What Should You Do First When Choosing Keywords For SEO?

Start with keyword research before creating any website content. This foundational SEO step involves identifying the exact search terms your target audience uses when looking for your products or services. At Eclipse Marketing, we help businesses navigate this crucial first step to build successful digital strategies. Keyword research typically takes 2-4 weeks for new websites and should be updated every 3-6 months.

The keyword research process includes ten essential steps: defining your mission and SEO goals, brainstorming initial keyword ideas, using research tools like Google suggestions and Semrush, finding long-tail keyword variations, analyzing competitor rankings, understanding search intent (informational, navigational, commercial, or transactional), developing your keyword strategy, creating optimized landing pages, monitoring performance, and regularly refreshing your research.

Long-tail keywords are more specific search phrases that have less competition and higher conversion rates than broad “head” keywords. For example, instead of targeting “puppy training,” focus on “positive puppy training for Labradoodles in Amsterdam.” These specific terms are easier to rank for and attract more motivated searchers.

Most businesses should prioritize long-tail keywords first, especially smaller companies competing against established brands. Focus on one primary keyword per page to avoid cannibalization issues, and use 2-3 related synonyms naturally within your content.

Free tools like Google’s autocomplete provide basic keyword ideas, while paid platforms like Semrush and Ahrefs offer detailed competition analysis, search volume data, and keyword difficulty scores. AI-powered tools are increasingly helpful for identifying search intent patterns and discovering overlooked keyword opportunities.

This comprehensive guide walks you through every step of effective keyword research to improve your search engine rankings and drive targeted organic traffic to your website.

What Does Keyword Research Actually Mean?

Keyword research is a vital part of search engine optimization (SEO). It means finding the keywords your audience types when searching for your products or services. When you understand these search terms, you can create a smart keyword list to target. This ensures your content matches what potential customers want to find.

This process means diving into your audience’s language and studying search traffic data. You need to find popular and relevant keywords that matter. Without good keyword research, you might use words that don’t connect with your audience. You could also end up competing with huge companies in battles you can’t win.

Updating your keyword strategy regularly helps you create content that brings quality traffic. It also keeps you current with changing search trends. Keyword research is ongoing work that maintains your visibility and competitive edge in search results.

Why Does Keyword Research Matter So Much?

Good keyword research matters because it shows what search terms your audience actually uses. Many business owners use one set of words to describe their products. Meanwhile, their target audience uses completely different words! This creates a big problem where potential customers can’t find those websites. Simply put, there’s a disconnect.

You need thorough keyword research to avoid this disconnect. This research ensures you use the same words as your target audience. You should also think about your audience’s search intent. This helps you understand what exactly your audience wants to find. Then you just need to write high-quality content that answers your audience’s questions!

Standing Out Versus Being Found Online

What about being original? Isn’t it better to stand out and use different keywords than your competitors? Let’s say you decide to give a product an uncommon name. This can be a smart marketing choice because people remember your product more easily. For example, you might stand out more if you rent out vacation cottages instead of vacation homes.

But be careful: very few people actually search for vacation cottages online. So if you optimize your text for cottages, you’ll probably rank well for that specific term. However, your audience uses a different word, so you won’t get much traffic. You also won’t reach many potential customers this way.

Key Ideas You Need to Know About Keyword Research

Before diving into keyword research, we’ll quickly explain some important concepts you should understand.

Main Keyword or Key Phrase

A main keyword or key phrase is the word or phrase you want people to find your specific page for on Google. You choose your set of main key phrases by doing keyword research. These words help analyze your content and suggest ways to make it better.

Long-Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords are more specific and less commonly searched than head keywords. They focus on a particular niche area. The longer and more specific your search terms are, the easier they become to rank for. This happens because there will be much less competition for these terms.

Long-tail keywords are definitely still worth ranking for in your content! Even though fewer people search for them, those searchers might be more motivated to buy something. They’re also more likely to subscribe, sign up, or take other important actions.

Keyword Strategy

Your keyword strategy is about the decisions you make based on your keyword research. For instance, what content will you create first? Will you focus on the head or tail keywords? How and where will you publish this content? Will you create a piece of writing, a blog post, or a product page? Maybe you’ll make a video tutorial or an infographic instead?

