyword research tool’s estimate, competition for the phrase “buy foosball table” is high. There are a lot of websites that want to get on the first page for that search.
• CPC (cost per click) : This is the approximate cost of a web ad for the phrase in Google Ads . It’s how much you would have to pay if a user clicks on your ad in the search results. In general, the higher the number of advertisers that bid for a keyword, the higher the CPC will be.

Terms with a high CPC and little competition are particularly valuable (but also rare).

These are the low-hanging fruit. It’s usually worth creating a page for them. This makes sense because advertisers seem to be willing to pay more for search terms (higher CPC), and if these terms have less competition, it’s all the easier to rank for them. That’s why such discoveries should be a high priority. The same applies to terms with high search volume but little competition.

The “Related searches” tab provides additional keyword variations. These are terms from the “Related searches” section that are displayed at the end of Google search results:

These related searches are a bit more general and are good for additional content ideas.

Tip: You can add promising keywords from the Keyword Research Tool directly to your Seobility rank tracking:

I went ahead and selected several additional keyword ideas and then added them to my project by clicking “Save selected search terms”.

The advantage of this is that Seobility will immediately start monitoring the positions of these terms and will inform you of the success of your SEO work, tailored to your keyword list.

Alternatively, you can use the ‘Export CSV’ function to download the keyword lists for further analysis and clustering (more on this in step 3).

But for now, back to the research part.

The “Auto complete” tab returns additional queries based on Google Search’s autocomplete suggestions .

Another interesting research resource is the “People also ask” tab. Here you’ll find common questions that search engine users ask in relation to the keyword.

The question “Which foosball table is the best” seems particularly interesting for content such as an article or post that answers this question in detail.

All these analysis options allow us to quickly find relevant keywords. Even if you don’t do anything further, this step alone will give you a wide range of options to optimize for. Just enter the seed keyword and you’ve got a starting point for the next steps. But wait – there’s more.

Your competitors are already ranking where you’d like to rank. This also means that they have information that you don’t yet have. Fortunately, the Keyword Research Tool offers some features to analyze the ranking performance of these sites. You can use this data to add valuable terms to your keyword list.

Especially interesting are keywords your own website doesn’t yet rank for, but your competition does . You can find these terms by using the “Competitor analysis” function of the Keyword Research Tool.

To do this, enter your domain (or another domain) in “Your domain” (1) and then enter up to two competitors as Domain A and B. Then select “Gap” as the analysis (2).

And look: A top ranking domain for the keyword “buy foosball table” doesn’t yet rank for “foosball football table” compared to the two competitors (3).

The ‘Intersections’ analysis, on the other hand, provides terms for which all three analyzed domains rank. This is particularly useful as you can enter the top 3 domains for a keyword to get a list of the top keywords for which all 3 competitors rank in that area. This is particularly helpful if your site is targeting the same topic but isn’t yet in the top 3.

In our example, this approach helped us discover some of the top brands that consumers are interested in.

If the data from the gap and intersection analysis isn’t enough for you, you can get even more data on each individual competitor in the “URL/Domain” tab. Here you can see in detail which keywords a particular competitor is ranking for in organic search results .

Competitor analysis is an important process in keyword research because it allows you to see what’s already working well for your competitors.

Your analysis should always include finding out why your competitors are currently ranking so well. Take a closer look at the top 3-5. Can you see a strategy, especially when you compare the leaders (in terms of ranking)? For example, are they focusing on long-tail keywords that are more specific and easier to rank for?

But sometimes it’s quite simple: If you’re not targeting a keyword and all your competitors are, then it should probably be one of your top priorities!

Pro tip: How to find “pain point” keywords

Keyword research tools can be extremely helpful but they can’t replace a thorough understanding of your potential customer’s needs.

As Ané Wiese – SEO Lead at saas.group – explains:

For example: a common challenge with keyword research tools is the source of the search volume. Many SEO specialists want search volume data coming from Google, so a term like “keyword research tool Google search volumes” could be relevant to include in the set.

You can identify challenges that your potential customers face by asking the customer service team, using ChatGPT or you can look at forum websites like Reddit, Quora and Facebook groups.

Once you have your “pain-point” keywords, you can also look for keywords that might not have search volume data available yet, but that does not mean that these terms aren’t searched for. To identify these keywords, you have to use Google Autocomplete suggestions in Google’s search bar. For example, start typing in the beginning of the search term like “keyword research tools that….” or “keyword research tool for…” and see what Google suggests as autocompleted terms in its search bar.

