Why keyword research?
Keyword research in search marketing is the process of identifying and analyzing the specific terms and phrases your target audience uses when searching online, so you can create content or ads that match what they’re looking for.
We do it because it shows:
- What your audience wants (their problems, questions, buying signals)
- How competitive each topic is (Keyword Difficulty)
- Estimated search volume and revenue opportunities lie
In short, keyword research ensures you’re building content for demand that already exists instead of guessing.
How to do keyword research (step by step)
Step 1: Set Objective(s)
Start by setting clear objectives: decide whether you’re after traffic, leads, sales, or thought leadership — then define your target region, language, audience’s pain points, marketing channels, desired outcomes, and any practical limits, such as content types you can produce.
Step 2: Brainstorm topics and seeding keywords
What is seed keyword?
A seed keyword is a broad, core term that defines your main topic, industry, or niche, serving as the starting point for generating more specific and targeted keyword variations.
For instance, “dog food” is a seed keyword that can be used to generate more specific ideas later.
At this step, you can think about 5–10 main categories relevant to your business or website. For example, a dog food retailer might list topics like “puppy care,” “pet food,” and “dog health”.
Step 3: Expand your seed keyword lists with keyword research tools
Once you have your seed keywords, use research tools to find related keywords, including long-tail phrases. As usual, I’ll list an arsenal of keyword research tools (both subscription-based and free) later in my article.
What's a long-tail keyword
A long-tail keyword is a more specific, usually longer search phrase that targets a narrower audience but often has lower competition and higher conversion potential.
Long-tail keywords are usually three words or more, though the real indicator is specificity, not just word count.
Example short keyword (broad): “crypto card”. It’s typically used as your seed keyword.
Example long-tail keyword (specific): “white label crypto card solution pricing”
Step 4: Analyze keywords based on keyword research metrics
In step 4, you may need to understand the following terms:
Search Volume: Estimated times a keyword is searched per month. High volume means more potential traffic but also more competition.
Keyword Difficulty (or SEO Difficulty in Ubersuggest): An estimate of how hard it will be to rank for a given keyword, based on competitor authority and backlinks.
Search Intent: the purpose behind a search query.
4 main types of search intent:
Most major SEO tools (like Semrush, Ahrefs, and Ubersuggest) categorize keywords into these four search intents
Informational
The user wants to learn something or gain general knowledge on a topic.
e.g., “What is a stablecoin?”/ “What is web3?”
Page titles for this intent often include words like ‘how,’ ‘what,’ ‘who,’ ‘where,’ ‘why,’ ‘guide,’ ‘tutorial,’ ‘resource,’ ‘help,’ ‘ideas,’ ‘tips,’ ‘learn,’ ‘examples,’ and ‘understanding’.
Navigational
The user is looking for some specific websites or has an end destination in mind
e.g., “circle.com login”/ “circle.com’s USDC”.
This usually includes brand names, a product’s name, or the name of the service.
Commercial
The user is researching before buying or searching for information on a future purchase
e.g., “USDT vs USDC”/ “best stablecoins in crypto market 2025”.
Page titles for this intent often include words like ‘Best’, ‘Top 5’, ‘pricing’, ‘Review’, ‘Attribute of a product’, and ‘Comparison’.
Transactional
The user is ready to buy or is showing purchase intention
e.g., “buy stablecoins/ buy USDT”.
Search queries like ‘buy,’ ‘coupon,’ ‘order,’ ‘pet-friendly cafe in Mount Austin,’ ‘purchase,’ ‘cheap,’ and ‘pricing’ usually signal buying intent.
Pro: Search Intent Matching
Align your content closely with user intent for each query. AI-driven search results prioritize the best answers, not just the highest-ranking pages. Research shows that only about 52% of sources cited in Google’s AI Overviews come from the top 10 results, nearly half are from beyond page one. This means that if your content provides a clear, intent-focused answer or unique insight, it can still be cited by AI even without a top organic ranking.
Step 5: Start your content writing
This final step organizes your research into an actionable content plan.
First, group related keywords into clusters to guide your topics. For example, a cluster for “organic dog food” might include “best organic dog food,” “what is organic dog food,” and “benefits of organic food for dogs”.
