5 Step Keyword Research Guide to Boost Your SEO

Millions of people turn to Google daily with questions, problems, and curiosity. Behind each of these searches is a person looking for answers – and potentially, your next customer. 

But how do you connect with them?

The answer: effective keyword research. 

Targeting the right keywords can increase your brand’s visibility, establish credibility in the industry, and drive conversions. 

Wondering how to conduct keyword research for SEO? We’ll share the steps and tools to help you find keywords like a pro.

What is Keyword Research (+ Why it Matters)?

Keyword research is the process of finding relevant terms and phrases that people can use to discover your brand. 

Central to an SEO strategy, keyword research helps you understand what keywords (or topics) interest your audience. You can capture this interest by creating content targeting these high-value keywords and increasing traffic to your website. 

Strategic keyword research can level up your on-page SEO efforts by:

• Optimising content to rank higher in search results
• Driving targeted traffic likely to convert into customers
• Finding opportunities and insights to outrank the competition 
• Prioritising keywords based on user intent to increase conversions

Types of Keyword Research

There are two main types of keyword research: SEO and PPC. 

SEO keyword research aims to improve your website’s organic rankings and visibility on search engines. You have to find high-volume or high-intent keywords to create valuable content for your audience. 

Here are some examples of SEO keywords:

• Informational: These keywords help people find more information on a topic, like “What is localisation?”

• Transactional: These keywords let people conduct research before making a buying decision, like “best localisation tools”  

• Branded: These keywords allow people to search for information about a particular brand, like “Transifex pricing”

• Long-tail: These keywords include longer phrases to find results for a very specific topic, like “Why localisation matters for eCommerce brands”

On the other hand, pay-per-click keyword research is all about identifying high-converting keywords to bid on for ad campaigns. You have to pick keywords based on cost-effectiveness and competition to drive relevant traffic.

Here are some examples of PPC keywords:

• Commercial: These keywords target people with a high buying intent and help them make a purchase decision, like “best localisation tools”

• Geo-targeted: These keywords focus on a specific region, city, or area for local ad campaigns, like “localisation tools for Spain”

Now that we’ve covered the basics of keyword research, let’s understand how you search for keywords in five steps.

How to Conduct Effective Keyword Research

Let’s break down our 5-step framework on how to conduct keyword research. It’s packed with actionable tips and examples to help you hit the ground running. 

• Identify your target audience and competitors

Your audience should be at the core of your SEO strategy. 

Instead of jumping headfirst into a keyword research tool, you have to start by clearly understanding your target audience. 

Crystal Carter, the Head of SEO Communications at Wix, explains how audience research can supplement your keyword research efforts and steer you in the right direction. 

One of the best ways to learn more about your audience is by building buyer personas. These fictional characters represent your audience’s pain points, goals, expectations, and more, allowing you to empathise with your actual customers. 

Conduct user research with surveys and interviews to develop these personas and get helpful context before kick-starting keyword research.

For example, here’s a buyer persona developed by a co-working space to understand its target audience. 

It’s equally important to identify and analyse your competitors to know what you’re up against. 

You have to review two types of competitors:

• Business competitors: This includes direct and indirect competitors in your industry. For example, if you run a restaurant, other restaurants and eateries will be your business competitors. 

• Organic search competitors: This covers all the brands you’re competing against in search results. For example, as a restaurant, you can create content on food recipes. Other food vloggers posting similar content will be your organic search competitors. 

So, the first step is to understand your audience expectations and assess who you’re competing against. Use these insights to pick the seed keywords for research. 

• Find relevant seed keywords for your industry

Seed keywords are broad terms related to your business and niche. These are the main terms people would use to discover your business.

Here are a few ways to find seed keywords:

Brainstorm core terms

Think about the main terms you associate with your brand. You can also look to relevant communities for topics of interest to your audience. 

For example, if you have a footwear brand, you can start with seed terms like “sneakers,” “running shoes,” “comfortable footwear,” and similar.

