keyword research report

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What Is a Keyword Research Report? [+ How to Create One]

Julia McCoy

Almost half of all marketers report that organic search is the marketing channel with the highest ROI.

In fact, SEO reduces the cost of customer acquisition by over 87% .

These statistics show that the keys to lowering your marketing costs are identifying the keywords that your target audience is searching for and optimizing for them.

The fact that over 90% of web pages get no organic traffic from Google brings the importance of SEO into even sharper focus.

Not just SEO, but organized, strategic SEO with trackable metrics and measurable goals.

One way to get organized and strategic? Compile a keyword research report from your keyword research tools.

Let’s talk about what goes into a keyword research report, why you must compile one, and the steps to follow when writing one. That way, your SEO will be more likely to bring in results.

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A keyword research report lists all the keyword ideas you intend to target in your SEO or content strategy against important metrics: search volume , search intent , and ranking difficulty . It offers a detailed view of the topics your target audience is searching for online.

The main aim of a keyword research report is to determine the search terms that will draw qualified traffic to your website or blog. A keyword research spreadsheet should include:

The intent behind each query.
How many people on average are searching Google for it each month.
The ease or difficulty of ranking for that keyword.

An example of a keyword research report via Backlinko

A keyword research report can also include an analysis of how each keyword on the list has trended in search engines over time. Trends determine if there’s any seasonal variation in interest levels. Interest in some topics peaks at certain times of the year.

keyword research report from Google Trends

Why is a Keyword Research Report Essential?

An SEO keyword research report offers a detailed analysis of the words and phrases people use when researching topics related to your business. Compiling a keyword report helps with the following:

Identifying the keywords your target customers search for helps you identify their most pressing worries, questions, and goals. These keyword ideas in turn can shape your content strategy.

For example, if you notice a high number of what, why, and how queries in search results, it may mean your target customers lack awareness of their problems and their available solutions. Going forward, you might have to make how-to guides and case studies a priority in your strategy to build their awareness.

If you notice during your keyword research process that the same websites tend to rank for the keywords you have selected to target, those are likely your closest competitors.

Knowing the competitors that are outranking you in search results is essential as it shows a standard you must aspire to. If they are ranking for the best keywords in search engines, it must mean that they are doing quite a few things right, which makes them a great target to reverse-engineer.

Sometimes the reason you might fail to rank for any keywords with your content is that you’re using the wrong tactics. For example, you may be targeting keywords you can’t rank for because of your low domain rating.

Thankfully, a keyword analysis will show clearly how difficult (or not) it is to rank for a keyword, helping you focus your efforts on attainable goals. On the other hand, pursuing high-volume keywords when you lack the necessary authority leads to frustration and wasted effort.

How to Create a Keyword Research Report

A keyword research spreadsheet is useless if it’s inaccurate or lacks detail. To avoid these pitfalls, here are five essential steps you should take when you conduct keyword research:

The first step in any keyword analysis is to find keyword ideas that are related to your business or product . Consider words and phrases associated with your industry and brainstorm topics your target audience may be interested in.

There are several ways you can conduct keyword research without a tool. Otherwise, you can reduce your research time by generating a keyword list from trusted keyword tools like Google Keyword Planner and BrandWell.

Premium tools offer deeper insights and useful keyword data from search results, such as search volume and keyword difficulty, that you need to gauge to increase your chances of successfully ranking for them.

Once you have identified and collected your search terms in a spreadsheet, consider grouping closely related terms into clusters so you can target them in the same pieces of content.

Keyword search volume helps you gauge the search popularity of search terms in your keyword list, helping you decide if they’re viable for SEO.

A keyword has no business value unless a reasonably high number of people search for it. It also should have the potential to drive qualified traffic to your website.

brandwell keyword research report monthly search volume

Once you’ve identified relevant keywords, analyze the first keyword data on the list, which is often the monthly search volume.

You should also consider geographic factors when looking at search volume data because certain terms may be more popular in certain countries or regions due to cultural differences or language preferences.

For example, if most of your audience is based in France, then it would make sense to go after French-language keywords like “ acheter un ordinateur portable ” (buy a laptop) instead of “laptop computer.”

