How to Do Keyword Research: Steps, Examples, and Tools

In the world of SEO, keywords are like directions to your website. Pick the wrong ones, and you decrease your chances of people finding it. But the right keywords allow your target audience to find your content exactly when they need it.

So, this is your guide to keyword research techniques that will drive more targeted traffic to accelerate the growth of your business.

At Digital Commerce Partners (DCP), the content marketing services division of Copyblogger, we help companies achieve their business goals with tailored strategies.

Keyword research is a foundational element of our meticulously crafted content creation and optimization process. And I’m going to show you how we do it for our clients.

Before I share specific details about how to do keyword research, let’s break down what it is and why neglecting it can be a mistake. 

What Is Keyword Research?

The key to attracting organic traffic is understanding how people search — what questions they ask and what information they seek. This is where keyword research for SEO comes in.

Keyword research is about figuring out the phrases people type into search engines to find information they need. 

But how do you go about it? 

Here are three key steps.

1. Brainstorm primary keywords: We put ourselves in the shoes of our clients’ audiences. What questions would they ask when searching for similar products or services? 
2. Dig deeper into keyword analysis: Once we’ve completed a competitor gap analysis (more on this below), we draft a solid list of potential keywords. Then we analyze our clients’ business goals and past SEO efforts.
3. Figure out how to beat your competition: As soon as we have a refined keyword list, we create a strategic SEO content plan for our clients. 

This three-step process should be the foundation of your SEO strategy if you want to attract a specific target audience from organic search results. We know this method works because we’ve been using it on our own sites since 2006!

At DCP, we’ve developed a solid keyword research process that lets us quickly find untapped keyword opportunities for our clients.

Our SEO content strategy helped one of our clients triple their revenue since the beginning of our collaboration, win top-ranking positions for more than 370 relevant keywords, and increase their organic traffic by 301.46%.

When you learn how to do keyword research correctly, it’s possible to achieve similar (or ever better) results. 

How to Do Keyword Research for Ecommerce 

If you manage an ecommerce website or want to launch an online store, you have to find relevant keywords for your:

• Product pages
• Categories
• Sub-categories
• Informational blog posts

Below you’ll find our step-by-step keyword research process. Mastering this approach will ensure your valuable product pages reach your target audience at the right time. 

1. Identify Primary Keywords

A seed keyword is a broad term that serves as a starting point for generating more specific primary keyword ideas.

Imagine you run an online record store. When brainstorming keywords for your ecommerce business, some initial ideas that come to mind might be “vinyl records” or “used vinyl.” These are your seed keywords.

When using a keyword research tool like Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool, even one seed keyword is enough to find thousands of relevant keywords.

Type your seed keyword into the search bar and hit “Search.”

Semrush will generate a long list of keywords users actively search for online, all related to your seed keyword. You can easily narrow down the list using these filters:

• Search Intent: This helps you understand what a user is looking for (e.g., informational, transactional, commercial, or navigational content).
• Search Volume: This indicates the average number of monthly searches for a particular keyword.
• Keyword Difficulty (KD): This estimates how challenging it will be to rank high for that keyword.
• Keyword Type: This categorizes keywords by their nature (e.g., short-tail, long-tail).

Which look like good options from the keyword list below? 

I’ve highlighted a few examples that seem like a good fit for an online record store. Read on to learn how to analyze keywords further and choose the best ones to support your business goals.

2. Check Your Competitors’ Ranking

An SEO-based content strategy is never complete without assessing our clients’ competitors. Therefore, we always monitor their top-performing keywords. 

This competitive analysis helps us reveal additional keywords that might not have seemed relevant during the initial research phase.

There are many ways to find competitors’ top-performing keywords. At DCP, we always strive for simplicity and efficiency. That’s why we use the following two methods:

1. Check the top-performing website pages and keywords they rank for
2. Conduct a keyword gap analysis

The first method is a quick way to learn which keywords drive the most traffic to your competitors. 

In Semrush, click “Organic Research,” insert your competitor’s URL and navigate to the “Positions” tab.

By default, the report displays the top traffic generation keyword. However, you can apply various filters to quickly find suitable keywords for your business. 

