Keyword Research for SEO: The Definitive Guide + Template
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Keyword Research: The Definitive Guide

Today I’m going to show you exactly how to do keyword research in 2024.

In this comprehensive guide I’ll cover:

  • How to find keywords
  • How to choose the right keywords
  • How to use popular keyword research tools
  • Advanced keyword research tips
  • Lots more

So if you want higher Google rankings and more traffic, you’ll love this guide.

Let’s get started.

Introduction

Chapter 1: Keyword Research Basics

Keyword Research Basics

Keyword research entails research, analysis, and application of search terms people enter into search engines to gain data insights to help optimize organic traffic or use for marketing purposes.

In this chapter, I’ll cover the fundamentals of keyword research.

First, you’ll practically learn what keyword research is (and why it’s important for SEO).

I’ll also show you how keyword research helped grow my site’s search engine traffic to 360k+ unique visitors per month.

What is Keyword Research?

Keyword research is the process of identifying and analyzing the specific words and phrases that people use to search for information online. This valuable insight helps you create content, ads, and videos that directly address your target audience’s search queries, enhancing your website’s visibility and attracting more visitors.

Why is Keyword Research Important for SEO?

Keyword research impacts every other SEO task that you perform, including finding content topics, on-page SEO, email outreach, and content promotion.

Keyword research process

That’s why keyword research is usually the first step of any SEO campaign.

Put another way:

Keywords are like a compass for your SEO campaigns: they tell you where to go and whether or not you’re making progress.

As a bonus, researching keywords help you better understand your target audience. That’s because keyword research gives you insight into what customers are searching for… and the exact words and phrases that they use.

In other words: keyword research is market research for the 21st century.

How Keyword Research Helped My Site’s Traffic Grow

Today, my site generates 449,058 visitors every month:

Backlinko – Users – September 2021

And 362,732 of those visitors (80.78%) come from Google:

Backlinko – Organic traffic – September 2021

Obviously, there are a lot of factors that went into my site’s success with SEO, including content, on-site optimization, link building and technical SEO.

But the #1 factor that contributed to my site’s traffic growth was keyword research.

For example:

A while back I used the process in this guide to uncover a low-competition keyword: mobile SEO.

And I created a piece of SEO-optimized content around that term: The Definitive Guide to Mobile SEO.

Backlinko – Mobile SEO guide

Because that keyword wasn’t super competitive, my site quickly ranked in the top 3:

Google SERP – Mobile SEO

And thanks to that top 3 ranking, that single page brings in hundreds of visitors from Google every month:

Mobile SEO guide – Monthly users

With that, it’s time for chapter 2.

Chapter 2: How to Find Keyword Ideas

How to Find Keyword Ideas

Now it’s time to get into the nitty gritty of keyword research.

Specifically, it’s time to generate a list of keywords.

In this chapter I’m going to show you proven strategies that you can use to come up with LOTS of keyword ideas.

Let’s dive right in.

Keyword Research Template

Whether you’re starting a new SEO project, want to improve your site’s search traffic, or are looking for target keywords for a new piece of content, this template will help you do keyword research quickly and effectively.

Why Use a Keyword Research Template?

This template brings together all the different tool options and approaches into one place. So instead of bouncing around between a thousand tabs, losing track of where you are in the process…

You can just go through this template. Simple. Step-by-step.

When you’re done, you’ll have a BIG list of keywords. Plus all the metrics to help you pick which to target.

Download Now: Keyword Research Template

Brainstorm a List of Topics

Here’s where you come up with topics that your target customer is interested in.

For example, let’s say that you run a digital marketing agency.

Well, you’d want to ask yourself: ”What topics do people search for that are related to my business?”

Some topics that come to mind would be things like:

  • Social media
  • Email marketing
  • Website traffic
  • Content Marketing
  • Blogging
  • PPC

Note: These topics aren’t keywords (yet).

Which is exactly what you’re going to learn how to do right now…

Wikipedia Table of Contents

Wikipedia is an overlooked keyword research goldmine.

Where else can you find articles curated by thousands of industry experts… all organized into neat little categories?

Here’s how to use Wikipedia to find keyword ideas.

First, head over to Wikipedia and type in a broad keyword:

Wikipedia – "Coffee" search

That will take you to the Wikipedia entry for that broad topic.