Use Google autocomplete

Search for a few of these seed terms on Google to find related keywords. Google’s autocomplete feature will suggest other topics people search for using the terms you added. 

Here’s an example of the keyword “sustainable furniture”:

Check AnswerThePublic

You can also find seed keywords with a search listening tool like AnswerThePublic. 

When you add a few of your seed keywords, the tool suggests related terms to expand your list based on people’s search behaviour. 

Check out this example for the keyword “keto diet”:

By the end of this step, you should have a list of seed keywords that can drive visibility for your brand through organic search. 

• Perform competitor keyword analysis 

Competitor research is a surefire way to expand your list of seed keywords. You have to analyse the top competing sites to discover keywords they’re targeting (and you’re not).

Keyword research tools like Semrush make it a breeze to find competitor keywords. 

Add your site and up to three competitors into Keyword Gap and hit “Compare.” You can choose to compare organic and paid keywords. 

The tool will share a chart visualising the keyword coverage of every site. For example, in this visual, you can see the comparison between Nike, Reebok, and Adidas’s sites. 

This is followed by a list of keywords with all the metrics. The tool shows keywords across different categories like:

• Shared: Common keywords across all sites

• Missing: Keywords missing on your site but present on competitors’ sites

• Weak/strong: Keywords where you’re weaker/stronger than the competition 

This is followed by a list of keywords with all the metrics. The tool shows keywords across different categories like:

• Shared: Common keywords across all sites

• Missing: Keywords missing on your site but present on competitors’ sites

• Weak/strong: Keywords where you’re weaker/stronger than the competition 

You can use this data to discover more seed keywords to target. Now, it’s time to dive deeper into this initial list and expand the scope of your keyword research.

• Use keyword research tools to expand your list

Once you’ve done the legwork to collect all possible seed keywords, it’s time to level up your keyword research with advanced tools. 

Since there’s no one-size-fits-all keyword research tool, it’s best to use a combination of platforms. Here are some of the best tools to explore for SEO keyword research:

Semrush Keyword Magic 

Semrush’s Keyword Magic tool can power up your keyword research process with detailed insights, multiple filters, and a long list of related keywords. 

Enter one of your seed keywords into Keyword Magic, and you’ll see 128,000+ keywords with metrics like volume, difficulty, cost per click, etc. (More on these metrics in the next section)

You can also filter your search to find the most relevant keywords. Here are filters available in Keyword Magic:

• Volume
• Cost per click 
• Keyword difficulty
• Include/exclude terms
• Advanced filters

Besides searching for the right keywords, the tool also allows you to save your preferred terms into a keyword list. Export this list to build your content planner, or use it with Semrush’s Keyword Strategy Builder. 

Keyword Strategy Builder analyses and groups your keywords into a topic cluster. It choose one keyword for the pillar page and a set of keywords for all possible cluster pages.

Here’s an example of the keywords in a topic cluster:

Google Keyword Planner

If you’re looking for a free keyword research tool, Google Keyword Planner is worth exploring. 

This tool is purpose-built for paid ad campaigns. Once you add a seed keyword, the tool will share a list of relevant keywords with data points like:

• Competition
• Monthly searches
• Top bids and average bids
• Change in searches over three months

It’s a good way to find keywords even if you don’t want to run PPC ads. While the tool doesn’t offer advanced search filters like Semrush, it lets you refine keywords based on related themes. 

For example, for our keyword “keto diet,” the tool suggested refined keywords related to diet, nutrients, food, and other categories. 

You can also save keywords or create a new ad group by selecting the terms you like. Or download your shortlisted keywords to prepare a content strategy on a different tool. 

Keyword Surfer 

Keywords Surfer is a freemium Chrome extension by Surfer. 

The tool shares a list of 100 free keywords for any term you search for. You can find its average search volume and estimate its relevance with an overlap percentage. 

The tool also lets you shortlist keywords and create a collection. Export this collection to continue your keyword research in another tool. 

You can use this list with Surfer’s SEO Content Editor to find more related keywords. 

