Keyword research – How to get started if you've never done it before

What is keyword research and why does it matter?

Keyword research is the process of mapping out the words and phrases your potential visitors use when they're looking for the products, services or information you offer. These keywords and phrases become the bridge between your target audience and your website.

But why does it matter so much? Imagine you open a bookshop, but somewhere no one ever passes by. The best product range and the most beautiful store count for nothing if potential customers can't find you. It's exactly the same on the internet. If you already have a finished website, it's worth making it visible to your potential clients and customers. That's what keyword research helps you do, along with feeding those lessons into your content development.

Based on good keyword research, you can:

• Understand how your potential buyers search online
• Identify which topics interest your target audience the most
• Discover market gaps where competition is low but the potential is high
• Plan out content that answers your target audience's questions

First steps: laying the groundwork for keyword research

Before we start using any tools, it's important to have some basic ideas about which keywords are worth looking into. The best strategy is to begin the process with a solid understanding of your own industry, product or service.

Brainstorming: the ideation phase

The first step is a simple brainstorm. Grab a piece of paper or open a new document, and write down every phrase you think your potential customers might search for. Don't worry if this feels awkward at first – the only goal right now is to have a basic keyword list.

A few questions that can help at this stage:

• How would you explain what your business does in one sentence, in plain language?
• What products or services do you offer?
• What's the most common problem your product or service solves?
• What do prospective customers ask you before they buy?
• What technical terms are used in your industry?

Let's say, for example, that you run a webshop selling handmade leather bags. Your first keyword list might look like this: "leather bag", "handcrafted bag", "custom leather bag", "quality leather bag", "women's leather bag", "men's leather bag", "leather shoulder bag", "leather backpack", and so on.

This ideation is already hugely valuable in itself, because it identifies phrases that are closely tied to your business and are very likely to bring in relevant traffic.

Analyzing your competitors through keyword research

The next step is to look at which keywords your competitors optimize their pages for. This doesn't mean copying their strategy; it means gathering inspiration and mapping out the competitive landscape.

How can you analyze your competitors from a keyword perspective?

1. Identify your main competitors, the ones offering similar products or services
2. Visit their websites and pay attention to the following:
   • What words do they use in page titles and subheadings?
   • Which phrases show up often in their content?
   • What topics do they write blog posts about?
3. Look at the source code of their websites (right-click, then "View page source") and find the meta titles and descriptions

This phase often uncovers keywords and topics you'd never have thought of on your own, and it helps you get a better feel for industry trends.

Keyword research tools

After the initial ideation and competitor analysis, it's time to bring in professional tools. These tools help you back up your assumptions with data, and they can uncover keywords you'd never have thought of.

Free keyword research tools

If you're just getting to grips with keyword research, you don't need to reach for paid solutions right away. Here are a few excellent free tools to get you started:

Google Keyword Planner: This is a free tool within the Google Ads system. Although it was originally built for ads, it's excellent for determining search volume and gathering new keyword ideas. The downside is that its full functionality requires an active ad account.

Google Trends: This tool shows you the popularity of different search terms over time. It's especially useful for spotting seasonal trends and comparing the popularity of keywords.

Ubersuggest: Neil Patel's tool gives you a limited number of free searches per day. It helps you find new keyword ideas and gauge how difficult the competition is.

Answer the Public: This site collects the questions people search for on Google around a keyword you choose. It's a great tool for expanding your content ideas and getting a better understanding of search intent.

When you use these tools, enter the keyword list you put together earlier one by one, and collect the new suggestions. Take note of the search volume (how many people search for it each month) and the level of competition (how hard it is to rank well for it).

Sticking with our example, for the leather-bag webshop, entering the phrase "custom leather bag" might give you suggestions like "personalized leather bag", "custom-patterned leather bag", "custom-designed leather bag", and so on.

Paid tools for more serious keyword research

If your business is already at a more mature stage, or you want to take SEO more seriously, it may be worth considering paid tools. These offer more detailed data and more features:

SEMrush: A comprehensive SEO tool that's suited not only to keyword research but also to competitor analysis, technical SEO and plenty of other functions.

Ahrefs: Ahrefs is one of the best tools for backlink analysis, but it also has an excellent keyword research feature. It's particularly good at determining keyword difficulty.

Moz Pro: This tool focuses mainly on local SEO and provides great keyword research features.

Paid tools generally deliver more professional and more accurate data, but as a beginner or a smaller business, free tools can be perfectly adequate too.

Evaluating and selecting your keywords

Once you've gathered a long list of potential keywords, it's time to evaluate and prioritize them. Not every keyword is equally valuable, and not all of them will be equally easy to rank for.

Search volume vs. competition: how hard a keyword is to rank for

The most important factors you need to consider:

Search volume: This shows how many people search for a given phrase each month. A higher number can look more attractive, but…

Competition/difficulty: This shows how hard it is to rank well for a given keyword. The more numerous and stronger the websites optimizing for the same keyword, the tougher your job will be.

The best keywords are usually the ones that:

• Are relevant to your business
• Have a reasonable search volume
• Are characterized by low or medium competition

For smaller or newer websites, it's especially important to focus on lower-competition keywords at the start, since these are easier to rank well for. As your website's authority grows, you can gradually go after more competitive keywords too.

Long-tail keywords: the hidden treasures of search optimization

"Long-tail" keywords are search terms that are more specific and longer than general, primary keywords. For example, instead of "custom leather bag", "handmade vintage leather shoulder bag for women".