Next, assign each cluster to a specific page or article.
Lastly, schedule content creation in a calendar; you may start with low-difficulty, high-value keywords for optimal results.
SEO actionable tips:
Use your competitor's keyword
Benchmark a few top players in your industry or niche, and start keyword research based on their website.
Most top SEO tools include a Keyword Gap or Content Gap feature that shows which keywords your competitors rank for — and you don’t. Filter out branded terms to avoid irrelevant results, then export the remaining keywords into a spreadsheet.
Benchmark their content quality and coverage, and apply the skyscraper technique: create a resource that’s deeper, fresher, and more valuable than theirs to capture that search traffic.
Keyword modifiers
A keyword modifier is a word or phrase you add to a seed keyword to make it more specific, such as adding “near me,” “Location or Region,” “best,” or “2025” to refine the search intent.
Most keywords can be transformed into local search queries by using keyword modifiers. For example: ‘French restaurant near me’ or ‘dental clinic in Orchard Road.
You can also add the ‘5W1H’ to turn the seed keyword into a question-based query.
Example of keyword modifiers
Informational keyword modifiers: how, what, why, who, where, guide, tutorial, resource, ideas, tips, learn, examples
Transactional keyword modifiers: buy coupon, order, purchase, cheap, affordable, price, pricing
Commercial keyword modifiers: top, best, vs, comparison, review, popular
Location keyword modifiers: near me, near Johor Bahru, at Petaling Jaya, in Bangkok
Now let’s move on to keyword research tools, both paid and free.
Keyword Research Tools (Paid)
1. Semrush Keyword Research Tool
2. Ahrefs Keyword Explorer
3. Ubersuggest Keyword Ideas
4. Keywords Everywhere (Chrome extension)
6. WordTracker
7. AlsoAsked
8. SearchVolume. io
9. Answer Socrates
10. Surfer SEO
11. SimilarWeb Keyword Research
Keyword Research Tools (Free)
Note: Keyword not indexed in Ahrefs database = not enough search volume
2. Finding your industry niche Keyword with subReddit – Type: (Your seed keyword) site:reddit.com
4. WordStream
5. Keyword Tool. io
6. SEO Soolve
Use cases of keyword research tools:
1. Find high volume, low competition keywords (Low-hanging fruit)
2. Find keywords where a “weak” page is ranking high in the SERP.
3. Identify keywords your website does not rank for or ranks low for. If they are relevant to your business, you can further optimize them.
4. Find sub-topics for your content piece.
Google's (Free)
Google Keyword Planner
People Also Ask
Google Autocomplete (aka Google Alphabet Soup for SEO veterans)
Google AI Overview
Related Search
People also search for
or simply site colon: your competitor’s domain/ check your competitor’s sitemap
Should I just focus on commercial and transactional search intent?
My answer is no — ignoring informational keywords will limit your reach.
AI is stealing traffic, competition in search marketing is getting tougher, so do we still need to blog?
Yes. Blogging — or consistently publishing posts — is still an essential part of SEO. It supports the buyer’s journey, strengthens internal linking between pages, and aids ad retargeting.
For established sites with more than 200 posts, focus on building topical authority by covering as many relevant topics in your niche or industry as possible.
Where should you use the keywords you’ve researched?
These are on-page SEO techniques. Once you’ve identified your keywords, place them strategically throughout your website:
Page title tags: Use your primary keyword.
Headings (H1, H2, etc.): Include keywords naturally.
Body content: Weave keywords into the text naturally; avoid “keyword stuffing,” which could hurt rankings.
Meta descriptions: Add keywords to encourage clicks from search results.
Image alt text: Describe images using relevant keywords.
URLs: Incorporate keywords for better clarity.
Keyword Research with AI or LLM
Bonus tips to reward you for reading (or even just skimming) to the end.
You may simply copy the following prompt for ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Deepseek, or Claude:
“You are an SEO specialist tasked with generating relevant Google search queries for a (Your product, service, or brand) called (Your product’s name). Your goal is to create a comprehensive list of search queries that potential customers might use, including lesser-known and niche keywords.
