How to Do SEO Keyword Research: Tips and Tools
If you’re learning the SEO basics, mastering keyword research is the first step to boosting your site's visibility with optimised content. In this post, we'll explore practical tips and tools to guide you through the process.
Keyword research is the foundation of a successful SEO strategy. It helps you understand what your audience is searching for on Google, so you can tailor your website to match their needs, and help the search engine algorithms drive more traffic to your doorstep.
WHY IS KEYWORD RESEARCH IMPORTANT?
Keywords serve as a bridge between your content and what people are searching for. Targeting the right keywords will:
INCREASE YOUR ORGANIC TRAFFIC: Using relevant keywords boosts your chances of ranking higher on search engines for those search terms.
IMPROVE USER EXPERIENCE: With keyword research, you can find out exactly what your customers are looking for, and tailor your website accordingly with valuable and engaging content.
ENHANCE CONVERSION RATES: When your content aligns with search intent, you're more likely to attract potential customers or clients who are ready to take action.
So, where do you start with SEO keyword research?
STEP 1: UNDERSTAND YOUR AUDIENCE
The first step in effective keyword research is understanding your audience. You should have addressed these questions way back during the market research phase of your brand building joinery.
What are their pain points?
What questions are they asking?
WHAT SOLUTIONS ARE THEY SEEKING?
By answering these questions, you can better predict what terms your target audience will be searching for.
STEP 2: BRAINSTORM SEED KEYWORDS
Seed keywords are the foundation of your keyword research. These are simple, broad terms related to your business or industry. For example, if you're a digital marketing agency, your seed keywords might include “SEO,” “content marketing,” or “social media advertising.”
TIP: USE INDUSTRY KNOWLEDGE
Leverage your expertise to think of seed keywords that are relevant to your niche. Keep them broad at this stage, as you'll refine them later.
STEP 3: ANALYSE THE COMPETITION
Competitor analysis is a great way to identify valuable keywords that you're missing. By reviewing your competitors' content, you can spot high-ranking keywords that could be used in your own strategy.
TOOL: AHREFS
We use Ahrefs to analyse website keyword rankings. You can enter in the domain for any website, and Ahrefs will show you that site’s keyword rankings along with their top-ranking content. You can then analyse your own website to compare your performance. Ahrefs can even provide content plans to help you target specific keywords.
STEP 4: IDENTIFY LONG-TAIL KEYWORDS
While seed keywords are essential, long-tail keywords are where the real value lies. Long-tail keywords are longer, more specific phrases that often indicate higher user intent (i.e. the searcher is more likely to buy your product or service). For example, instead of targeting "digital marketing," you might target "digital marketing services for small businesses."
TOOL: ANSWER THE PUBLIC
AnswerThePublic a great tool for finding long-tail keywords. You can enter in your seed keyword, and it will generate a list of questions people are asking around that term.
The “People Also Ask” feature on Google’s search results page can give you ideas for long-tail keywords. Make a search for one of your seed keywords — for example, if you’re a social media agency try “social media marketing”. Look at the questions users are asking around your main keywords and integrate those into your content.
STEP 6: PRIORITISE KEYWORDS
Once you've got a list of keywords, the next step is prioritising them. Not every keyword deserves the same amount of time and attention, so you’ll want to weigh up things like search volume and relevance to your audience.
SEARCH VOLUME indicates approximately how many people are searching for a particular keyword within a given period. Higher-volume keywords have the potential to drive more traffic, but they’re often more competitive. Lower-volume keywords attract fewer searches, but can present valuable opportunities — particularly when they closely match what your target audience is looking for.
If a highly competitive keyword is particularly valuable to your business and has strong search demand, it can be worth starting early as SEO is a slow burn. It may take six months or longer to work your way towards your strongest ranking, so prioritising that content now gives you time to begin building authority around the topic.
Understanding your audience is key here. It allows you to spot lower-volume searches that may be highly relevant to the people most likely to become customers. Ten searches from exactly the right people can ultimately be more valuable to your business than hundreds from the wrong ones.
STEP 7: CREATE CONTENT — WE RECOMMEND CLUSTERS
Now that you have your keywords, it's time to actually plan your content.
The easiest way to do this is group keywords into themes or topics that you can build a series of landing pages and blog articles about. Content clusters will improve SEO by linking related content and creating a comprehensive resource on a given subject. As a rule of thumb, you should have a main landing page showcasing each product or service. From there, you can build out a cluster of supporting articles that explore more specific ideas but link back to that main page.
Make sure your SEO content always links to a conversion point on your website — that’s a product or collection page, a contact form, even a mailing list… If someone finds this page on Google, how can you actually turn them into a lead?
STEP 8: MONITOR, ADJUST AND KEEP GOING
Keyword research isn’t a one-time task. You need to be adding content to your website regularly for your ranking to keep improving. Google looks for ‘freshness signals’ when ranking websites; an inactive site means a worse ranking.
Trends change, search behaviours shift, and competitors evolve. Regularly monitor your keyword performance and make adjustments to your strategy as needed. If you’re in an industry with a vicious trend cycle, your target keywords will probably change regularly.
BONUS: USE GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE
Every time you upload new content to your website, you should be adding the URL of the page into Google Search Console and triggering a crawl. This basically tells Google to re-evaluate your ranking.
Console is also one of the best free tools that lets you track your website’s performance for various keywords. It’s an easy beginner-friendly way to see which queries are driving traffic and which need improvement, perfect for SEO monitoring and reporting.
Keyword research is the first step of your SEO content strategy. It aligns your content with your audience's search queries so you can boost traffic and ultimately improve conversions. Some of the most important elements are understanding your target market, knowing the difference between seed keywords vs. long-tail keywords, and utilising appropriate tools.
Keep in mind that SEO is a marathon, not a sprint — stay patient and flexible, adjusting your approach as you collect more data. If you upload regular content, you’ll see small shifts in 3 months and bigger changes in 6.