Keyword Research
Quick definition
Keyword research is the process of finding and analyzing the words and phrases people type into search engines, to understand what your audience wants and which topics are worth creating content for.
What it tells you
- Search demand: roughly how often a phrase is searched.
- Intent: what the searcher is trying to do.
- Competition: how hard it is to rank.
- Relevance: how well it fits your products and expertise.
A basic process
- List topics and seed terms from your products and from customer questions.
- Expand them with keyword tools, autocomplete suggestions and related searches.
- Check the search intent by reviewing what already ranks.
- Group keywords into topics.
- Prioritize by relevance, demand and difficulty.
- Map each topic to a page.
Keyword types
- Head terms are broad and high volume. Long-tail keywords are specific, lower volume and often have clearer intent.
- Branded keywords include a brand name. Non-branded keywords do not.
- By intent, commonly grouped as informational, navigational, commercial and transactional.
Limits
Volume figures from tools are estimates and differ between tools. Treat them as a guide to relative demand, and check the results against your own search performance data.
Example
A pet-supply shop starts with “dog food”. Research shows the broad term is highly competitive, so it focuses on specific searches such as “grain-free puppy food for sensitive stomachs”, creating a guide page for each and linking to the relevant products.