This should serve as a clue to what popular terms there are related to your product. It is also a great way to identify terms that you can create new pages for as these terms are often very specific and descriptive.”

Step 3: Analyze and Prioritize Your Keywords

Now that your keyword search is complete, you probably have one or more long keyword lists. It’s not uncommon for them to contain thousands of entries. That’s why the next step is to select the best keywords. After all, no one can create content for every possible topic at the same time.

For the following examples, I’ve chosen the topic “trekking bikes”, because it gives a lot more results.

Let’s say your website/online shop is new. The site offers a range of trekking bikes for sale and now you want to produce content on trekking bikes to show Google that your company is an expert in this field.

A search for keywords similar to the seed keyword “trekking bike” returns a total of 524 variations.

The big question now is: “What do I do with all these keywords?”

As mentioned above, it’s important to find the best keywords for your website. This means high potential keywords where you have a good chance of attracting as much relevant traffic as possible to your website.

The filter function in the Keyword Research Tool allows you to filter your keyword list by search volume, search intent, CPC, competition and number of words:

For ultimate flexibility, though, use the “CSV Export” function, which I’ll use for this example.

Once you’ve exported the CSV file, you’ll have the full power of the spreadsheet at your disposal, letting you sort and filter your keyword list as much as you like.

About Keyword Priority

Beginners in particular often wonder what the best filtering criteria are . However, experience shows that choosing keywords/topics based on your own editorial skills leads to better results. The priority of your own keywords is highly individual and every website owner has their own objectives, both for the whole website and for individual areas and sub-pages. Your business goals and the resources available for technology, content and links will largely determine how you conduct your analysis.

Here are a few strategic tips based on experience that may be helpful as guidelines:

• If the search volume is high and there’s stiff competition for the keyword, you should only target it if you have the resources for both content and link building. For highly competitive search terms (such as “hotel London,” “loan comparison,” “cheap flights,” “buy bicycle,” “buy foosball table”) it can take years to get to page one or even number one.
• A brand new website or one that doesn’t yet have sufficient domain popularity (i.e. many high-quality links from different domains) will only rank for search terms with low search volume at first. Only over time, it will start to rank for more competitive keywords. So it’s not worth prioritizing a keyword like “buy foosball table” right off the bat. Instead, it makes sense for a new website to start by trying long-tail keywords with low search volume and limited competition. From there, you can gradually work your way up to more difficult keywords. (Of course, it makes sense to optimize for “buy foosball table” if you’ve actually recently started selling foosball tables, but more for business reasons than for SEO).
• How long does it take to rank for competitive terms? Old hands at SEO know that time itself is (or can be) one of the most important ranking factors. Waiting periods of 18 to 24 months to rank for competitive keywords are not uncommon – and that’s assuming you’re constantly working on new content, updates and links.
• Established sites with a certain history and a relatively high number of links compared to their competitors may see a much faster improvement. But even then, it sometimes takes a while if they try to rank for new topic areas. For example, if an online shop has been selling pool tables for 10 years and then adds foosball tables to its product range, it doesn’t automatically mean that the new search terms will get top rankings. You have to earn Google’s trust for each new topic area.
• Start by focusing on terms and combinations for which your competitors don’t offer much quality content. This will often get you closer to your goals than thoroughly analyzing the values from keyword research tools. Especially for beginners, it’s important to have those first small successes. Each one will keep you motivated and make it more likely that you’ll keep at it.
• Give priority to search terms and topics that serve informational search intent . Search terms with a purchase intent are usually more difficult to claim.
• Don’t spend 100% of your resources on your one dream keyword. In the beginning, 90% of your resources should go to the easier keywords and 10% to the difficult ones. Over time, the ratio should shift towards the harder keywords.
• But despite this recommendation, keep trying to rank for more difficult terms as well. Sometimes you just get lucky.

Group Keywords in Topic Clusters

Keyword analysis isn’t just about prioritizing your keywords. It’s also about organizing them effectively by topic , or forming “topic clusters”. A cluster can then be used as the basis for one or more posts or articles. Ideally, you would do all this by hand. Thanks to the AI boom, however, there’s now a long list of tools that can help you with this task, especially for clustering long lists of keywords. The Keyword Clustering Tool , for example, is a recent entrant into the field.

In this example, I uploaded 524 keywords (the tool’s limit is 2,919) and clicked on “Create Clusters.”

Clicking the button “Download All Clustered Topics” gives you an Excel file, which I then uploaded to Google Sheets:

This list is already much easier to read. Of course, we don’t want to rely 100% on the AI, so let’s take another look at the list. Do all the groupings make sense?