Search Intent

Understanding search intent is crucial here: discover what a searcher actually wants or needs. You’re not just looking at keywords alone. You’re also examining the deeper goals of what a searcher wants to know, do, or buy. Your content should provide a real solution to the searcher’s specific problem. This approach is also known as content design.

Your Audience and Keyword Research

Once you’ve figured out what you have to offer, it’s time to think about your audience. How does your offering connect with the needs and goals of real people? Ultimately, SEO services are all about making sure your users find what they’re looking for. However, there’s more to it than just choosing the right keywords. Understanding your audience’s needs is essential for making great user-focused content, which is also an important part of good SEO. So you must first find out which words your potential audience uses to find information.

Let’s look at an example here. At Yoast, we call our SEO training courses platform “Yoast SEO Academy.” So at first, it might seem logical for us to optimize for the keyword “Yoast SEO Academy.” However, when we analyze traffic data, it turns out that our audience searches for “SEO training” or “SEO courses” way more often. So it makes much more sense to optimize for that term instead.

Every company has its internal vocabulary, which often doesn’t match the vocabulary of its audience. Therefore, you should always select your keywords from your audience’s perspective. Using the integrated Semrush features in the Yoast SEO plugin, you can find keyword data and suggestions with just a few clicks. You can also try out the Yoast Suggest tool for more ideas.

What About Your Competition?

Lastly, you simply can’t create a good keyword research strategy without considering your competition. Often, websites optimize for terms they have no chance of ranking for. For instance, keywords with high search volume can help a website connect with much bigger audiences. But you’ll only see positive results if you rank well. The search terms that deliver the highest traffic are highly competitive. So you must research your competition and assess the situation.

You could go overboard and thoroughly analyze all the competitors in your field. This can certainly be worthwhile to do. But let’s stick to the basics for now. It’s quite easy to get a general idea of your SEO competition. Just Google some search terms you would like to rank for. See which companies appear and compare them with your site’s rank. How big are the companies you are competing with for those top three rankings? Would your company fit within these results? This is all quite easy to determine using only Google search results.

Using AI Tools in Keyword Research

AI is changing SEO and therefore also keyword research, making it faster and more accurate. Using AI, you can discover new keyword opportunities that might be missed with traditional methods. AI tools can quickly spot trends and find long-tail keywords that are less competitive. These keywords also align well with what users are actually searching for.

Understanding what users want with their searches is crucial, and AI helps with this task. It analyzes queries and suggests how to adjust your content accordingly. It can sort keywords into intent groups like informational or transactional, helping you create content that meets user needs.

For content optimization, AI suggests ideas and improvements for your pages, ensuring they’re relevant and effective. AI tools provide insights on keyword placement and other on-page factors that can help improve your SEO performance according to Google’s SEO documentation.

To get started, consider using tools like Semrush or Ahrefs for AI-driven insights. These tools help you understand keyword trends and competition, giving you a strategic advantage. AI chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Google Gemini are useful tools for improving your keyword research process.

With AI’s help in your keyword research, you can better understand user intent and create high-quality, relevant content. This improves efficiency and makes sure that your SEO efforts actually impact your performance.

How to Do Keyword Research in Ten Steps

There are ten important steps to follow when doing keyword research. We’ll guide you through the process and give you practical tips so you can do your keyword research:

1. Think About Your Mission and Set Your SEO Goals

Before you start, think about your mission carefully. Ask yourself questions like: What is the main goal of your business or organization? What makes it special compared to others? Who exactly are you trying to reach with your content? And what promises do you make on your website? Take your time and actually write down your mission statement. Once you can answer these questions in detail, you’ll have taken the first and most important step. This helps you develop your keyword strategy properly.

What if You’re in a Competitive Market?

The market you’re in determines whether you’ll be able to rank high with your chosen keywords. Some markets are highly competitive, with large companies controlling the search results. Competing with these companies will be hard because they have huge budgets for marketing. They also spend heavily on SEO in particular. If you’re entering a competitive market, your best bet is to start small first. Once you own a small part of that niche and become a bigger name, you could try to level up. Then you could sell your cruises to a larger and more general audience. Your mission will then become more general as well. The scope of your business mission should match your SEO consulting goals too. Be realistic about what kind of rankings you can achieve with your business size. Focus on what will help you achieve your mission.