For example, you can use the following metrics to find easy-to-rank keywords with business potential (more on this below):

• KD: 0–29% (indicates a low competition)
• Search Intent: Commercial, Transactional 
• Search Volume: From 100+

Based on our experience, this method works for businesses with only a few competitors. 

However, if you operate an ecommerce store in a competitive niche, you’d benefit from conducting the keyword gap analysis. 

Semrush’s Keyword Gap Tool allows you to check up to five competitors at a time. 

The keyword gap analysis shows keywords your competitors rank for … but your site doesn’t (yet).

And you don’t have to analyze every competitor one by one and then check whether your site already ranks for these keywords, Semrush can do it for you.

This method is an efficient way to discover more ecommerce content marketing opportunities. 

3. Check Existing Keyword Rankings 

By now, you should have compiled a list of potential target keywords. But don’t rush to create content just yet. We’re still in the research phase.

Before diving into analysis, let’s make sure your site isn’t already ranking for your target keywords. This will save you time and resources and avoid competing with your existing content (keyword cannibalization).

There are many ways to analyze existing keyword rankings.

With Google Search Console (GSC), the data comes directly from Google.

Suppose you want to rank for the keyword “SEO tools.” Type it in the “Query” filter and hit “Apply.” If any pages of your website rank for this keyword, the report will show you the URLs, impressions, and clicks.

Don’t have GSC? Well, you definitely should. But you can use Semrush too. 

Go to “Organic Research,” enter your website URL, and open the “Pages” report. This report reveals which web pages rank for specific keywords in search results.

4. Analyze Your Keyword Ideas 

Now it’s time to analyze your keywords and identify the most suitable ones. 

First, consider search volume — are there enough people searching for this term to make it worthwhile?

Next, check the keyword difficulty — how competitive is it to rank for this keyword on a scale from 0 to 100? The higher the keyword difficulty, the stronger the competition is in the top 10 organic search results. 

Ideally, you’d want to target high-volume keywords with low competition.

5. Prioritize Money-Making Pages with Traffic Potential 

Search intent is another important factor to analyze before selecting keywords.

Your target audience is either:

1. Researching a product (informational)
2. Considering their options (navigational)
3. Ready to buy (transactional)

Depending on your website’s domain authority and business goals, you can focus on low-competition top-funnel keywords (to increase brand awareness) and bottom-funnel keywords (to drive sales). 

For example, our custom SEO content strategy for IA Path prioritized their business goals. 

IA Path is a website that offers training and mentorship programs for adjusters, and we helped the company achieve a 10X increase in leads in just six months! 

How to Research Keywords for Your Blog 

While SEO and content marketing are long-term investments, you can still achieve some early wins.

We bridge the gap by crafting custom content plans that leverage keywords with realistic ranking potential. These keywords can accelerate your performance in organic search results and help you attract your target audience faster. 

To pick suitable keywords for your blog, consider the following:

• Your website’s domain authority
• Which keywords your website already ranks for
• Search volume
• Keyword difficulty
• Users’ search intent
• Your business goals 

For new websites, chasing high-competition keywords is a recipe for slow progress. 

Effective keyword research is about finding keywords your site can realistically rank for, which is why we use specific filters in Semrush Keyword Magic Tool:

• Keyword Difficulty: 0–29% (indicates a low competition)
• Search Intent: Informational (focuses on increasing brand awareness)
• Volume: 100+ (ensures a decent audience size)

From here, you can look through the list and select relevant keywords for your website.

Once you’ve identified your target keywords, the next step is to choose the ideal content type (blog post, landing page, etc.) and format (listicle, guide, etc.) to maximize your reach.

In other words, to create valuable cornerstone content, you need to identify and match users’ search intent.

Example Keyword Phrase: How to Clean Vinyl Records

For example, let’s look at what ranks in the top 10 positions for the keyword “How to clean vinyl records.”

• Content type: blog posts
• Content format: how-to guides

What does this information tell you?

To increase your chances of ranking on Google, you’ll likely have to create an in-depth guide to compete with the top search results.