Since I’m primarily looking for good topics for editorial content, I’ve chosen a handful of interesting clusters:

Clustering radically simplifies the search for topics. After 10 minutes or so, I’ve reduced the list to these clusters and discovered the following potential article topics:

• What’s the best touring bike in 2023?
• Trekking Bikes: Buying Guide
• The best e-trekking bikes in 2023

This results in three topics to start with for which the new site can now try to achieve a first page ranking.

Step 4: Develop a Content Plan

Once you’ve analyzed and prioritized your keyword lists, you’ll have keyword clusters to use as the basis for your content. So now it’s time to create a content plan.

A content plan is basically a list of what topics you want to create for your website next, and in what order. Content plans are an important topic that definitely deserves its own article. For now, here are a handful of quick tips to help you ramp up your content production:

• You can look at each cluster keyword as a seed keyword for the post or article you’re planning, and carry out another round of keyword research to derive the subtopics that need to be addressed in the article.
• It’s not enough to just use the keywords identified in your research for a post or article. What’s more important is taking a careful look at the SERPs for each topic and analyzing users’ search intent more deeply (building on the search intent category you get from the Keyword Research Tool) before producing content. We describe this process in detail in the article “ Search Intent: How to optimize your content for searchers’ needs ” here on our blog.
• Analyzing users’ search intent will give you a good idea of which points your new post or article should address and in what format the article should appear.

We spoke to Shannon Kelly Ash – Content Marketing Lead at saas.group – about this and she also emphasized the importance of paying attention to search intent in keyword research and content planning:

“When mapping out your keyword clusters, be mindful of intent per keyword. Clusters can help drive topic ideation, but your content will not be contextually relevant without understanding the buyer’s journey. If you can, use this as an opportunity to include long-tail keywords with low volume terms.

For example, if you were selling sofas at Ikea, a basic cluster would look something like: “sofa” –> best sofas, comfy sofa, cheap sofa, sofa for living room, ikea sofa blue, sofas for sale london, sofa pet proof.

Now, if you go a step further with long-tail keywords according to intents, you would use:

● how to choose a pet proof sofa (informational) ● best pet proof sofa in london for small apartments (commercial and location-based) ● buy pet proof sofas for small apartments online (transactional).”

This way, you can align your content with the buyer’s journey and make sure that you provide a relevant piece of content (or transactional page) for each stage of the journey.

Would you like more information about how to create a content plan? Let us know in the comments!

Additional Tools for Keyword Research

There are many tools available for keyword research. Each has its own database and may have slightly different features. Here are a few more tips for finding topics.

Google Trends

Google Trends categorizes searches by time period and by location or region. With this information, you can get a comprehensive view of how the popularity of certain keywords varies by season and the geographic distribution of queries.

Most importantly, you’ll be able to see how search volume changes over time. Here in the screenshot for the term ” foosball table “, you can clearly recognize that it’s a “luxury good” with strong seasonal variations, so that significantly more traffic can be expected around the holiday season. The traffic peaks are in the pre-Christmas period at the end of November and beginning of December (1).

The tool displays additional information about search queries, such as “Related queries” (2). You can download these with a single click and evaluate them yourself:

In this case, I’ve imported the downloaded file relatedQueries.csv into a Google Sheet. Tornado, Harvard, and Sportcraft are popular brands. We can also see that foosball fans are also looking for air hockey and ping pong tables and dart boards. No surprise there!

It’s almost always worth using Google Trends, as you’ll often find keywords in the Trends database that you wouldn’t find anywhere else.

Google Keyword Planner

Google’s Keyword Planner is a classic tool for keyword research. It’s the central tool for Google Ads, after all. So it’s worth incorporating this tool in your analysis.

These days, no topic is complete without mentioning OpenAI’s chatbot. It’s refreshingly helpful for keyword research, but don’t forget that ChatGPT is not a specialized keyword tool. The data it spits out can’t possibly be up-to-date or accurate, as ChatGPT doesn’t have access to Google’s database.

Certainly! I can provide you with some keyword suggestions related to the topic “buy foosball table.” Here are some keywords that may be relevant for your keyword research:

• Buy foosball table
• Foosball table for sale
• Best foosball table
• Affordable foosball table
• Foosball table prices
• Outdoor foosball table
• Indoor foosball table
• Professional foosball table
• Mini foosball table
• Folding foosball table
• Wooden foosball table
• Electronic foosball table
• Used foosball table
• Custom foosball table
• Foosball table dimensions

Remember, these are just some suggestions to get you started. You can further refine your keyword research by adding location-specific keywords or targeting specific customer segments.