Wikipedia – "Coffee" page

Then, look for the “contents” section of the page. This section lists out the subtopics covered on that page.

Wikipedia – Contents

And some of the subtopics listed here are awesome keywords that would be tough to find any other way:

Wikipedia – Contents keywords

You can also click on some of the internal links on the page to check out the Table of Contents of other, closely related entries.

For example, on the coffee entry we have a link to “Coffee Preparation”:

Wikipedia – Cross link

When you click on that link, you’ll notice that the table of contents for the Coffee Preparation page has even more keywords that you can add to your list:

Wikipedia – "Coffee preparation"

Pretty cool.

Searches Related To

Another cool way to find keywords is to check out the “Searches Related to” section at the bottom of Google’s search results.

For example, let’s say one of your topics was “content marketing”.

Well, you’d want to search for that keyword in Google.

Google SERP – Content marketing

And scroll to the bottom of the page. You’ll find a list of 8 keywords that are closely related to your search term.

Google SERP – Related searches

Just like with Google Suggest, these are keyword ideas that come straight from Google. So you don’t need to guess whether or not they’re popular. Google is literally telling you: “Tons of people search for these keywords.”

Pro Tip: Click on one of the “Searches Related To” keywords.

Related searches – Highlight

Then, scroll to the bottom of THOSE results. This will give you a new list of related keywords. Rinse and repeat.

Find Keywords on Reddit

Chances are your target audience hangs out on Reddit.

Which means you can usually find lots of keyword ideas on this platform.

Here’s how:

Let’s say that you run a site that sells organic dog food.

You’d head over to Reddit. Then search for a broad topic that your target audience is interested in… and something that’s related to what you sell.

Reddit search – "dogs"

Then, choose a subreddit where your audience probably hangs out:

Reddit – Community – Dogs

Finally, keep an eye out for threads that have lots of comments, like this:

Reddit – "dog food allergies"

In this case you’d add “dog food allergies” to your keyword ideas list.

Pro Tip:Keyworddit” is a free SEO tool that scans Reddit for words and phrases that people use… and sorts those phrases by monthly search volume.

Keyworddit – Results

Very cool.

Use Google and YouTube Suggest

Now that you have a list of topics, type each one of them into Google.

Google search – "content marketing"

And see what terms that Google Suggests to you.

Google search – "content marketing" – Suggestions

These are great keywords to add to your list.

Why?

Because if Google suggests a keyword, you KNOW that lots of people are searching for it.

But you don’t need to stop with Google Suggest.

You can also find keyword suggestions with YouTube Suggest:

YouTube suggest

And Bing:

Bing search – "content marketing" – Suggestions

Find Popular Topics Using Forums

Forums are like having live focus groups at your fingertips 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The easiest way to find forums where your target audience hangs out is to use these search strings in Google:

“keyword forum”
“keyword” + “forum”
“keyword” + “forums”
“keyword” + “board”

Once you find a forum, note how the forum is divided up into sections: Each of these sections are potential keywords that you can add to your list.

Home Barista Forums

To dig deeper, check out some of the threads on the forum to find other specific topics that your target audience struggles with:

Home Barista – Brewing

Pretty cool, right?

Chapter 3: Keyword Research Tools

Keyword Research Tools

This chapter is all about tools.

Can you find keywords without a tool?

Sure.

But a tool makes the entire process A LOT easier.

With that, here are the keyword research tools that I personally use and recommend.

The Google Keyword Planner

Google’s Keyword Planner is THE most reliable source of keyword information online.

Google Keyword Planner

That’s because, unlike most other tools, the data you get from the Keyword Planner come straight from Google.

(So you know they’re accurate)

The big downside of the GKP is that it’s designed to help people with their Google ad campaigns… not with SEO.

That said, you can still use the GKP to get lists of keyword ideas…

Google Keyword Results

…and find search queries that get lots of searches.

Google Keyword Volume

ExplodingTopics.com

This new tool is like Google Trends… but better.

Exploding Topics – Homepage

Exploding Topics scrapes the web for terms that are surging in popularity. And it bubbles those terms up for you.

Exploding Topics – Keyword overview

You can even sort the list of topics by category.

Exploding Topics – Categories

Nice.

Keyword Surfer

Keyword Surfer might be my favorite keyword research tool.

Why?

Because it shows you keyword ideas from inside Google’s search results.

