Keyword research is the first step to any successful writing project for business. Whether you’re writing website copy, creating a sitemap, writing social media ad copy, or of course the well-loved and often misunderstood SEO content, it all needs to start with data.
But keyword research can be confusing. Especially for clients. OK cool, thanks for the spreadsheet. What the fuck do I do with all of this?
For every website project I work on, I spend 1-2 weeks on keyword research, competitor research, and sitemap creation. As I’m writing this, I have just sent over this SEO prep work to my current website client. So let’s go through the process.
Data gathering and conducting keyword research
My process looks a bit like this (simplified):
- Check currently ranking keywords (in SE Ranking and Google Search Console)
- Check competitor keywords
- Analyse gaps between client’s keywords and their competitors’ keywords
- Go over onboarding notes regarding priorities, products/services to check areas they aren’t ranking for
- Conduct research for terms related to those gaps
Following this is the competitor research bit that involves a deeper dive into wider marketing activity, website traffic, organic traffic, backlinks, and website layout.
What do we do with keyword research data?
As a service provider, it is essential that I don’t just bring the knowledge but actively bridge that gap for my client. Keyword research isn’t some vanity or tick box exercise. Especially when I’m working with a client primarily for a website project rather than ongoing SEO support, it’s so important they understand what they’re looking at so they can use it for future reference.
So, I write a hefty handover email explaining the insights I found and what all the different sections mean.
That’s all well and good if you’re hiring someone to do it for you. But what about analysing your own keyword research data.
Here are 5 key things to look for:
- Relevance of organic traffic to your website
- Frequency of words/phrases
- Understanding relevance of competitor keyword research data
- Balancing search volume and keyword difficulty
- Allocating keyword targets to content types
Relevance of organic traffic to your website
Due to our ongoing love of vanity metrics, there is a common belief that all traffic is good traffic. But if that traffic isn’t leading to conversions or repeat visits, or even relevant to the business as a whole, what’s the point?
Check your best performing pages for the last 12 months. Are the best performing pages actually relevant to your business goals?
A good example comes from a client I’m currently working with. Their most trafficked pages by a country mile come from their support subdomain, detailing how to add appointments to various calendars.
While this is extremely helpful for folks using their software, it’s driving a lot of irrelevant traffic to their business via keywords that have nothing to do with what they offer. And sure, the additional traffic isn’t a bad thing. But it really shouldn’t be a priority. And if it’s eclipsing other content, it could be worth (at least temporarily) de-indexing those pages and focusing SEO efforts elsewhere.
Frequency of keywords and phrases
When checking against your competitors or searching for new keyword opportunities, are there any words or phrases that come up a lot? This is especially important when considering the gaps in your currently targeted keywords. You will need to consider these in relation to things like search intent and search volume (side note: don’t discount low volume keywords. More on that later).
Once you have a list of more frequently mentioned keywords/phases in your gap analysis, consider the best way to make use of them on your website. Could it be something to factor into your website copy? This could be especially useful if it’s directly related to your product, service, or target audience.
You could also use it as a way to come up with new topics for your SEO content and potentially spark a new topic cluster to work on. I’d highly recommend typing these terms into tools like Also Asked to get a sense of what it is people really want to know about these terms and work from there.
Understanding relevance of competitor keyword research data
Just because a competitor is ranking well for a bunch of keywords, doesn’t mean you need them. It can be tempting to try to compete with your competitors in every possible way, but remember that not all keywords are made equal and not all of them are relevant to your business.
When I conduct competitor keyword research for clients, once I’ve seen the initial results, I will then filter out brand name mentions. This is a good way to get into the meat of how they’re really standing out from us in the SERPs. Sometimes, I will also need to filter further.
As you’re combing through competitor keyword research, as yourself: do these words/phrases pertain to a specific product my business doesn’t offer? Or perhaps a bunch of not-really-related-but-easily-mistaken-for-relevant variations of their brand name?
If the answer to either of those is yes, they aren’t relevant to you and don’t need to be focused on.
Balancing search volume and keyword difficulty
Don’t bash low search volume keywords. If the search volume and difficulty are both low (and it’s relevant to your business), take some time to dominate that space. Search volume stats are average monthly. 10 monthly searches is nothing to scoff at if you can become the go-to business for that query.
Yes, it’s worth taking time to focus on more prominent, relevant keywords for your business, they shouldn’t be the only priority. A lot of success can be found in repeatedly showing up in the top results (or in the AI overviews) for related, low-volume keywords.
Allocating keyword targets to content types
The last step is to understand which keywords are great for your website copy and which should take more focus for your wider SEO content efforts. Generally speaking, informational search intent is great for SEO content. Commercial, local, navigational, or transactional are great for web copy.
There are exceptions to this, of course. And most websites will have more informational keywords than anything else. The more SEO content you create, the more likely this will be the case for you. Just remember, to be reasonable about your keyword density. No one likes a spammy bastard.
As with everything in SEO, it’s all about balance. While your website pages are there to provide information, they are there to provide late-stage-of-the-funnel information. The stuff that’s going to tip people over into conversion when they are already looking for a solution. Your SEO content on the other hand, is there to provide answers to questions people have before they necessarily understand what will solve their underlying problem.
So apply your keyword research accordingly to optimise existing content or create new content entirely.
If you’re looking for support with keyword research for your next project or are keen for an SEO-first (but in a user friendly way) website, let’s have a chat about working together.
