When it comes to optimising your website to rank higher in Google, your strategy should be focussed on a list of unbranded target keywords. But fishing out which queries you should be targeting can be a challenge.

That’s why carrying out initial research is vital if you want your organic search strategy to win.

Follow these simple keyword research tips to help you achieve your brands’ findability goals.

1. Choose seed topics that are relevant to your brand

No, we’re not talking about the type of seeds you sow in your garden.

To avoid falling down rabbit holes during the research phase, start with identifying core themes and topics. Obviously, these should be relevant to your brand and closely relate to your product or service offering. We suggest making an initial list of 5-10 topic buckets (depending on what you sell) which you can then use to find specific keywords.

When creating your initial seed topics, think about what you want to gain from going through keyword research. Are you building a keyword benchmark for performance checks? Maybe you’re trying to find new onsite content ideas? Or you might just want to create a new landing page and need to know what you’re trying to target.

Whatever it is, understanding the scope before you go ahead and jump in, will keep your research efficient and useful, and you focussed.

2. Use a keyword research tool to identify search volumes

With a sweet shop of keyword research tools out there, such as SEMrush and Ahrefs, finding search opportunities has never been easier.

Once you have your seed topics, you can add these directly into the keyword research features on the tool of your choice. And, Voila! You have an extensive list of keywords with lots of data, probably more than you actually know what to do with 🤯

But pulling the data is only half the battle. Understanding what the data means and knowing what to do with it is the really important part.

Deciding what data, you need to analyse will depend on your goals. So, to make it easier, here is a very quick breakdown of the key metrics and what you can use them for.

Search Volume: this metric will help you determine how many people are searching for your keywords. If you want to find opportunities to reach a big audience, then you might want to target higher search volume keywords. But, strike the right balance between high search volume and low competition in order to be in with the best chance of ranking.
Keyword Difficulty: lots of keyword research tools use this metric. It helps to determine how difficult it would be to rank for each keyword. In theory, the higher the score the harder it is to rank but looking at this metric in isolation won’t paint an accurate picture of the competitiveness in relation to your own website.
CPC (cost per click): reflects the estimated bid for a specific keyword in Google Ads. This metric can be used by PPC or paid search professionals to analyse which keywords they want to target with paid ads. However, from an organic search perspective (which is what we’re talking about here), CPC data can help us determine what activity is going on in SERPs. High CPC could reflect more competition and high conversion intent. If brands are willing to spend a lot of dollar on paid ads, it could be because it is harder to rank in organic search, or users who are searching for this keyword have high conversion intent.
Trend: most keyword research tools include trend data over a 12-month period. This metric helps us to determine if searches for specific keywords are consistently searched for all year round or if they have clear seasonal spikes. You can then tailor your strategy around any trends to make sure you’re focussing your efforts in the right places at the right time.
SERP features: looking at the SERP feature data in the tool of your choice, you’ll be able to better understand the search intent and what content requirements are most suited to that keyword. For example, if the keywords you’re researching are dominated by video features, you might want to consider creating a video asset to appeal to the user intent… and so on, you get the jist.
Traffic potential: this is a metric that you won’t find on many tools. In fact, it’s a fairly new feature that Ahrefs added to the keywords explorer tool. Traffic potential shows you how much traffic you could drive if you were to rank in position one for a particular keyword.

3. Analyse SERPs to understand the intent

When choosing your target keywords, it’s vital to look beyond just search volumes alone. Ultimately, most search strategies are about driving traffic to your site, which means yes – of course you’ll want to target those high searched-for keywords. But what good is that if you’re not ranking on page 1 of Google?

Understanding the nitty-gritty of search intent is a key to success in this process.

In short, search intent is an SEO term used to describe the reason behind an online search – there’s lots more to it, but let’s avoid going off on any tangents.

Making sure your page(s) align with the users search purpose is the foundation to achieving top rankings in organic search. But how do you find out the intent behind your target keywords?

Well, some keyword research tools include intent in their set of metrics, but not everyone has access to these. Plus, they’re not always totally accurate.

An easy, free, and affective alternative is to manually look at the SERP (search engine results page) and review the following elements:

Content types dominating organic results (articles, product/service pages, etc)
Ad types (e.g., if there is a shopping ad carousel, then that reflects a highly transactional search intent)
SERP features (images, videos, PAA, featured snippets all tend to reflect informational intent)
Competitors (are the brands ranking relevant to your brand, services, products?)
Terminology (look at what type of qualifiers are being used – e.g., buy, shop, read, learn, etc.)

Looking at what content Google is favouring for a particular keyword will help you determine what content format will best serve the intent of your Googling audience. If the content you’re trying to rank doesn’t align with the intent, then it’s not relevant and well you just shouldn’t bother trying to rank for it.

4. See what keywords your competitors are ranking for

If you’re struggling to come up with initial seed topics, or simply have no clue which keywords you should be targeting. Try looking at your competitors. Again, this is where having access to SEO tools will come in handy. Many of them, including SEMrush and Ahrefs will allow you to find out what keywords your competitors are ranking rank and what positions they’re ranking in.

If you’re looking for site-wide keyword opportunities, add the domain to the search bar in whichever tool you’re using.

Or, if you want to find keyword opportunities for one page, you can add a specific competitor URL into the search bar to pull out all the keywords that just that one page is found ranking for. Based on these two methods, you can then pull together a list of keywords that will be relevant for your website.

5. Think about secondary keywords

One webpage can rank for multiple keywords. So, make sure you’re maximising traffic potential by including secondary keywords that are semantically related to your topic. But before you get carried away, that doesn’t mean you should include anything and everything.

When adding your secondary terms to your keyword list, make sure you’re choosing queries that your site actually has a chance of ranking for. Following the steps above will help you stay on track when choosing multiple target keywords.

Bonus tip! There is another method you can use to find additional keywords your page can also rank for. Once you have your main target keyword (also referred to as primary keyword) run a Google search to discover what content is already ranking.

Collate a list of the top 3-5 pages ranking in SERPs. Then, add each URL to the site explorer tab (if you’re using Ahrefs) to find out what other keywords that particular page is ranking for. Filter out any low-ranking positions – maybe just stick to keywords on the first page (positions 1-10).

This technique takes the guessing game out of your keyword research, as you’ll clearly be able to see which keywords are semantically related and therefore which ones you have the highest chance of ranking for alongside your primary keyword.

6. Look at the “People also ask” section on Google

Our last keyword research tip is much easier and doesn’t require access to a third-party tool. Simply type your keyword into the Google search bar and see what questions users are asking. Yes, it’s that easy.

The People Also Ask (PAA) section is frequently featured across many SERPs, although they are more common across informational search spaces. Nevertheless, if your SERP does contain a PAA section, collate the questions and add them to your keyword research. This is a great way to make sure you’re including direct answers within your page-copy.

Ultimately, everyone has their own way of conducting keyword research but try following these tips and you could be well on your way to finding your groove to enhancing your search strategy.

6 keyword research tips to enhance your SEO strategy