Remember that SEO today goes way beyond keyword stuffing. Search engines like Google prioritize user experience.

That’s why you have to research related keywords and use SEO copywriting to cover the subtopics that interest site visitors.

Here’s how to find related keywords with Semrush.

1. Open “Keyword Overview” report for your target keyword
2. Navigate to “Keyword Variations” or “Questions” reports to discover a treasure trove of related keywords.

At DCP, we note related keywords when creating our article briefs and outlines, which are detailed descriptions of the writing assignment for our handpicked writers.

Our briefs for writers include:

• Recommended blog post structure: A clear outline to ensure your content flows naturally.
• Subheadings (H2-H4) made from related keywords: This helps target relevant subtopics and align with search intent. 

Now let’s look at keyword research tools you can use.

Top 3 Keyword Research Tools 

Over the years of working with clients in the ever-evolving landscape of SEO and keyword research, we’ve tested many tools, such as Google Keyword Planner, Moz, Ahrefs, and Semrush.

But not all keyword research tools are created equal …

To help you navigate this landscape, here are the best keyword research tools we recommend based on our rigorous testing and proven data accuracy.

• Semrush
• Ahrefs 
• Moz

Semrush

Semrush is an all-in-one online marketing toolkit that provides 55+ features, covering everything from keyword research to competitor analysis and website audits. 

We trust Semrush to help us craft data-driven SEO strategies for our clients because of its massive keyword database (about 25.6 billion keywords!) and accurate data.

Semrush also allows you to approach keyword research in many different ways. 

The Keyword Magic Tool can generate 20 million keyword ideas for a single seed keyword across 142 countries. With such a vast pool, we easily uncover high-impact and easy-to-rank keywords for our clients. 

The Keyword Gap Tool is our go-to feature for rapidly assessing keyword potential within various niches. Additionally, it helps us identify keywords that our clients’ competitors use to dominate search results. 

Armed with insights from these keyword research tools, we create strategic SEO content plans that give our clients a competitive advantage.

Semrush offers a free 7-day trial, perfect for both SEO contractors seeking a budget-friendly option and website owners who want to tackle DIY SEO. Plus, even after the trial ends, you can keep analyzing 10 keywords daily for free!

Paid plans start at $129.95 per month. 

Ahrefs

Ahrefs is another major player in the SEO tool arena. 

While Ahrefs began as a link-building tool, it’s grown into a multi-faceted SEO toolkit, including its Keyword Explorer. 

Similar to Semrush, Keyword Explorer analyzes keyword difficulty, search volume, traffic potential, intent, and related keywords. A recent addition, keyword clustering, automatically groups keywords to save you time.

However, Ahrefs doesn’t offer anything similar to Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool to quickly generate thousands of keyword ideas from your seed keyword. 

It’s important to note that Ahrefs has transitioned to a credit system for pricing, which might not be ideal for agencies or owners of large websites. Essentially, actions like opening reports, applying filters, and conducting new searches consume credits. Once depleted, you’ll need to add more credits to your account.

While the most affordable plan starts at $129, it only grants 500 monthly credits. In our experience, this might not be sufficient for comprehensive keyword research.

Years of using both tools for clients’ projects taught us that Semrush and Ahrefs cater to slightly different needs.

If you manage a large website and want to quickly discover suitable keywords, Semrush might be a better fit. Ahrefs, on the other hand, stands out for its robust link building capabilities. 

Moz 

Moz offers tools and resources specifically designed for SEO and inbound marketing. 

A key component of this suite is the Keyword Explorer tool. This tool allows you to discover relevant keywords, analyze their search volume and difficulty, and gain valuable insights into user intent behind each term.

While Moz stands tall as another potent keyword research tool, it approaches things a little differently than Semrush and Ahrefs. 

For instance, Moz’s database contains 1.25 billion keywords compared to Semrush’s 25.6 billion keywords. 

In addition to all standard keyword metrics, Moz shows you the minimum domain authority for websites ranking in the top 10 search results. In our experience, this saves valuable time by offering a quick snapshot of the competition level.

Moz Pro subscription starts at $99 per month, but the most affordable plan offers only 150 monthly keyword searches. 