Here’s the product description for (Your Product). It has features like:
Before generating the final list of keywords, conduct keyword research to consider various aspects of (Your niche), potential user needs, and industry trends. Use this keyword research process to identify lesser-known search queries that potential customers might use.”
“List key features and benefits of (Your Product) from the product description.
Identify potential user pain points and needs related to (Your Niche).
Consider industry trends and emerging technologies in (Your Niche).
Generate a list of related topics and subtopics within (Your Niche).
After completing the keyword research, generate a list of search queries for each of the following categories:
Informational keywords: Searches that seek information or answers to questions.
Commercial keywords: Searches that indicate a user is researching products or services with the intent to purchase.
Transactional keywords: Searches that show a user is ready to make a purchase or take a specific action.
Guidelines for generating keywords:
Include a mix of short-tail (3-4 words) and long-tail (5+ words) keywords.
Use the product description as inspiration, focusing on the features and benefits mentioned.
Ensure that the queries are relevant to (Your Niche).
Consider potential pain points, emerging trends, and niche aspects of (Your Business) to uncover lesser-known search queries.”
You may also further prompt:
Format your response as follows:
- Begin with “Here are relevant Google search queries for (Your Brand):”
- List the queries under each category heading (Informational Keywords, Commercial Keywords, Transactional Keywords).
- Present the queries in an unformatted list without numbering or quotation marks.
Example output structure (using generic terms):
Here are relevant Google search queries for (Your Brand):
Informational Keywords:
[Keyword 1]
[Keyword 2]
[Keyword 3]
Commercial Keywords:
[Keyword 1]
[Keyword 2]
[Keyword 3]
Transactional Keywords:
[Keyword 1]
[Keyword 2]
[Keyword 3]
Please reoutput the keywords on one line per keyword
And then copy all these AI-generated keywords to your dedicated keyword research tool to find out the search volume, keyword difficulty, and search intent
“Assuming you are the business owner of (X Brand), trying to start a blog to sell your products, please provide me with a list of underserved blog topics in (Your niche).”
Perplexity prompt:
Provide a comprehensive list of the top main keywords related to “Your Business”, including highly relevant terms and frequently searched by users interested in this topic
List detailed long-tail keywords related to the (Your seed keyword). These should be specific phrases that users might search for when looking for information on this topic.
Identify NLP keywords and phrases related to (Your seed keyword). Focus on natural language expressions and semantic variations that users might use in conversational queries.
Identify the top trending topics related to (Your seed keyword) across this subReddit (URL of the particular subReddit), YouTube, and recent web articles. Analyze the content from these sources and propose 10 trending keywords that contain (Your seed keyword) based on these trending topics.
ChatGPT prompt:
Provide me with conversational and situational queries associated with (Your Topic of interest or your products) that (Your Identified Target audience) would likely search for on LLMs
E.g., provide me with conversational and situational queries associated with (dog food and the listed symptoms) that (dog owners) would likely search for on LLMs
RankMath suggested prompt:
I’m promoting a [product / service / brand]. Please help me with the following:
Identify the common denominator that connects customer problems, situations, or needs back to my product/service/brand.
Break that denominator into logical subcategories (e.g., for dogs: digestive, skin, mobility; for SEO plugins: technical SEO, on-page SEO, traffic growth).
Generate conversational and situational queries that real people would likely ask online, grouped under each subcategory. These queries should naturally lead toward my product as the solution.
Then:
Provide 100 queries people might search on LLM-powered engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, DeepSeek, etc.).
Focus on queries that LLMs are likely to fetch from the web (not pre-trained data).
Use placeholders if needed (e.g., [product category], [brand name], [pain point]).
Present results in an Excel file, organized into tabs by platform: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, DeepSeek, etc.
Conversational Queries and Brand-Specific Queries
Conversational Queries
Identify natural, question-based searches (e.g., “What’s the best [product] for beginners?”) and create content with clear, direct answers LLMs can cite.
Brand-Specific Queries
Target comparisons like “Coke vs Pepsi” or “Semrush vs Ahrefs” by publishing unbiased, structured content that positions your brand in head-to-head searches.