How to do keyword research: a complete beginner’s guide (2024)

Imagine you’ve just launched your website and written loads of great content. But something’s missing… visitors! Without the right keywords, you risk your site remaining invisible.  

This is where keyword research comes into play. Well-chosen keywords act like signposts guiding your audience to your website. It’s important to think beyond selecting popular words and phrases and instead understand your audience’s needs and how they search online. 
 
In this guide, we’ll take you through keyword research step-by-step, so you can start attracting traffic to your site – whether you run a small business, offer B2B solutions, are a freelancer or a blogger. 

What is keyword research?

Keyword research is a core element of search engine optimisation (SEO). The goal is to find the words and phrases people enter into search engines when they’re looking for products, services, or information online. Once you’ve found these keywords, you can tailor the content on your website to match what your potential customers are searching for.

Why is keyword research important?

Keyword research is important because the keywords you optimise your content with enable visitors and potential customers to find your website.  

Imagine a restaurant that has just opened on a small side street. The restaurant puts up advertisements in a town 100 miles away. As a result, no locals realise the restaurant has opened, even though the chef makes fantastic food.

This may feel like a far-fetched example, but it helps to illustrate how without the right keywords, you risk nobody discovering that you’ve launched an exciting website or started an online shop. 

Greater chances of your website being discovered

Google processes over 8.5 billion searches a day. Keyword analysis is crucial if you want to be among the top results in some of those searches. When you know what your target audience is searching for, you can optimise your website’s content to appear in their searches.  

For example, if you run a local pizzeria in Reading, you could include the search phrase “best pizza in Reading” instead of just “pizza” to increase your chances of being discovered online. 

You can acquire new customers

With the right keywords, you can reach more of the potential customers who are likely to be interested in what you have to offer. Let’s say you work freelance as a graphic designer. You could answer the question “how much does a logo cost?” on your website to attract small startup businesses with limited budgets. 

You gain insight into your audience’s preferences

Keyword research gives you more than just words. The keywords and search phrases you gather during your analysis also reveal your target audience’s needs and problems. An online pet shop that discovers during its keyword research that many customers are searching for “organic dog food” could benefit by expanding its product range to include the products the target audience frequently searches for online. 

Tools for keyword research

You don’t need to be a data expert to conduct keyword research. There are plenty of great tools to help you, and most of them are relatively easy to use.  

Free SEO tools

Are you a beginner at SEO? Free tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs Keyword Generator, and Ahrefs Keyword Rank Checker are great places to start. With these, you can gather new keyword ideas, see how often people search for them, and get insights into what keywords your competitors are using in their content.  

With AnswerThePublic, you can discover the questions people are asking online about a particular topic or product. Answering these questions in your content can help you get featured snippets, meaning that your content will be displayed above the other search results in Google.  

Paid SEO tools

When you’re ready to take it a step further, paid tools like Ahrefs and Semrush are among the most popular options. Both include a wide range of useful features such as insights into search intent (we’ll come back to search intent a little later), competitor analysis, backlink tracking, and much more. 
 
If you have a WordPress website, you can use the Rank Math plugin to further increase your chances of appearing at the top of Google’s search results. 
 
Although free tools can take you far, paid tools are usually worth the investment, especially if your goal is to attract more customers.

Can I use AI for keyword research?

Certain AI tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini can help you work more efficiently with keyword research. They’re especially helpful in the brainstorming process when you’re trying to come up with potential keywords that you can later analyse in a real SEO tool. To get the best results, provide the AI tool with detailed information about your business, target audience, industry, and what you hope to achieve. 
 
At present, free AI tools aren’t particularly well-suited for the actual keyword analysis itself, as they typically don’t have access to real data on search volume, difficulty, and search intent. Therefore, we recommend using AI tools for brainstorming topics and keywords, and then conducting the actual keyword research with an SEO tool. 

Different types of keywords

Keywords aren’t all the same. There are different types. Understanding the differences will help you fine-tune your strategy and achieve the best results. 

