How to Do SEO Keyword Research: Tips and Tools

Keyword research is the foundation of a successful SEO strategy. It helps you understand what your audience is searching for on Google, so you can tailor your website to match their needs — and help the search engine algorithms drive more traffic to your doorstep.

If you’re learning the SEO basics, mastering keyword research is the first step to boosting your site's visibility with optimised content. In this post, we'll explore practical tips and tools to guide you through the process.

Why Is Keyword Research Important?

Keywords serve as a bridge between your content and what people are searching for. Targeting the right keywords will:

• Increase organic traffic: Using relevant keywords boosts your chances of ranking higher on search engines for those search terms.

• Improve user experience: With keyword research, you can find out exactly what your customers are looking for, and tailor your website accordingly with valuable and engaging content.

• Enhance conversion rates: When your content aligns with search intent, you're more likely to attract potential customers or clients who are ready to take action.

So, where do you start with SEO keyword research?

Step 1: Understand Your Audience

The first step in effective keyword research is understanding your audience. Ask yourself:

• What are their pain points?

• What questions are they asking?

• What solutions are they seeking?

By answering these questions, you can better predict what terms your target audience will be searching for.

Tip: Use Surveys and Feedback

Surveys and customer feedback forms are excellent ways to gather information about what your audience wants. By understanding their specific needs, you can develop a more accurate list of potential keywords.

Step 2: Brainstorm Seed Keywords

Seed keywords are the foundation of your keyword research. These are simple, broad terms related to your business or industry. For example, if you're a digital marketing agency, your seed keywords might include “SEO,” “content marketing,” or “social media advertising.”

Tip: Use Industry Knowledge

Leverage your expertise to think of seed keywords that are relevant to your niche. Keep them broad at this stage – you'll refine them later.

Step 3: Analyse Competitors

Competitor analysis is a great way to identify valuable keywords that you're missing. By reviewing your competitors' content, you can spot high-ranking keywords that could be used in your own strategy.

Tool: SEMrush

At Lure, we use SEMrush to analyse website keyword rankings. You can enter in the domain for any website, and SEMrush will show you that site’s keyword rankings. You can then analyse your own website to compare your performance. SEMrush can even provide content plans to help you target specific keywords.

Step 4: Identify Long-Tail Keywords

While seed keywords are essential, long-tail keywords are where the real value lies. Long-tail keywords are longer, more specific phrases that often indicate higher user intent (i.e. the searcher is more likely to buy your product or service). For example, instead of targeting "digital marketing," you might target "digital marketing services for small businesses."

Tool: AnswerThePublic

AnswerThePublic a great tool for finding long-tail keywords. You can enter in your seed keyword, and it will generate a list of questions people are asking around that term.

The “People Also Ask” feature on Google’s search results page can give you ideas for long-tail keywords. Make a search for one of your seed keywords — in our case, we’d use “social media marketing”. Look at the questions users are asking around your main keywords and integrate those into your content.

Step 6: Analyse Keyword Metrics

Once you've gathered a list of keywords, the next step is to analyse their metrics. If you’re using SEMrush, look for two key metrics:

• Search Volume: This indicates how many people are searching for a specific keyword. Aim for keywords with a decent volume that aren't too competitive.

• Keyword Difficulty: This shows how hard it would be to rank for a particular keyword. The lower the difficulty, the easier it is to rank, especially for new websites.

This data will help you prioritise which keywords to target. As a starting point, begin with the keywords that have higher search volumes and lower difficulty. However, if something has a really high search volume and a higher difficulty, it’s also good to start building content early as SEO is a slow burn — it could take 6 months from the day you start to climb to your best ranking.

If you have a smaller budget or less time, avoid targeting keywords with low search volumes and high difficulty — this means that they’re less popular but require more effort.

Step 7: Create Content Clusters

Now that you have your keywords, it's time to actually plan your content. This is the while reason we went through steps 1-6 above! Group them into themes or topics that you can build landing pages or blog articles about. Content clusters will improve SEO by linking related content and creating a comprehensive resource on a given subject. This approach is particularly effective for long-tail keywords.

Make sure your SEO content has links to a conversion point on your website — a product or collection page, a contact form, a mailing list… If someone finds this page on Google, how can you actually turn them into a lead?

Here’s how to write SEO blog posts (the same advice goes for landing pages).

Step 8: Monitor, Adjust and (most importantly) Keep Going!

Keyword research isn’t a one-time task.You need to be adding content to your website every month for your ranking to keep improving. Google looks for ‘freshness signals’ when ranking websites; an inactive site means a worse ranking.

Trends change, search behaviours shift, and competitors evolve. Regularly monitor your keyword performance and make adjustments to your strategy as needed. If you’re in an industry with a vicious trend cycle, your target keywords will probably change regularly. (I mean, last year it was clean girl aesthetic and this year it’s brat summer.)

BONUS: Use Google Search Console

Every time you upload new content to your website, you should be adding the URL of the page into Google Search Console. This basically tells Google to re-evaluate your ranking.

Console is also one of the best free tools that lets you track your website’s performance for various keywords. It’s an easy beginner-friendly way to see which queries are driving traffic and which need improvement, perfect for SEO monitoring and reporting.

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Keyword research is the first step of your SEO content strategy. It aligns your content with your audience's search queries so you can boost traffic and ultimately improve conversions. Some of the most important elements are understanding your target market, knowing the difference between seed keywords vs. long-tail keywords, and utilising appropriate tools.

Keep in mind that SEO is a marathon, not a sprint — stay patient and flexible, adjusting your approach as you collect more data. If you upload regular content, you’ll see small shifts in 3 months and bigger changes in 6.

Ready to learn more about how to use keywords to improve SEO?