Keyword Surfer – Coffee SERP

All you need to do is install the Chrome extension. And the next time you search for something in Google, you’ll see a list of keyword ideas… and data on each keyword.

Keyword Surfer – Coffee keyword ideas

Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest was the first Google suggest scraper that I used. And the tool recently got a massive upgrade and overhaul.

Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest still generates keyword ideas from Google’s search suggestions. But it also gives you data on each keyword (like search volume, CPC, keyword difficulty and more).

Ubersuggest – Results

SEMrush

If you want to invest in a paid keyword tool, I HIGHLY recommend SEMrush.

That’s because SEMrush is a HUGE time saver.

Here’s why…

Instead of popping random keywords into a tool, SEMrush shows you the exact keywords that a site already ranks for.

So if you have a site that you’re competing against in Google, just pop it into SEMrush.

SEMrush – Search

And steal all of their keywords.

SEMrush – Keywords "backlinko"

Nice.

Ahrefs

Most people consider Ahrefs a link building tool.

But not as many people know that Ahrefs also has a REALLY good keyword tool.

What’s nice about Ahrefs “Keyword Explorer” is that you get a ton of helpful data on each keyword.

Ahrefs – "Keyword Research" – Overview

Which can help you decide whether or not it’s a keyword that’s worth going after.

My one gripe with Keyword Explorer is that it’s not great at coming up with new keyword ideas. It usually generates keywords that are just simple variations of the keyword I typed in.

Ahrefs – Search suggestions

That said:

When it comes to drilling down to a single term, you can’t do much better than the features found in Ahrefs Keyword Explorer.

Chapter 4: Keyword Difficulty

Keyword Difficulty

How do you know if a keyword is too competitive to rank for?

It’s a good question to ask.

Because if you choose a keyword that’s super competitive, you might have trouble getting past Google’s third page.

But if you can find a keyword without a ton of competition, you have a good chance of cracking the top 3.

With that, here’s how to figure out a keyword’s SEO difficulty.

Long Tails Are (Usually) Less Competitive

If your site is brand new.

Or if you want to focus 100% on keywords that aren’t competitive.

Then you DEFINITELY want to target long tail keywords.

I’ll explain…

Most people in SEO (myself included) divide keywords into three main categories: head, body and the long tail.

Keyword category division

Here’s a breakdown of each keyword type:

Head Terms

These are usually single-word keywords with lots of search volume…and competition. Examples of head terms are keywords like “insurance” or “vitamins”. Because searcher intent is all over the place (someone searching for “insurance” might be looking for a car insurance quote, a list of life insurance companies or a definition of the word), Head Terms usually don’t convert very well.

Body Keywords

Body keywords are 2-3 word phrases that get decent search volume (at least 2,000 searches per month), but are more specific than Head Keywords. Keywords like “life insurance” or “order vitamins online” are examples of Body Keywords. These almost always have less competition than Head Terms.

Long Tail Keywords

Long tail keywords are long, 4+ word phrases that are usually very specific. Phrases like “affordable life insurance for senior citizens” and “order vitamin D capsules online” are examples of long tail keywords. These terms don’t get a lot of search volume individually (usually around 10-200 searches per month). But when you add them together, long tails make up the majority of searches online. And because they don’t get searches for that much, long tail terms usually aren’t very competitive.

There’s no “best” keyword category to focus on. All 3 have their pros and cons.

But when it comes to competition, long tails are usually the least competitive of the bunch.

Authority of Sites on Google’s First Page

Here’s a quick way to evaluate a keyword’s competition level.

First, search for your keyword in Google.

Google search – "CRM"

Then, look at the sites ranking on the first page.

Google SERP – "CRM"

(Not individual pages)

If the first page is made up of uber authority sites (like Wikipedia), then you might want to cross that keyword off from your list:

Uber authority sites in SERP

But if you see a handful of smaller blogs on page 1, that’s a sign that you have a shot to hit the first page too.

Keyword Difficulty Inside of Keyword Tools

The vast majority of keyword research tools have some sort of keyword competition feature, including SEMrush:

SEMrush – Keyword Difficulty

Ahrefs:

Ahrefs – Keyword Difficulty

KWFinder:

KWFinder – Competition

And Moz Pro:

Moz competition

We recently tested a bunch of them. And we found that they all size up keyword difficulty based on a combination of page authority and domain authority. YET they all tend to come up with completely different keyword difficulty scores.