Short-tail vs. long tail-søgeord

Short-tail keywords are general, and there’s often stiff competition to rank for them. The word “shoes” is an example of a short-tail keyword, while “vegan running shoes for women” is a long-tail keyword.  

Long-tail keywords typically have fewer searches on average, but people who search for them know exactly what they want. It’s beneficial for a business to optimise its content with long-tail keywords to stand out in a competitive market and target the right audience. 

Niche keywords

Niche keywords are keywords that target a specific niche. If, for example, you have a blog where you write about gluten-free cooking, “best gluten-free rye bread recipe” would be a good niche keyword for a blog post. Being specific increases your chances of attracting readers and customers who will benefit from your content. 

Brand keywords

Have you noticed people searching for your brand or business name? That’s gold! It means your marketing has been successful.  

Brand searches typically start to appear after your business or blog has been established for a while. When that happens, you should absolutely take the opportunity to optimise your content with brand keywords, such as “Café Maya’s cinnamon rolls”, so potential customers can easily find you. 

Local keywords

Do you run a local business? If so, you should use local keywords on your website. Local keywords include geographical information, such as “best hairdresser in Reading” or “plumber Bristol”. These will increase your chances of attracting local customers who are ready to buy something or pay for your services. 

Important terms in keyword research

Before you begin your keyword research, there are several important terms to be familiar with. These can help you determine which keywords are worth focusing on. 

Search volume 

Search volume indicates how many searches, on average, a keyword receives within a specific time. A keyword with a high search volume can be tempting, but it’s not always a good idea to choose such a keyword for optimising your content. This is simply because the competition is too fierce.  

A keyword like “cleaner for parquet floors” may have a lower search volume than “cleaner”, but it’s more specific. This makes it easier to rank for, and at the same time, you’re targeting your content to an audience with a specific need.

What is a good search volume?

The answer to this question depends on multiple factors such as language, industry, competition, and how important the keyword is for your business. As a rule of thumb, for English keywords a volume above 100 is generally considered good.  

In many instances, a search volume below 100 would be considered too low, but if you’re working with a niche topic, it’s a decent volume and you can still go ahead and implement the keyword in your content. Another thing that’s worth keeping in mind is that sometimes a long-tail keyword with a low volume still contains a keyword with a higher volume.

Difficulty level 

As mentioned earlier, a keyword with a very high search volume can be difficult to rank for because of the high competition. Keyword analysis tools, such as Ahrefs and Semrush, display both the search volume and the keyword difficulty. If the difficulty level is high, it will often be challenging to achieve a good ranking in search results with that keyword. Of course, it’s not impossible, but it will require significant effort, time, and in many cases, backlinks — that is, other websites linking to yours. 

Search intent

Search intent is the reason someone chooses to search for something online. Figuring out the intent behind a search makes it easier for you to select the best keywords and tailor your content to the right target audience.

When doing keyword research, there four main types of search intent: 

• Informational intent: The user is looking for information or an answer to a question. Examples could be “apple pie recipe” or “what is SEO?”. A user with this search intent is generally not looking to purchase anything, just to gain information.
• Navigational intent: The user is searching for a specific site or platform they already know, such as “Facebook login” or “Sky customer service”.
• Commercial intent: The user is considering buying something but hasn’t made a final decision yet. They want to know more about the options before making a purchase. Examples include “best gaming laptop” or “lawnmower reviews”. 
• Transactional intent: The user is ready to buy something or take action. Search phrases like “buy organic coffee beans” or “subscribe to meal kits” suggest the user has decided and is ready to pay for a product or service. 

SEO keyword research in 5 steps

In the sections above, we covered the basics you need to know. Now you can start your keyword research. Follow these steps to find the best keywords for your business or blog. 

1. Brainstorm relevant topics

Start by making a list of broad topics that are relevant to your business or blog. Ten broad topics are a good place to start. 
 
Consider your business, industry, and target audience when making the list. If you’ve created customer personas, take a look at them. If you own a hair salon, examples of broad topics could include “hair care”, “hairstyles”, “hair types”, and “haircuts”. Enter all your topics into a spreadsheet or similar document, leaving plenty of space next to each one. This is where you’ll list all your related keywords and long-tail keywords.