Some keywords are easier to rank for than others. Because of their high search volume, seed keywords that are typically broad in terms of their scope are the hardest to rank for, especially for newer and smaller sites without much domain authority.

The keyword competition levels of your keyword phrases tell you at a glance if you can rank for it or if you should target a less competitive keyword.

Most premium SEO tools have features for determining keyword competition or keyword difficulty. Some refer to it as ranking difficulty. The lower the score, the less competitive the keyword.

brandwell keyword research report ranking difficulty

To ensure the success of your keyword strategy, it’s vital to monitor trends in keyword popularity.

Tools like Google Trends will show you how a topic has trended over time.

A tool like BuzzSumo that tracks mentions of particular terms across social media platforms over a period of time can also help gauge general interest in a topic.

By monitoring changes in search volume over time, you can gauge the relative popularity of your long-tail keywords and adjust your strategy accordingly. It’s also helpful to compare different variations of a single keyword since some might perform better depending on the context and intent behind the query.

brandwell keyword research report trends

Tracking what long-tail keywords your competitors are targeting is another essential step when compiling a keyword research report – especially if they’re doing better than you in terms of traffic.

Tools such as SpyFu allow you to see what organic keyword phrases your business rivals rank for, while services like Semrush offer insight into paid traffic acquisition.

By monitoring how competitor pages are performing on search engine results, you can determine what’s working and what’s not. This will help you make the necessary adjustments to your own pages. You can even reverse engineer their entire SEO strategy and replicate their success.

Tracking your competitors also means checking their backlinks. After you identify websites that are linking to the competitor page you are hoping to outrank, you can create a better page than theirs and perform outreach to the linking site.

The best way to find keywords for your SEO strategy is to use a keyword research tool. I’ve already mentioned some of the popular ones like Google’s Keyword Planner, Semrush, and Ahrefs. But what if there was a keyword research tool that is also a content writer? An all-in-one software solution that lets you generate a keyword research report and write in-depth blog articles around those keywords in just a few clicks?

I’m talking about BrandWell — a powerful brand growth engine that helps you:

Find hundreds of keyword phrases that are relevant to your business,
Turn those keyword phrases into topic clusters, and
Write a 3,000-word blog post that is SEO-optimized for each keyword phrase.

With BrandWell , you can ditch all of your other SEO tools as it now integrates a full content intelligence suite into its long-form content writer — automating your entire SEO content strategy from generating a keyword research report to publishing your content online.

FAQs – Keyword Research Reports

A keyword research report is a detailed analysis of your target keywords. It analyzes monthly search volume, keyword popularity, competition levels, and keywords closely related to your primary target audience. This information helps you create SEO-friendly content, which in turn, increases your business’s visibility online and drives traffic to your website.

Keyword research helps you find keyword suggestions as well as data on their monthly search volume, competition level, and relevance.

Search volume is a measure of a keyword’s popularity.

The competition level, also called keyword difficulty or SEO difficulty, assesses what websites rank for a keyword term to determine how difficult it would be to beat them.

Relevance, on the other hand, assesses whether the traffic a keyword attracts matches your target audience.

The best target keywords are low-volume keywords that are relevant to your seed keywords and are easy to rank for.

A keyword research report is a document that outlines the most desirable keyword suggestions for SEO purposes. It should include research into relevant search terms, an analysis of the competition level, and an assessment of potential opportunities to improve rankings.

A keyword research report can also offer tips on how best to optimize existing content with the targeted keywords. Ultimately, the report should be crafted to meet the marketing objectives you have established for your business.

A keyword research report provides insights into what specific words and phrases your target audience uses in their web searches, how often they are being used, and which ones are most popular. Creating these reports helps make your SEO both more strategic and organized — a powerful combination that leads to better results.

Researching keywords doesn’t have to be hard. With a powerful brand growth platform like BrandWell , all it takes is just a few clicks to research keywords and turn them into well-written content that propels your business to the top of the SERPs. Try it today!

Written by Julia McCoy

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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.

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 ...

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

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Discover your competitors' strengths and leverage them to achieve your own success

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.

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.

website performance page for keyword research

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.

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.