Bottom Line? If your favorite keyword tool includes a keyword difficulty feature, go with that. It may not be perfect. But they do tend to give you a general idea of how competitive a keyword is to rank for.

CanIRank

Believe it or not, but there’s an entire tool dedicated to keyword difficulty: CanIRank.

"Can I Rank?"

What I like about this tool is that it doesn’t just spit out a keyword difficulty number. Instead, it evaluates a keyword’s competition level relative to your website.

For example, I popped the keyword “SEO” into CanIRank.

And the tool looked at Google’s first page competition compared to my site’s authority. And it gave me a “Ranking Probability” of 90%:

"Cank I Rank? – 90%"

Super helpful.

Chapter 5: How to Choose a Keyword

How to Choose a Keyword

Now that you have a list of keywords, how do you know which one to pick?

Unfortunately, there’s no tool out there that will tell you: “This is the best keyword on your list”.

Instead, you need to size up each keyword based on a handful of different factors. Then, pick the keyword that’s the best fit for your business.

Additionally, conducting keyword analysis to ensure reaching the target audience takes time and effort. Lucky for you, Backlinko simplified the process to ease your work.

As you might expect, that’s exactly what I’m going to show you how to do in this chapter.

Search Volume

This is pretty straightforward.

The more people search for a keyword, the more traffic you can get from it.

The question is:

What’s a “good” search volume?

Short answer: it depends.

The long answer:

Search volumes vary A LOT between different industries.

For example, a long tail keyword in the fitness niche (like: “best ab exercises”) gets 10K-100K searches per month:

"best ab exercises"

But a long tail keyword in a B2B space like digital marketing (like: “best seo software”) only gets 100-1K monthly searches.

"best seo software"

That’s why you want to figure out what a “high” and “low” search volume number is in your niche.

Then, choose keywords based on what’s “normal” for your industry.

Organic Click-Through-Rate

It’s no secret that the number of Google searchers that click on an organic search result is way down.

Google Organic Click-Through Rate (CTR) Desktop vs. Mobile

And it’s no wonder why.

Featured Snippets make it so you don’t need to click on anything to get an answer:

Google Featured Snippet

Plus, Google now packs the search results with more ads than ever before:

Google Ads take SERP real estate

The bottom line?

Search volume only gives you part of the story. To get a full estimate of how many clicks you’ll get from a first page Google ranking, you also need to estimate organic CTR.

Here are two simple ways to do it…

First, you can look at the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) for your keyword.

If you see a lot of stuff on the first page (like a Featured Snippet and multiple Google Ads), then you know that you’re not going to get a ton of clicks… even if you rank #1.

"best chatbot software" SERP

Second, you can use a tool.

Ahrefs and Moz pro both estimate organic CTR.

Organic CTR – Compare

With all that said:

I wouldn’t avoid a keyword just because it has a low CTR. If lots of people search for that term, it might still be worth going after.

Difficulty

If your site is new (or doesn’t have a ton of links yet), target low-competition terms at first.

Then, as your site grows in authority, you can start to target more competitive stuff.

For example:

When I first launched Backlinko, I targeted almost 100% long tail keywords (like: “how to get backlinks”).

And because I didn’t have a ton of sites to compete with, I was able to get some organic traffic rolling in within a few weeks. Which helped me achieve some early SEO success.

Early SEO success

Today, my site has backlinks from over 37k different domains:

Ahrefs – Backlinko – Referring domains – October 2021

So I can target more competitive keywords (like: “YouTube SEO”).

Google SERP – YouTube SEO

CPC

CPC (cost per click) is a single metric that answers one important question:

Do people searching for this keyword actually spend money?

So yeah, search volume is nice and all.

But if that keyword has zero commercial intent, then there’s no point in targeting that term.

Plus, you can sometimes get a great ROI from a keyword that doesn’t get that many searches… if the CPC is high enough.

For example, one of my target keywords is “link building services”.

Backlinko – Link building services

According to Ahrefs, this keyword gets 1.3K searches per month.

Ahrefs – Link building services – Volume

So if I ONLY looked at search volume, I’d say: “This is a horrible keyword”.

That’s why it’s super important to ALSO look at CPC.

The CPC on that keyword is $25.00.

Ahrefs – Link building services – CPC

This means that people are spending $25 every time someone searching for that keyword clicks on an ad.