2. Use SEO tools

Once you’ve gathered a lot of ideas for potential keywords, you can input them into your SEO tool to find out more about their search volume, difficulty level, related searches, and possible synonyms. Take the keywords for each of your broad topics and input them into your tool. For example, starting with the broad short-tail keyword “hairstyle,” you might get the following keywords (and many others) to work with: 

• shoulder-length hairstyle 
• boys’ hairstyle 
• long hair hairstyle 
• short hair hairstyle 
• bob hairstyle 
• hairstyles for women over 60 
• medium-length hair hairstyle 
• which hairstyle suits me?

3. Analyse search volume and difficulty

Once you’ve worked through your list of broad topics, you can begin to analyse the keywords found using your SEO tool. The keywords you choose for the content on your website or business blog should strike a good balance between search volume and difficulty. Avoid targeting keywords with very high difficulty, especially if you’ve just established your business. For example, it might be better to target “updo medium-length hair” rather than just “updo” because the more specific keyword has a lower difficulty level, but still has a good search volume, indicating it’s worth focusing on.

4. Consider search intent

Don’t forget to consider search intent. Some keyword tools show search intent, but not all do. Therefore, it’s important to ask yourself what the person who made the search is actually looking for and whether they would find it helpful to land on your website. SEO isn’t just about increasing traffic to a site; the website visit should also be valuable for both you and the visitor. Otherwise, you risk a high bounce rate, which can negatively impact your ranking in search results. 
 
A search for “best hairdresser in Brighton” (commercial intent) suggests the user is planning to book an appointment with a hairdresser in the near future. A search for “how to cut your own hair?” suggests informational intent, meaning the user is looking for a guide and is likely not interested in booking a haircut.

5. Refine and finalise your list

After gathering a good list of relevant keywords, you can begin to decide which ones make the most sense for you to focus on. Good keywords are only useful if they are also relevant to your business and target audience.  
 
Continuing with the hair salon example, it wouldn’t make sense to create content about “cool hairstyles for kids” even if the keyword has high search volume and low difficulty, if your salon only offers services for adults. If your list of good keywords has become quite long, it’s a good idea to create a content calendar where you plan when to implement your keywords, ensuring your website is optimised with the most important keywords from the start.

Using the keywords on your website

Now that you’ve gathered the best keywords, it’s time to use them on your website so they can work for you, help you get discovered in search results, and attract new customers. Here’s a quick guide. 

On-page SEO

On-page SEO is about optimising the content on your website for both visitors and search engines. This is where you should use your best keywords in page titles, meta descriptions, headings, and longer website texts. 

Keyword density

Optimising content with keywords doesn’t mean repeating the keyword over and over. The keyword density should be around 1-2%. This means that if you’re writing a text of 100 words, you shouldn’t use your keyword more than once or twice. If you overuse your keyword, you risk Google perceiving it as an attempt at “keyword stuffing,” which could result in a lower ranking in search results.

Natural integration of keywords

Google is smart enough to recognise if the main goal of your content is to rank for specific keywords. And your readers will also quickly notice and lose interest in your content. Most people don’t enjoy reading a text that repeats the same keyword over and over. 
 
Imagine talking to someone who keeps mentioning “the best muffins in London” while trying to explain what they did yesterday. It would seem quite odd. So, always write for the people who make up your target audience first, keeping search engines in mind. Weave your keywords into your text naturally. A good test is to read the text aloud. If you get tired of repeating the keyword again and again, you’ve probably overused it. In that case, try rephrasing your sentences, ideally with good synonyms. 

 
Read our article on SEO copywriting if you want to learn more about how to best implement your keywords in your website content. 

After your keyword research

Keyword research is a bit like planting seeds. Your keywords will gradually sprout, increasing your chances of achieving growth. This strategy can help you climb to the top of Google and other search engines.  

It’s important to remember that SEO is not static. You won’t see results the day after you implement your keywords, but when things start to happen, the difference will often be significant and have a major impact on your conversion rate. SEO requires patience, a consistent strategy, and ongoing tracking of keyword performance and your target audience’s needs.