2. Make a List of Keywords You Think People Might Search For

The second step is creating a list of your keywords, preferably in a spreadsheet like Google Sheets or Excel. With your mission in mind, try to get into the heads of your target audience. What will these people be looking for online? What search terms could they use while looking for your amazing service or product? Which of their problems does your product actually solve? Write down as many answers as possible for these questions. If your mission is clear, you will have a pretty clear picture of your niche. You’ll also understand your unique selling points, which are the things that set your business apart from others. These are the search terms you want to be found for.

3. Research the Keywords You’ve Come Up With

After you’ve created your first list, it’s time to dive deeper into your keywords. Luckily, there are keyword research tools that make your keyword research much easier. One of the easiest tools to use is Google itself. Google the keywords you came up with and check what Google suggests while typing. Those are the questions people actually ask Google! You can also check the “related searches” and “people also ask” sections on Google’s results page. Also, look at related keyphrases tools or Answer the Public. These tools will provide you with all kinds of variations of your keyphrases, synonyms, and related keyphrases. Check them out and add the relevant keyphrases to your list.

4. Use Your Research to Find Long-Tail Versions of Your Keywords

When people start with keyword research, they focus on very popular “head” terms. Unfortunately, those head keywords are mostly taken by large businesses already. Long-tail keywords, on the other hand, get less search traffic, but there’s also less competition. Therefore, it’s easier for you to rank using those keywords. Moreover, long-tail keywords have a higher conversion value, focusing more on a specific product or topic.

An Example

A long-tail keyword is often longer and more focused than a head term. If your head term is “puppy training,” a long-tail keyword could be “positive puppy training for Labradoodles in Amsterdam.” The tools mentioned in step 3 will also help you find more long-tail keywords. You might also find some less-searched variants of your keywords that you can benefit from using.

Use Both Types!

Don’t forget to add the long-tail keywords and keyword variants to your spreadsheet. Put the head terms in the first column and add multiple columns for long-tail keywords and variants. This will also help you create a proper site structure later on. The more long-tail your search term is, the further down into your site structure its landing page belongs.

5. Analyze Your Competition for Those Keywords

Whether you should go after long-tail keywords largely depends on your competition. If the competition in your niche is high, you’ll have a hard time ranking on competitive head terms. You can rank for more of your head terms with little competition. So you’ll need to do some benchmarking for SEO. Google the keywords that came out of your keyword research. Start with your most “head” term first. Check out the search engine result page (SERP) carefully. You’ll compete against these websites once you optimize your content for such a keyword.

Take a closer look at the results: Do you see professional websites? Company websites that look established? Are you “equal” to these companies in terms of authority? Does your website fit among these sites naturally? Is your company of similar size, and does it have as much influence in your niche? In the example below, it’s harder to rank when competing against sites with strong brand names. Think of sites like Royal Caribbean and Carnival for cruise keywords. If brands are known from TV or radio commercials, your chances to rank high will become even smaller. But it won’t hurt to take a look at their content. Is the content well-written and well-optimized for search? If your competition has poor content, you can outrank them!

Check Google Ads

You can also look at ads on Google search results. Are there any ads showing up? If you have a Google Ads account, you can check the pay-per-click value of each search term. Use their Keyword Planner tool for this research. Search terms with a high pay-per-click are usually harder to rank in organic results.

Make Notes!

Make notes in your spreadsheet about your findings for the keywords you’ve investigated! You can use colors like red, yellow, and green to mark which keywords are more or less competitive. Use this system if you find that easier than writing detailed notes.

6. Take a Closer Look at the Search Intent for Each Keyword

Today’s SEO strategies should mostly revolve around answering the questions people have or providing the best solution for their problem. Whenever someone enters a search query into a search engine, they are on a quest for something specific. Every type of question needs a particular answer that matches what they’re looking for.

Learn About Search Intent

Try to find out which intent your audience has when they type a certain keyphrase into Google. Do they have an informational intent, trying to find information on a specific topic? Maybe they have navigational intent and want to access a specific website directly. Perhaps they have commercial intent and want to research something before buying it. Or do they have transactional intent and want to buy something right now?