It’s interesting that ChatGPT suggests some new ideas for keywords. However, the results are limited to a few keywords and don’t provide a deep insight into a topic area like a specialized tool can.

What’s really surprising, though, is that even though ChatGPT claims not to have access to CPC data, it can still send you data if you ask for it:

Certainly! Please note that the following CPC (Cost Per Click) values are estimates and may not reflect real-time data. However, they can still provide you with a general idea of the potential cost associated with each keyword. Here’s a table with the suggested keywords and their estimated CPC values:

Please note that CPC values can vary greatly depending on various factors such as competition, industry, and location. These estimates are meant to give you a rough idea and should not be considered as definitive values. It is always recommended to use a reliable keyword research tool to get up-to-date and accurate CPC data for your specific targeting parameters.

As you can see, ChatGPT isn’t afraid to just take a guess. We’ll leave it up to you to analyze how close ChatGPT comes to the figures published by Google.

Doing keyword research for the first time to create a content plan can feel a little like looking for 10 tiny needles in 20 different haystacks.

But while the keyword research process may feel complex and time-consuming at first, it’s not as bad as it seems – thanks to the many helpful tools that are available today. Once you’ve been through the process a time or two, it starts to go a lot faster. The fun part is when you start ranking for your keywords. You’re most likely to achieve this if you use keyword research as a source of inspiration and focus as much as possible on your content and the process of creating it. Don’t forget: Always focus on users’ search intent, because that’s the surest and fastest way to success 🙂

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Please note you do not have access to teaching notes, internet memes and social media marketing: a review of theories.

Online Information Review

ISSN : 1468-4527

Article publication date: 16 August 2024

Several businesses have begun to use memes as part of social media marketing. Although memes have been independently explored through various theories, their use in social media marketing has not yet been explored. This study analyzes theories used to study memes and suggests popular marketing theories to do the same for memes in social media marketing.

Design/methodology/approach

This study employed a mixed methodology. We used the Scopus database and the SPAR-4 protocol to gather, organize, and evaluate the literature. A bibliometric analysis was performed to understand the themes explored in the literature. Manual content analysis was performed to identify the theories used to elucidate study memes.

We profiled meme research through a bibliometric analysis. Relevance theory, Rhetoric theory, Theories of humor, Evolutionary theory, and the theory of conceptual blending are the most frequently used theories in meme literature. Furthermore, we found that the marketing theories used to study memes are limited.

Practical implications

The findings of this study will benefit academia, marketers, and social media managers by offering a comprehensive picture of theories used in meme research. It also suggests new avenues for conducting future research on memes based on identified theories.

Originality/value

This is one of the first known studies to employ both bibliometric and content analyses to review theories in meme literature. Furthermore, we suggest marketing theories and research questions to explain meme marketing.

• Meme marketing
• Internet memes
• Theoretical review
• Advertising

Kamath, C. and Alur, S. (2024), "Internet memes and social media marketing: a review of theories", Online Information Review , Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-11-2023-0584

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Delineating bacterial genera based on gene content analysis: a case study of the Mycoplasmatales-Entomoplasmatales clade within the class Mollicutes

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Genome-based analysis allows for large-scale classification of diverse bacteria and has been widely adopted for delineating species. Unfortunately, for higher taxonomic ranks such as genus, establishing a generally accepted approach based on genome analysis is challenging. While core-genome phylogenies depict the evolutionary relationships among species, determining the correspondence between clades and genera may not be straightforward. For genotypic divergence, percentage of conserved proteins (POCP) and genome-wide average amino acid identity (AAI) are commonly used, but often do not provide a clear threshold for classification. In this work, we investigated the utility of global comparisons and data visualization in identifying clusters of species based on their overall gene content, and rationalized that such patterns can be integrated with phylogeny and other information such as phenotypes for improving taxonomy. As a proof of concept, we selected 177 representative genome sequences from the Mycoplasmatales-Entomoplasmatales clade within the class Mollicutes for a case study. We found that the clustering patterns corresponded to the current understanding of these organisms, namely the split into three above-genus groups: Hominis, Pneumoniae, and Spiroplasma-Entomoplasmataceae-Mycoides (SEM). However, at the genus level, several important issues were found. For example, recent taxonomic revisions that split the Hominis group into three genera and Entomoplasmataceae into five genera are problematic, as those newly described or emended genera lack clear differentiations in gene content from one another. Moreover, several cases of mis-classification were identified. These findings demonstrated the utility of this approach and the potential application for other bacteria.

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The authors have declared no competing interest.

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