These keywords can be especially valuable because:

1. Competition is usually lower – fewer people optimize for them
2. They can lead to higher conversion rates, since the searchers already know exactly what they want
3. Together, they can bring in even more traffic than the primary keywords

Don't underestimate the power of long-tail keywords! While it can be hard to get onto the first page for a primary keyword, it's much easier to rank well for the long-tail variants, and those are often tied directly to purchase intent.

The holy grail of keyword research: search intent

One of the most important, yet most often overlooked, aspects of keyword research is understanding search intent. This means trying to work out what the user's real goal is when they search for a given phrase.

The types of search intent

Google distinguishes four main types of search intent:

Informational search: When the user is looking for information on a certain topic. For example: "how to make a leather wallet" or "leather bag care".

Navigational search: When they're looking for a specific website. For example: "Facebook login" or "XY leather bag webshop".

Commercial investigation: When the user is comparing products, or is close to buying but still needs more information. For example: "best leather bag brands" or "comparing leather bag prices".

Transactional search: When the user wants to buy. For example: "buy leather backpack" or "leather bag sale".

Understanding search intent is critically important, because it determines what type of content you need to create to target a given keyword. For example, if someone searches for "how do I care for my leather bag", they're expecting an informative guide, not a product page.

How to identify search intent

The best way to determine search intent is to look at the current search results for a given keyword. Google's algorithms have already done the hard work – they show what users want to see.

A few tips for determining search intent:

1. Type the keyword into Google and look at the first 10 results
2. What type of pages rank well? Informational articles, product listings or category pages?
3. Check the SERP (search engine results page) features – are there videos, images, "People also search for" blocks?
4. Look at the paid ads too – if there are a lot of them, that usually signals transactional intent

If your content matches the search intent, it has a much better chance of ranking well on Google, and your bounce rate will be significantly lower, because visitors find exactly what they're looking for.

Keyword groups and topics: the modern SEO approach

As search optimization has evolved, Google has become increasingly able to understand the meaning of content and the connections between topics. This means that in modern SEO it's no longer worth thinking only in terms of individual keywords; instead, you should target broad topics and keyword groups.

Why grouping and topics matter

When grouping keywords, we gather together phrases that:

• Are semantically related to one another
• Express a similar search intent
• Touch on the same topic with different wording

For example, "leather bag care", "how to clean a leather bag", "leather bag maintenance" and "leather bag cleaning products" all touch on the same topic, just with a slightly different angle.

Building keyword groups helps you:

• Create more comprehensive and more valuable content
• Optimize content for several keywords at once
• Build up topic expertise in Google's eyes
• Prevent cannibalization (when your own pages compete with each other)

How to group your keywords

A few methods for grouping keywords:

1. By topic: For example, you gather every keyword related to leather bag care into one group.
2. By search intent: You sort all the informational, transactional, etc. keywords into separate groups.
3. By product or service: If you offer several products or services, it's worth grouping by these.

After grouping, each keyword group can form the basis of a piece of content – it could become a blog post, a product category page, a landing page or even a detailed guide.

From keyword research to content strategy

Keyword research isn't a process for its own sake – the ultimate goal is to build an effective content strategy based on the data you've gathered. So now let's see how you can build concrete content out of your keywords!

Putting together your content plan

When creating a content plan, it's worth setting up a spreadsheet or document that includes:

1. The keyword groups you're targeting
2. The type of content planned (blog post, product page, category page, etc.)
3. A draft of the title and meta description
4. The search intent and the target audience
5. The importance and priority of the content

Remember that content created based on keyword research should always provide value for users, not just for search engines. Content quality and user experience remain among the most important ranking factors.

Reviewing your keyword research regularly

Keyword research isn't a one-off task – search trends, market conditions and the focus of your business can all change over time. It's worth reviewing your keyword research at least every six months and updating your content plan accordingly.

Pay particular attention to the following signs, which may make new keyword research necessary:

• Launching new products or services
• Significant market changes or the emergence of new trends
• Seasonal fluctuations and annual events
• A change in your business's focus or target group

Summary: successful keyword research step by step

Keyword research is a time-consuming process, but it's worth the energy you invest, because it provides the framework for your entire SEO and content marketing strategy.

In short, the steps of successful keyword research are:

1. Brainstorming and basic ideas – Gather the fundamental keywords based on your own industry knowledge
2. Competitor analysis – See which keywords others optimize their pages for
3. Using keyword research tools – Use free or paid tools to expand the list
4. Evaluating keywords – Weigh up search volume and the level of competition
5. Identifying search intent – Determine what users actually want
6. Building keyword groups – Organize related keywords into topics
7. Creating a content plan – Translate the keywords into concrete content
8. Regular review – Update the research regularly based on market changes

If you follow this process, you'll be able to optimize your website far more effectively, and you can create content that genuinely provides value to your visitors while ranking well in the search engines. If you'd like comprehensive SEO knowledge, read our article "SEO Basics: Everything You Need to Know for Long-Term Success".

Keyword research is perhaps one of the most important elements of SEO, and it determines the success of your digital strategy. With the methods presented here, you'll optimize your content not just for the search engines, but – more importantly – for the real people behind them.

Set off on the journey of discovery!

Keyword research is an exciting journey into understanding how your target audience thinks! As you dig deeper, you'll see fascinating patterns emerge – what people are really searching for, what questions they ask, and how they think about your line of business. This information doesn't just strengthen your SEO; it also provides valuable business insights for your entire marketing strategy.

If you'd like to make your keyword research even more effective, or you have specific questions about your own industry, our expert team would be happy to help you! Write to us via the Markestic contact form.