How to Do Keyword Research: Complete Guide

Keyword research is essential for both SEO and PPC.

The fact that up to 95% of keywords get 10 or fewer searches per month makes keyword research more important for your business. If you don’t want to end up targeting keywords that drive zero traffic to your site despite ranking at the first spot in Google, read this actionable guide on keyword research.

What is Keyword Research?

Keyword research is the process of finding search terms for your business or product to understand what words and phrases your target audience uses. It’s a systematic process that helps you prepare a list of terms to reach your ideal customers via search engines.

The keywords identified through the keyword research process are used to achieve different marketing goals such as SEO, PPC, content writing and marketing, and others.

Let’s take an example:

You sell a CRM app for small business owners and you want to target your customers through search engines. You’ll need to find keywords that small business owners use to find CRM tools in Google and other search engines such as CRM tools for small businesses, CRM apps, free CRM software, etc.

This end-to-end process to find all the possible keywords is known as keyword research. The process involves a series of steps to help you create a list of keywords for your product or business:

Keyword research is essential for SEO and PPC as it helps you figure out how your target audience finds your business and products. You get additional insights to fuel business growth in the long run.

Keyword Research Elements

When conducting keyword research, you need to consider the following elements:

1. Search intent
2. Keyword relevance
3. Search volume
4. Competition.

1. Search Intent

The core element of keyword research is search intent (also known as user intent or query intent) which refers to the reason why a user typed a search query in the search engine. It is the reason or motive behind the search query.

Understanding the search intent helps you address the query appropriately. You can provide more accurate information concisely to the users.

For instance, someone who types ‘how to lose weight quickly’ in a Google search bar is interested in finding information about weight loss tips and techniques. The search results on the first page of Google address the same intent by offering users information on losing weight quickly:

You need to identify search intent during the keyword research process to better address queries. There are four major types of intents and all search queries fall within them:

1. Informational
2. Commercial
3. Transactional
4. Navigational.

It’s essential to refer to keyword intent rather than merely the meaning of the keyword.

2. Relevance

The keyword should be relevant to your business.

If you sell CRM, the content you target on your blog should be relevant to CRM and related topics. If you target keywords related to health and fitness, you won’t rank for those keywords in SERPs – irrespective of the domain authority.

Read more about search algorithms and ranking factors in this guide on Google ranking factors to understand the relationship between keywords, domain authority, and rankings.

Unfortunately, keyword research tools can’t tell you how relevant a keyword is to your business. It’s something you have to figure out yourself.

3. Search Volume

Search volume is an essential element of keyword research that shows the number of times a keyword was searched by users. The search volume of a keyword helps you determine its popularity and interest.

You can identify search volume based on search engines (Google and Bing), location, devices, and other variables. Search volume doesn’t remain constant which means you need to monitor it regularly to estimate traffic potential.

Short-head keywords have a high search volume as compared to long-tail keywords. For instance, red shoes is a short-head keyword with a massive monthly search volume. However, this type of keyword is hard to target as search intent is unclear.

On the flip side, where to buy red shoes for brides in Las Vegas is a long-tail keyword with limited search volume but it’s highly specific and the intent is clear.

You need to target all types of keywords depending on how relevant they are to your website and business.

4. Competition

Keyword competition, competitiveness, or difficulty level is a metric for ranking the difficulty of a keyword in SERPs. It’s also used to measure the competitiveness of a keyword for PPC campaigns.

Keyword difficulty is measured and reported by keyword research tools such as Ahrefs and Semrush. Google reports keyword competitiveness which it uses for PPC bidding – and not for SERP ranking difficulty.

Here’s an example of a keyword difficulty metric at Ahrefs:

It shows the difficulty level of the keyword when it was last updated, and the average number of backlinks you need to rank in the top 10 search results (based on existing rankings).

This information gives you a fair idea of how easy or hard a keyword is and whether it’s a good idea to target it.

How to Do Keyword Research for SEO

Below is a step-by-step guide on how to do keyword research for SEO and content marketing. You will be able to prepare a list of keywords for your blog or website so you can publish content that’s more likely to rank better in SERPs.

Step #1: Find Seed Keywords

The keyword research process starts with generating keyword ideas or seed words or seed keywords.

A seed keyword is a core word or phrase that is used as the starting point for generating keywords. It’s an idea or a broad topic that’s related to your business or product. It’s called a seed keyword because it generates new keywords for your business:

Seed keywords are short-tail keywords that you don’t necessarily use for targeting. For instance, if you sell a CRM app to small businesses, the seed keywords include:

• CRM tool
• CRM app
• CRM
• CRM for small businesses
• Customer relationship management app.

So, how do you find seed keywords for your business?