Content editor gives you a longer list of keywords to include in your content. It also suggests the ideal frequency for each keyword along with other insights for images, headings, and internal links.

Moz Keyword Explorer 

Moz Keyword Explorer is another free tool to kick-start your SEO keyword research efforts. 

The tool offers some basic insights about your primary keyword, like its search volume, organic click-through rate, and difficulty. 

You’ll also find a list of suggested keywords with monthly volume. The paid version gives some nuanced insights, like questions related to your seed keyword. 

The paid version of the tool also presents SERP (search engine results page) analysis data. It essentially shares which pages are ranking at the top for this keyword and what the site’s domain authority is. 

• Analyse metrics to prioritise keywords 

Whichever keyword research tool you use (free or paid), one thing is certain: you’ll find lots of data. 

You can make informed decisions to target specific keywords and strategize your content based on this data. So, how exactly do you make sense of these numbers? Let’s find out. 

Here are some of the most important keyword research metrics and what they mean:

Search intent

Search intent, also known as user intent, explains why people are searching for a keyword and what they’re looking for. Keywords satisfy four main types of search intents:

• Transactional: when searchers want to buy something

• Navigational: when searchers want to visit a specific site

• Commercial: when searchers want to research before a purchase

• Informational: when searchers want to get information on a topic

By identifying the search intent for a keyword, you can create value-added content that fulfils the right intent. 

For example, if you’re targeting a keyword like “best laptops for gaming,” you should create a guide comparing different laptops to fulfil the commercial search intent. 

Lidia Infante, the Head of SEO at SurveyMonkey, shares her best advice to incorporate search intent in content creation:

“Go two steps further by tagging the intent and empathizing with users. Try and understand what they actually want to accomplish through a query. Then, use it for classifying your keywords and mapping them correctly”

Search volume

Search volume estimates the number of times a keyword is searched for on average in a month/year. 

Keywords with higher search volumes can potentially bring more traffic. However, high-volume keywords are also difficult to rank for since lots of sites are targeting these keywords. 

That’s why it’s important to balance high and low volume keywords based on your website’s authority and SEO performance. 

💡 Pro tip: Avoid going after high-volume keywords that don’t resonate with your audience. Even if your content ranks well and drives traffic, it’ll ultimately not convert because you’re reaching the wrong audience. 

Keyword difficulty

Keyword difficulty assesses how hard it is to rank for a keyword. It analyses the sites already ranking for this keyword and calculates a difficulty score based on the domain authority of these sites. 

You might need a long time to rank for a high-difficulty keyword, especially if your domain authority is low. But it’s easier and quicker to rank for low-difficulty keywords. 

Cost per click

Cost per click refers to the average cost of running a paid ad for a keyword. 

While CPC is helpful for pay per click keyword research, it can also be crucial for SEO. Keywords with a high CPC can be more valuable for driving conversions, that’s why advertisers are bidding high for these terms. 

Over to you: Perform SEO keyword research like a pro

That’s a wrap on our tried-and-tested framework for conducting keyword research. 

Remember that keyword research isn’t a one-and-done process. The changing search landscape means you have to constantly track performance and discover new keyword opportunities. 

Worried that this sounds like a lot of work? Dominate Online is here to help you sail through it all. 

Our team of SEO experts can streamline the keyword research process and help you execute your SEO vision effortlessly. Chat with us today to explore how we can help you dominate your market! 

Keyword Research FAQs

How do you start keyword research?

The best way to start keyword research is by brainstorming a set of seed keywords based on audience and competitor research. You have to create a list of broad terms related to your business that will resonate with your target readers. 

How do I use Google keyword research?

Google’s autocomplete feature is a great way to find seed keywords early in your research process. You can also use Google Keyword Planner (a free tool) to find related keywords for SEO and PPC campaigns. 

Can I do keyword research for free?

Yes, you can perform keyword research with free tools like Keyword Surfer, Backlinko’s Keyword Generator, Ubersuggest, and similar.