What to look at for each keyword
- Search intent: what the searcher wants: information, a comparison, a specific site or a purchase.
- Search volume: roughly how many searches it gets per month.
- Difficulty: how strong the pages that already rank are.
- Business value: how likely the searcher is to become a customer.
How to do keyword research
- List the products, services and problems your customers care about.
- Expand the list with tools such as Google Keyword Planner, Google Search Console, Semrush or Ahrefs, and with Google’s autocomplete and “People also ask”.
- Search the most promising keywords yourself to see what type of page ranks.
- Group keywords with the same intent, so one page targets one group.
- Prioritize the groups by value and by how realistic it is to rank.
Long-tail keywords, longer and more specific phrases, get fewer searches each but are often easier to rank for and closer to a purchase.