Here are the best ways to find seed keywords to begin your keyword research process:

• Brainstorm: Start with the existing data about your business and product. You can create a list of seed keywords from your business niche and industry. This should be a decent starting point.
• Competitor analysis: Analyze your competitors and see what keywords they are targeting. You can use a tool such as SpyFu that shows you the PPC data of any website. This helps you find seed keywords your competitors are targeting via PPC. If they are spending money on a keyword, it’s worth targeting.
• Check Google SERPs: Check the Google search rankings page to find more seed keywords once you find a few ones. Look for People also ask and Related searches in Google to find more seed keywords.
• Inspect Bing SERPs: Run seed keywords through Bing and look for Related searches and Tags to find more seed words and ideas. Tags on Bing are extremely useful that provide quick access to multiple related terms. 
• Analyze social media, forums, and online communities: You can find seed keywords on social media sites like X and Facebook by analyzing related posts, accounts, and pages. Niche forums and communities like Reddit also offer a lot of data on seed keywords for any niche and sector.
• Analyze your site’s existing rankings: If you have your site up and running already, check analytics and rankings in Search Console or use a third-party app like Ahrefs to find what keywords your site is already ranking for.

Once you get a list of seed keywords, you need to find more related seed words and phrases and prepare a list of all the possible seed words for your website.

Step #2: Generate Keywords from Seed Keywords

A seed keyword isn’t the final keyword you’ll target. If you look at the seed words, they have 1-2 words and they are very broad.

The only purpose of a seed word is to generate keywords for SEO.

You need to get help from a paid or free keyword research tool for keyword generation. Here’s a list of the popular keyword research apps you should use at this stage for generating keywords:

1. Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is a free tool that is available for Google Ads account users. You need to sign up for Google Ads to access the tool. You can find new keywords using seed keywords.

Enter a seed keyword to find tons of related keywords. You can check location-based keywords, refine keywords, export list, check monthly search volume on Google, YoY change in search volume, PPC competition, bid ranges, branded keywords, group view, and other details:

This is the best free resource with the most accurate search volume data but it’s specifically related to Google search. It doesn’t include data from other search engines and sites.

Despite limitations, it’s the best free keyword research tool out there that you shouldn’t miss.

2. WordStream Free Keyword Tool

WordStream Free Keyword Tool is another keyword tool that uses Google data to generate keywords for your seed words. It’s a free app that can be accessed without creating any account with WordStream.

It shows you monthly search volume, PPC competition, average CPC, and niche of the keyword.

You don’t get a lot of in-depth insights for keywords but it does a decent job of generating keywords from a seed word.

3. Ahrefs Keyword Research

The two free keyword tools discussed above do a great job of generating keywords. However, these free apps rely on Google’s data for keyword generation. If you want to broaden the scope and go beyond Google, the Ahrefs Keyword Research tool is a nice option.

It offers a free keyword generator with limited features. You can generate keywords based on Google, Bing, YouTube, and Amazon. The free tool gives you access to the top 20 keywords with their keyword difficulty for SEO and search volume:

You can unlock more features and details with a paid plan. With a paid plan, you get full access to all the generated keywords, Google search volume, and cluster topics.

If you can afford a paid plan, switch to it to generate meaningful keywords for your business.

4. Semrush Keyword Magic Tool

Semrush Keyword Overview is another app that you can use to generate keyword ideas from seeds. The free plan gives you limited access to the tool. Keyword overview provides you with keyword intent, keyword types (broad, phrase match, exact match, and related), volume, keyword difficulty percentage, SERP feature, CPC, keyword categories and broad terms, and advanced filters:

You need to sign up to get access to the complete list of keywords. You won’t be able to use this tool free of cost, unfortunately. The starting price is $139.95 per month which gives you access to the complete marketing suite by Semrush.

5. Moz Keyword Research Tool

Moz has a keyword research tool that shows you keyword suggestions, search volume, organic CTR, and keyword difficulty. You can use the tool free for up to 3 searches per day that provide you with limited keyword suggestions.

The free version isn’t too helpful as the data is too limited. You need to switch to a paid plan to generate keyword suggestions. You will unlock more metrics such as search intent, SERP analysis, relevancy, and more.

Paid plans start from $79 per month which is more affordable than Semrush and Ahrefs.

Step #3: Analyze Keywords

Once you have generated keywords from seed words via your favorite keyword research tool, it’s time to analyze them.

Before you jump to analysis, it’s important to add all the keywords from all the sources into a single Excel sheet with monthly search volumes, difficulty, and all the other metrics.

You don’t have to target all the keywords in the list. These need to be filtered, sorted, grouped, and analyzed before you add them to your editorial calendar.