So even though the search volume for that term isn’t that high, the CPC more than makes up for it.

Based on CPC (and the fact that the keyword wasn’t super competitive) I decided to create content optimized around that term.

And that blog post now ranks in the top 3 for my target keyword.

Google SERP – Link building services

Business Fit

Here’s where you look at how likely it is that someone searching for a keyword will become a customer.

Yup, CPC helps you figure this out. But it doesn’t tell the entire story.

For example, a few weeks ago I came across the keyword: “backlink checker”.

On the surface, this is a great keyword.

It gets a decent amount of searches:

"backlink checker"

And has a $4.01 CPC:

"backlink checker" price

It’s also not that competitive.

So this keyword is a winner, right?

Well… not really.

You see, Backlinko is an SEO training company. Which means I don’t sell a backlink analysis tool. So even if I DID rank #1 for “backlink checker”, it wouldn’t do me much good.

Contrast that with a keyword like “YouTube SEO”.

This keyword’s CPC is only $2.22.

"youtube seo" – Price

But considering that I sell a YouTube training course, this term is a 10/10 in terms of business fit.

This is why I wrote a piece of content around that keyword:

Backlinko – How to rank YouTube videos

Keyword Trends

Finally, you want to see if your keyword is growing fast… or dying slow.

And the best way to do that? Google Trends.

For example, last year I was considering the keyword: “voice search SEO”.

But I decided to pop that keyword into Google Trends before pulling the trigger.

As you can see, interest in that keyword is growing quickly.

Google Trends – Voice Search

Which is why I optimized this page around that term.

Backlinko – Voice search SEO study

Even though that piece of content only brings in about 1k monthly search engine visitors per month today…

Voice Search traffic

…the trend tells me that traffic to this post should increase over time.

Another key trend to consider is the use of AI for keyword research. Think of integrating ChatGPT for diverse SEO tasks including keyword research. Learn all about how this innovative trend can impact your SEO journey in our guide.

Chapter 6: Advanced Tips and Strategies

Advanced Tips & Strategies

Now that you’ve mastered the basics of keyword research, it’s time to cover some cool advanced stuff.

Specifically, I’m going to reveal a bunch of tactical keyword research tips that you can implement right away.

So without further ado, let’s dive right into the tips.

Barnacle SEO

Let’s say that you found the PERFECT keyword.

And you rank in the top 3 for that term.

You’re pretty much done, right?

Actually… not really.

As it turns out, you can get even MORE traction from that keyword with Barnacle SEO.

Barnacle SEO is the practice of using other sites’ authority to rank on the first page.

For example, one of my best keywords (in terms of conversions) is: YouTube SEO.

Like I mentioned earlier, I wrote a post about YouTube SEO. And that post ranks in the top 3 for that keyword.

Google SERP – YouTube SEO

Sure, a top 3 ranking is great. But it’s still only one spot in the SERPs.

That’s why I created a YouTube video optimized for that keyword…

YouTube video

…a video that also ranks on Google’s first page.

Google SERP – YouTube SEO – Video results

Bottom line? If you find an amazing keyword, you want to take up as much first page real estate as you can. First, create content on that topic on your own site. Then, publish keyword-optimized content on authority sites, like YouTube, LinkedIn, Medium and more.

GSC Keyword Research

The Google Search Console is a goldmine of keyword ideas.

Here’s how it works:

First, login to your GSC account and head over to the “Performance Report”.

Google Search Console – Performance Report

This report shows you the terms that bring in the most clicks from Google search.

GSC – Performance Report

Then, sort the list by “Impressions”.

GSC – Performance Report – Impressions

This shows you keywords that get lots of impressions… but not necessarily clicks.

GSC – Clicks .vs. Impressions

Finally, create a piece of content optimized around that same keyword.

Why is this a powerful strategy?

These are keywords that you KNOW people are searching for. You also know that Google sees your site as a good fit in the search results.

You just need to publish content that’s super focused on that specific keyword (or optimize a piece of existing content around that keyword) and you’re set.

Optimize Content around Synonyms and Related Keywords

Yes, you want to optimize your page around your main keyword.

But don’t stop there.

You can get even more search engine traffic to your page by optimizing it around synonyms and closely related terms.

I’ll show you how this works with a real life example.

Some time ago I published this post on my blog.