What is keyword research?

Keyword research is the process of finding popular words and phrases that your potential customers and clients might use in a search engine or AI chatbot to find your services.

It sounds like a complicated process, but we promise it’s not.

You may have heard the term “keyword research” in conversations relating to SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).

In fact, it’s often the first step to implementing an SEO plan – it helps you understand a little more about what potential customers are looking for online and allows you to build a strategic plan around capturing that traffic.

How to categorise keywords

Like many marketing functions, SEO is full of jargon – it can be a headache! So, below we’ve broken down the multiple ways you can categorise a keyword and given some examples too.

Short-tail: 1–2 words, broad, high search volume, high competition. Example: “shoes”

Mid-tail: 2–3 words, more specific, moderate competition. Example: “running shoes”

Long-tail: 3+ words, very specific, lower competition, higher conversion. Example: “best running shoes for flat feet women”

It’s worth using a combination of keyword types in your SEO strategy; all will come in handy for generating traffic online. 

Are keywords necessary for your business?

If you’re interested in building a healthy digital presence for your business, then yes.

By optimising your website for keywords, you increase the chance of leads finding you online, whether that’s from a customer inputting a certain phrase on a Google search, such as “builders in Croydon” or an AI referral prompt, such as “best builders in Croydon”.

Then competition to rank in the top 3 spaces of a Google search is fierce, but that’s exactly why you conduct keyword research in the first place. This will help you answer questions like:

• Would my customers search for this term?

• Will it be difficult for me to rank for this keyword?

• What keywords are my competitors not using, and might give me some advantage?

  
  

Keywords are all about making you more visible and gaining more traffic.

Let’s be honest, if you aren’t interested in being digitally visible in 2025, your business must be very niche, purposefully anti-digital, or you haven’t had the time to invest in that side of the business yet. 

In other words, it’s rare.

Why are keywords good for visibility?

When you optimise particular pages of your site for a keyword, you increase the likelihood of people visiting your site. You gain trust by looking official, you make their life easy by getting right in front of their eyes, and you immediately make them curious about your services.

For example, a website development business might want their homepage to rank in the top 10 results for a term like “trusted ecommerce web developers”.

You can optimise every page of your site with a unique term to build and grow stronger site traffic. But it’s important to remember the quality over quantity rule.

I’ll give you the example of two e-commerce websites that sell hats.

1.  Attracts 10,000 website visitors a month, out of that number, 200 people decide to buy a product – that’s a 2% conversion rate.

2.  Attracts 2,000 website visitors a month, out of that number, 500 people decide to buy a product – that’s a 25% conversion rate.

Which would you argue is most successful? Not the website with the most visitors.

It’s important to always keep in mind your end goal, which is likely sales, and focus on keywords that don’t give you empty traffic but actual leads and customers.

How to get started with keyword research

One of the most difficult aspects of utilising keywords on your website is knowing where to start. If you're a small business or simply don't have strong SEO knowledge, it can feel like a daunting task educating yourself.

In this scenario, you have a few options:

Hire in-house – if you want permanent expertise in your business, you can hire someone adept at SEO. This is a long commitment, but you'll have the benefit of pulling on their knowledge.  

Train an employee - if you have a budding marketer in your company and they're interested in learning about SEO, you have the option of training them. This is great for their career progression, but it is quite time-intensive and sometimes costly.

Utilise an interim SEO expert – If you want immediate guidance, from top-level strategy to practical application, you might want to hire a freelancer or small agency. They'll be able to offer guidance without a big price tag or the pressure of hiring another full-time employee.

Whatever option you choose, it's also good to inform yourself a little bit, so you know whoever you trust with the work is on the right track. Below, we break keyword research down into 6 digestible steps.

Step 1: Find a keyword database

Firstly, you need to have access to a keyword database, such as SEMrush or MOZ. These tools allow you to explore their rich lists of key phrases and words and analyse which are suitable for you to optimise on your site.

They’ll give you information on:

• Keyword difficulty

• Traffic generated per month

• Similar phrases

• Top ranked websites

• User intent

  
  

And much much more! You should consider all of these aspects before spending the time implementing them on your website.

It’s about working strategically, not just sheer volume.

Step 2: Look at traffic per month

One thing to consider when evaluating keywords is the amount of traffic they generate each month.

If it's a relevant keyword to your business, and it, for example, has 500+ monthly visitors with a low difficulty score, then you're probably onto a winner!

Do keep it mind that often, high traffic keywords are harder to rank for as there is more competition for them. But you'll be able to keep this on whatever database you choose to use.

Step 3: Look at keyword difficulty score

One of the most important aspects of research to look at is difficulty score – especially if you're a small business.

A difficulty score does exactly what it says on the tin: it tells you the likelihood of you being able to rank for that keyword. It represents this in a percentage up to 100, with 0% being very easy to rank and 100% being almost impossible.

If it's a popular keyword like "blue jeans", you can expect it to be challenging; however, a more specific or niche keyword like "green and red bandana" should be much easier (you'll have to look and let us know!).  

Businesses with a strong online presence and good authority scores tend to find it easier to rank as they've developed a lot of "search engine trust". But don't let that intimidate you; there are still plenty of gold mines waiting to be explored.

Step 4: Check out the competition

If you're struggling to come up with keywords to check or you think you might have a gap on your site, always take a look at what your competitors are up to.

They can be a great source of inspiration, and equally, you might find a narrow angle to capitalise on that they've also missed.

Many of the databases, allow you to see:

• What your competitors rank for

• Where the keyword gaps are

• Fluctuations in the traffic volume of keywords

  
  

And lots of other interesting snippets of data.

Step 5: Consider what keywords are relevant to your business

Don’t fall into the trap of “vanity metrics” (a term many markets use when you produce a positive data set for results sake).

Don't fall into the trap of "vanity metrics" (a term many markets use when you produce a positive data set for results' sake).

While the phrase itself is contentious, there's some truth to it. And the truth is, be selective with which data you track. As we mentioned above with the example of two e-commerce sites, it's all about quality, not quantity, when it comes to keywords.

You might see a high traffic, low difficulty word and think that would be easy to optimise on the site, even if it has no relevance to your business or customer needs.

Our advice? Don't waste your time chasing easy wins, unless it directly helps your branding or gets you leads.

Step 6: Build keyword lists and track

When you find a keyword that sounds beneficial for your business, don't lose track of it. Build keyword tracking lists on a database or even a Google Sheet file if the monthly fees are too high for a tool.

From these lists, you can build SEO briefs that can then be utilised on website pages, landing pages, blog content, and more.

Then you can also keep track of the impact. Many businesses optimise a page and forget about it…this means you don't know if something has worked or not – what a waste! Keep an eye on ranking movement after the first few weeks (it can take a little while to change) and each month after.

Final thoughts

This is not an extensive explanation of “how to” list of utilising keywords. But we know the SEO world can be overwhelming, so hopefully, this is a good start in your journey.

Of course, we offer more than advice.

If you need top-line strategic support on SEO or practical hands to manage some of the burden, we’re just a click away. Start a conversation with us.