Here’s how to analyze keywords:

• Remove and group similar and repeated keywords. You’ll find a lot of similar or repeated keywords (when you use two or more tools to extract keywords). Merge similar keywords and remove repeated keywords from the list.
• Analyze search volume. Keywords with zero monthly search volume should be removed unless they are critical for your business. When analyzing search volume, consider if it’s monthly or annual, inspect location as search volume is location-based, check seasonality, and other variables that might impact search volume (e.g., politics and trends).
• Keyword difficulty level of the keywords is the core metric you should use to filter target keywords. If your site is new or if you are in a competitive niche, target low or medium-difficulty keywords. Ideally, you should target low-difficulty keywords with high search volume as they are easiest to rank.
• Understand search intent. Add relevant search intent with all the keywords. Not all keyword research tools report search intent and even if they do, it needs to be verified through Google search. You should target keywords for all 4 intents to cover the complete sales funnel.
• Keyword mapping is the process of matching each keyword to a prospective page on your site. It requires setting a title for the article, defining its purpose, and adding other details to the editorial calendar.
• Group similar keywords under a single cluster or parent topic. This helps you interlink and organize content once it’s published.

The end result of keyword analysis is a final list of target keywords with all the essential details.

Step #4: Prioritize Keywords

Prioritizing keywords means you should rate keywords after analysis based on several factors and then prioritize the ones that are most important for your business.

The process isn’t straightforward as it involves a lot of different factors.

One way to prioritize keywords is by aligning them with the purpose.

What do you want to achieve with the keyword research process?

1. Do you want to increase organic traffic?
2. You want to improve brand awareness?
3. Do you want to publish more targeted content on your blog?

Your purpose will define what type of keywords you should target first.

For instance, if you want to increase organic traffic to your blog, you need to prioritize keywords that are easy to rank and have high search volume. If you are interested in improving brand awareness, you should target highly relevant and branded keywords.

Another way to prioritize keywords is by looking at their relevance, search volume, and competition. Here’s what you should consider when prioritizing keywords:

You should start with easy and high-value keywords. A high-value keyword is highly relevant to your business. Then you need to choose between hard and high-value keywords vs. easy and low-value keywords.

This technique requires that you assign a numeric value to every keyword in your list that defines its relevance to your business. You can then sort keywords based on high to low relevance and filter them based on search volume.

Here’s an example of how to assign business value to each keyword from 0-3:

Here are some additional things to consider when setting keyword priorities:

• For new websites – Prioritize low competition, easy keywords
• If you have a limited SEO budget – Target keywords with the highest potential to rank even if they are not relevant to your business
• When you need quick, instant SEO results such as ranking and organic traffic – Prioritize the lowest difficulty level keywords
• If you have a high domain authority – Target high-value keywords as you can rank for them easily.
• When you have an established website with decent traffic – Prioritize branded, high-value keywords.

Once you have set prioritization for keywords, you are all set to target them by creating relevant content for your blog.

Keyword Research Best Practices

Here are the advanced keyword research tips and techniques you should follow to find and target profitable, easy-to-rank keywords:

• Don’t ignore trends: When generating and analyzing keywords, look at seasonal trends. Check if high search volume is based on a recent trend such as an endorsement from a celebrity. Google Trends is the best tool to monitor search term trends. Look for an increase or decrease in search interest of a keyword and try to figure out the reasons. Google Trends will show you the trend but it won’t tell you what caused an increase or decrease in interest of a search term. Similarly, it doesn’t forecast. You need to figure this out yourself.
• Create new keywords in your niche: You can create new keywords in your niche and link them to your product or brand. This is a great strategy to compete in a no-competition zone. One of the ways is to coin a new term. This works great for branding and SEO growth.
• Take zero search volume keywords seriously: Up to 15% of daily searches on Google are brand new keywords or words. This means you shouldn’t shy away from targeting keywords that have no search volume. These keywords can still drive traffic and due to low competition, you can rank at the top for such keywords. Most of your competitors don’t target low search volume keywords and that’s where you have a chance – especially if you are up against big brands.
• Analyze your competitors: Check what your competitors are ranking for, what keywords they are targeting, and what they are missing. Competitor analysis reveals tons of insights that help you in keyword generation, targeting, and prioritization. For instance, if your competitor is already targeting a keyword, check its ranking and traffic. If the numbers aren’t tempting, avoid the keyword.
• Leverage existing data: Enable Google Analytics and Search Console and monitor search traffic, keywords, and other useful data. You can find lots of new keywords that your site is already ranking for or has the potential to rank for from the Search Console. These should be your top priority.

Final Words

Keyword research shouldn’t be taken for granted.

It’s one of the most important tasks that determine the organic and paid growth of your brand. Your site’s ranking, organic traffic, organic CTR, conversion rate, and revenue depend on what keywords you target and rank for.

Use this guide to find and target the right keywords for your business. And align keywords with your product and brand to boost conversion rate for exponential growth.

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