You can learn more about the search intent of certain queries by looking closely at the type of pages. Look at what already ranks for that query in search results. Do you mostly see product pages in the results? Or do you see a lot of informational blog posts instead? Do you see videos ranking high? Or is it a mix of different content types? These are all hints to what Google assumes the search intent of a certain query is. This approach explains how to use to create great content that matches the right intent.

Find out which kinds of intent apply to your keyphrases, and add your findings to your spreadsheet!

7. Determine a Keyword Strategy – Which Keywords Will You Target?

You can determine a keyword strategy based on the data you’ve collected so far. If you’ve followed the steps above, you should have a spreadsheet with many keyphrases. You should also have information about the competition and your audience’s search intent for those keyphrases. Now think about this important question: How does my website hold up compared to the websites in the SERPs?

Are you of equal size and marketing budget to your competitors? Then go ahead and focus on those head terms directly. If not, try using more long-tail keywords first instead. Focusing on many long-tail keywords combined could attract a lot of traffic to your site. Once you’ve managed to rank for those long-tail keywords, aiming for more head terms will become much easier.

When you’ve decided where to jump in, think about the type of content you need. What was the search intent for my keyphrases that I researched? What is my audience looking for when they search? But also, which content can I create that isn’t there yet? How can I stand out regarding quality or providing better solutions? This will help you decide on the type of content you’re going to create.

8. Create Optimized Landing Pages for Your Keywords

In theory, this step is out of the scope of keyword research itself. Nevertheless, creating awesome landing pages is essential to get traffic to your website. So you’ll need to build optimized landing pages for your search terms. You don’t have to create all these pages immediately though – it can be a long-term project. Your keyword strategy will help you prioritize which pages to create first.

Cornerstone Content

For your most important keyphrases, you’ll create cornerstone content articles. These articles provide the best possible content about that keyword – authoritative and all-encompassing information. All your supporting long-tail articles should link to your cornerstone content pages. This is part of your internal linking strategy, which professional web design services can help you implement effectively. You can also use modern web development approaches following Google’s web fundamentals to build a strong internal linking strategy. This approach helps you do it in a few easy steps.

9. Check if Your Keyword Strategy is Working and Keep Improving

Once you’ve thoroughly analyzed your chances to rank on each specific term, you need to wait a little. You should publish some amazing articles and optimize them accordingly first. Then check out your rankings after some time passes. Does your article pop up in search results? Did it hit the first page of Google’s SERPs? Or is it hidden away on page two or three instead?

Make sure to evaluate your results in the SERPs regularly. There are various ways to check how your content performs in the search results. The simplest way is to Google the terms you’ve optimized your articles for. Another option is to use Google Search Console to determine which queries you rank for. While the Google Search Console method is a bit more complicated, it can be a great way to find new opportunities! Finally, a third method is to use a keyword tracking tool to monitor your rankings. You can do this easily using the integrated Wincher features in the Yoast SEO plugin.

However you do it, it’s always a good idea to check if your efforts are paying off. If you cannot rank on the first page, try to write another article focused on an even more long-tail keyword. Make it a little bit more specific and more niche focused. And see how that goes for your rankings. Evaluate again after some time passes. Continue this process until you hit that first page of the SERPs!

10. Refresh Your Keyword Research and Your Content Regularly

As time goes on, things will definitely change in your market. Your audience may use different words to search for what they want. So you might need to add new keywords to your sheet regularly. And with the rise of AI tools, the competitive landscape is bound to change too. This makes it easier or harder to target particular keywords depending on the situation. Who knows what will happen next? Blogging might not be relevant anymore in the future. A lot can change from year to year, so it’s important to reevaluate and refresh your keyword research regularly.

Take the time to update your sheet with the latest information you can find. And don’t forget to keep your content fresh and up-to-date too!

Quick Keyword Research

In an ideal world, you would do your keyword research and make a beautiful spreadsheet. You’d create landing pages for each keyword too. Your site structure would be flawless, and you’d blog and write daily. This would make your site rank higher and higher in Google search results. But we live in the real world instead.

Of course, your keyword research will not always be as extensive as planned. And some posts or articles aren’t written as part of an awesome strategy. Sometimes you write just because the topic was in the news recently. Or something inspired you to write it on the spot. That’s just how these things work in practice. But this doesn’t have to be a problem for your SEO.