If you want to leverage Moz primarily for keyword research, consider taking advantage of their 30-day free trial and potentially upgrading to the Medium plan for $179 per month.

Can You Use Google Keyword Planner for SEO? 

While Google Keyword Planner (KP) might seem like a tempting option for SEO keyword research due to its free access, it has limitations that can hinder your SEO strategy. 

If you’ve ever used KP, you might’ve noticed its search volume ranges are broad. That’s why you can’t accurately estimate keyword popularity.

KP lacks in-depth keyword difficulty metrics — a critical metric for keyword analysis. Without this metric, you won’t be able to assess how competitive it is to rank for a particular keyword in organic search results. 

The tool also doesn’t provide information about users’ search intent. 

Perhaps most importantly, KP prioritizes data relevant to paid advertising campaigns. This means the information you see might not accurately reflect real user behavior in organic search results.

For extensive keyword research, it’s better to use more comprehensive tools that provide accurate keyword data and valuable insights on search intent.

3 Best Keyword Research Tips from an SEO Agency 

At DCP, we’ve written more than 5,645 optimized articles for our clients. This experience has helped us reveal unique insights about how different keyword types and on-page SEO techniques impact rankings. 

As a result, we’ve been able to refine our keyword research process, craft content that resonates with each client’s target audience, drive organic traffic, and convert more customers.

Below are some of our most valuable keyword research tips that help us discover highly impactful keywords for our clients.

1. Analyze Search Intent 

Understanding search intent helps us uncover the “why” behind a search query. 

It’s like having a conversation with potential customers. You need to know what kind of information they’re seeking — are they researching a product, looking for buying advice, or simply trying to solve a problem? 

This could be an informative buying guide for a “browsing” user, or product pages with a CTA for a ready-to-buy customer.

By analyzing search intent, you can tailor your content to perfectly match what users are looking for and attract highly relevant traffic that’s more likely to convert.

Here’s what our former client, SoulSalt, said about our laser focus on users’ needs and search intent, which helped the personal development and coaching company increase their organic traffic by 22,111%. 

2. Target Keywords Within Your Ranking Capabilities

Chasing high-volume search terms dominated by industry giants can be a recipe for wasted resources and frustration. 

Instead, understand your ranking capabilities by identifying keywords with search traffic that aligns with your website’s authority and backlink profile. 

Semrush has a straightforward keyword difficulty score which you can use to assess whether your website can realistically rank for your preferred keywords depending on the competition level. 

If your website is new and has close to zero domain authority, consider prioritizing easy-to-rank keywords with up to 29 KD. 

For example, SoulSalt ranked for just 213 organic keywords when our team joined the project. 

With a crystal clear strategy and carefully picked keywords that their website could rank for, they built up to 11,670 organic keywords in two years.

Of those, 3,367 ranked in the top 20 of the Google SERPs.

3. Optimize for SERP Features 

SEO isn’t just about ranking high for keywords. 

The modern SEO game involves optimizing your content to appear in SERP features — those attention-grabbing snippets that appear at the top of the search results page. 

These features, like featured snippets and answer boxes, can help you increase organic traffic and brand awareness even if your website doesn’t snag the top spot. That’s why optimizing for SERP features should be part of your SEO content strategy. 

Take SoulSalt, for example. DCP’s optimized content helped them get 56 featured snippets for high-value keywords. 

Today, SoulSalt ranks in the top 10 organic results for their target terms, and their SERP features grab user attention at the very top of the page. 

That’s the power of SERP features in action.

Accelerate Your SEO Success with Keyword Research That Works

Picture this: potential customers searching online and finding your website exactly when they need it.

At DCP, we’ll bridge that gap with laser-focused SEO.

Our expert team will analyze your industry and niche, identifying the keywords with a healthy balance of search volume and competition.

Then we’ll create compelling content that resonates with your audience and positions you as an industry leader — not just another website lost in the search results. 

The outcome will be a surge in organic traffic that skyrockets conversion rates and drives business growth. 

Interested in learning more?

Contact us today to discuss how we can help you achieve your business goals through SEO and unlock the true potential of your website.