If you’re writing something that doesn’t exactly fit your strategy, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to make that content rank. You could still use it to rank for something related to the terms in your keyword strategy list. Use the tools mentioned in step 3 and Google Trends to quickly check which keyword you’d like to rank for. At least take some time to think about how to make your article or blog fit your strategy. After all, if you are writing valuable content, you might as well make it rank! You can find more tips on keyword research on the fly in our focus keyword article.

Practical Tips for Keyword Research

This might sound pretty straightforward, but we know it’s a lot of work and easier said than done. When put into practice, you might encounter some common issues or questions along the way. Here are some tips to make it work better for you!

Prioritize Your Keyword List

How many keywords should you target in your strategy? We can’t tell you the exact number of keywords you should have. But we can tell you that you need as many of them as you can think of. However, more than 1000 keywords are probably too many to handle! Even if you’re a reasonably small business, you’ll probably end up with several hundred keywords.

But there’s no need to create pages for all these keywords immediately. You can add content bit by bit over time. Think about which keywords you want to rank for now. Perhaps focus on the more long-tail ones first? Also consider which ones aren’t as important immediately for your business. Understand your priorities and plan the creation of your content accordingly.

A Focus Key Phrase and Its Synonyms Only Need One Page

In the past, each keyword you wanted to be found for got its own landing page. Today, however, search engines are so smart that they mostly use search intent to give searchers the best answer. The page that answers those questions will rank at the top of results. Search engines also understand subtle differences between keywords now, so you don’t have to create landing pages for every subtle keyword variation. You don’t need separate pages for synonyms either.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use synonyms in your content! Synonyms can improve the readability of your copy, so make sure to use them throughout your text. Professional Denver SEO services can help you with this important task. It allows you to optimize your content for synonyms and related key phrases effectively. You can fill in the synonyms of your key phrase under the SEO analysis tab. You’ll find this in your Yoast SEO sidebar. You can separate them by commas if you want to fill in more than one synonym. When adding related key phrases to your text, we have an awesome feature you will want to know more about. So let’s discuss that next!

Add Related Key Phrases to Help Google Understand Your Text

Related key phrases are words and concepts that deepen and broaden the understanding of your focus key phrase. They even help Google better understand the topic you’re talking about in your content. Using related key phrases in your text can paint a complete picture of your focus key phrase. This happens in the article you’re writing and makes it more comprehensive for readers.

How Do You Find Related Key Phrases?

You might be able to think of a few related key phrases yourself. But we think using proper keyword data is the safest bet for success. That’s why we have a Semrush integration in Yoast SEO built right in. It suggests related key phrases and even shows you the search volume and trend for every key phrase. As Semrush is one of the world’s leading SEO and marketing software companies, this will help you find the right related key phrases for your content.

You can find this feature in the Yoast SEO sidebar and meta box easily. Simply go to the ‘Get related key phrases’ button underneath the ‘Focus key phrase’ field and click it. The first time you click this, you must connect your Semrush account or create an account. You’ll also need to authorize Yoast SEO to use it properly. After you’ve connected your account, you will be able to click the ‘Get related key phrases’ button. Then you can find related key phrases right away for your content.

The related key phrase feature is available for free to all users. But if you use Premium you can also use those related key phrases to optimize your content. This happens with the related key phrase feature built into the plugin. This feature allows you to add related key phrases or synonyms to a Yoast SEO sidebar. You can also add them to the meta box field easily. You can easily optimize your content for multiple key phrases and synonyms this way. If you want to know more about this integration, we have an article on using anchor text best practices.

Check Out Results for Singular and Plural Keywords

Should you aim for the singular or the plural keyword in your content? Well, this depends on the query you’re targeting. As Google learns more about the search intent of your query, it can better guess what you’re looking for. For instance, if you search for “book,” you get different results than if you search for “books.” Google thinks that in the first case, you’re looking for a definition or information. In the second case, it believes you intend to buy a book instead.

So make sure you know what you offer on your page clearly. Make sure it fits with the query and results Google gives on that query too.

Yoast SEO Premium has word form support, automatically detecting all the different forms of your focus key phrase. This process is known as keyword stemming in SEO. So you no longer have to optimize your post for a specific word form only. Optimizing your post has become a much more natural process overall. However, there are reasons why you’d still want to optimize for a very specific word form. In this case, you can put your focus key phrase in quotes like this: “best books ever.” Yoast SEO will now only consider that exact focus key phrase when checking your content.

Use a Key Phrase Only Once

Beware: You shouldn’t use your exact focus keyword more than once across your website. If you do, your rankings might suffer from keyword cannibalization problems. Google has a hard time distinguishing between content that’s very alike or similar. Therefore, it might rank very similar posts or pages lower in search results.

Not sure if you used a focus key phrase before on another page? The post about why and how to export your focus key phrases with Yoast SEO Premium will help you. It helps you get an overview of the focus key phrases you’ve used before. You can also see on what page you used each one. Also, Yoast SEO gives you a warning in the SEO analysis if you use one twice.

Did you know you’ve already used the same or similar keywords on various posts and pages? Then it probably makes sense to do an SEO audit of your content. You should merge, delete, or redirect some of it to fix the problem. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to solve keyword cannibalization issues effectively.

Keyword Research for Ecommerce SEO

In ecommerce SEO, aim for keywords that potential buyers use during their purchasing journey. Focus on transactional terms linked to specific products, features, or brand names that customers search for. Consider seasonal fluctuations in search behavior and monitor competitors to discover effective keywords. Look for keywords that drive traffic in your niche successfully. Long-tail keywords, while less competitive, can attract highly motivated buyers closer to making a purchase. For further insights, read our guide to Las Vegas SEO strategies for online stores.

How to Do Keyword Research for YouTube

YouTube SEO requires a different approach, focusing on informational keywords that users search for on the platform. Use tools like TubeBuddy to identify high-volume search terms that often feature in video search results. Align your content strategy with YouTube’s unique search patterns by analyzing YouTube Analytics for insights. This helps you understand current trends and user interests on the platform. By doing so, you can create engaging content that draws more viewers to your channel. You can also retain their attention for longer periods. For a detailed guide on how to do this effectively, check out our article on New Brunswick SEO techniques for YouTube keyword research.

Conclusion

Keyword research forms the foundation of every successful SEO strategy and drives meaningful organic traffic to your website. By following these ten proven steps, you can identify the exact search terms your audience uses and create content that ranks higher in search results. Remember to start with your mission, analyze your competition, and focus on search intent rather than just search volume. Long-tail keywords often provide better conversion rates and easier ranking opportunities than competitive head terms. Use AI tools and established platforms like Semrush to streamline your research process and discover valuable keyword opportunities. Most importantly, treat keyword research as an ongoing process rather than a one-time task. Search trends change constantly, and your strategy must evolve accordingly. Regular updates to your keyword list and content ensure you maintain visibility and stay ahead of competitors. With consistent effort and the right approach, effective keyword research will transform your SEO performance and help you reach your target audience more effectively. For professional assistance with your keyword research and SEO strategy, contact our team today.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does keyword research take for a new website? 

Keyword research for a new website typically takes 2-4 weeks to complete thoroughly. You need time to understand your audience, analyze competitors, and build a comprehensive keyword list. Don’t rush this process since it forms the foundation of your entire SEO strategy.

Should I focus on high-volume keywords or long-tail keywords first? 

Start with long-tail keywords first, especially if you’re a small business or new website. These keywords have less competition and are easier to rank for initially. Long-tail keywords also convert better because they target specific user intentions.

How many keywords should I target on each page? 

Focus on one primary keyword per page to avoid keyword cannibalization issues. You can include 2-3 related keywords or synonyms naturally within your content. This approach helps you create more focused, valuable content that ranks better.

What’s the difference between free and paid keyword research tools? 

Free tools like Google’s suggestions provide basic keyword ideas and search volume estimates. Paid tools like Semrush or Ahrefs offer detailed competition analysis, keyword difficulty scores, and trend data. Consider your budget and SEO goals when choosing.

How often should I update my keyword research? 

Update your keyword research every 3-6 months to stay current with search trends and algorithm changes. Monitor your rankings monthly and adjust strategies based on performance data. Regular updates ensure your content stays relevant and competitive.