How to Assess Keywords When Researching Them

There are many ways to do keyword research and Ive always found it best to be relevant to the demand of the task, so looking for organic keywords, looking for paid advertising keywords that cost money to target or looking at transactional keywords for e-commerce projects.

The best way and easiest way I can break them down to explain is that of short-tail keywords and long tail keywords, Longer tail keywords are easier to rank for but usually have lower search volume but they are more targeted. See the image below explaining the difference.

Grouping Keywords by Search Intent

I also like to categorise keywords by their search intent so that I can make detailed analyses and recommendations for my SEO clients. The context of each keyword helps determine the content we need to use to get that keyword ranked.

Step 1 Setting up your Research Sheet

First thing I do is set up my keyword and topics targeting Google sheet so that I have a workspace for this task.

First, sign in to Google Sheets and create a blank spreadsheet, you can also use excel spreadsheets I find Google Sheets easier.

I keep it super simple, I really only need a couple of columns at this stage:
1. Topic column
2. Key Term or phrase column
3. Intent type column (Informational or transactional)
4. Search Volume for each word column
5. Notes column for adding comments 

As a starting place, this is all I need. Super simple and I can recreate it for any new keywords I want to research.

Its best to keep different topics on different tabs of the spreadsheet for clarity.

There are now a couple of ways to do Keyword Research.

Option 1 using SEO Tools and Keyword Software.
Tool 1 Ahrefs software – Paid
Tool 2 SEMRush software – Paid

Option 2 using Google Keyword Planner
Tool link = Free

Option 3 using on SERP data provided by these tools.
Tool 1 Detailed SEO Chrome Extension – Free
Tool 2 Keyword Surfer Chrome Extension – Free
Tool 3 Keywords Everywhere Chrome Extension – Free but to unlock more metrics you can pay for credits here.

In a former role I was using Option 1 exclusively but after freelancing and having  time to dog right into my craft Ive started using a combination of all 3 options.

But lets keep it simple and use Option 3
Go and install 1 or all of the Chrome extensions.

Now that takes care of your setup.

Step 2 Doing Keyword Research

Now that you have all the sheets and extensions you can move over to a new Google.com.au browser tab, for international readers please your version of Google.

The first thing you should do is just type in a word that you care about for business, for this example let’s use teeth whitening as our example and see what happens when you search the keyword in Google now you have the tools installed.

You will notice that the search bar where you put in the keywords now has some numbers showing these are search volume numbers and average cost per click for this term.

People Also Asked (PAA) Features

You will also notice the accordions that Google provides called People Also Ask, these are similar questions people ask Google, that match your keyword. These are very important and we want to keep track if them.

Lucky for us the Detailed SEO extension has an extraction feature that will collect these questions and more as you can see to the right of the image. You can select what options you want and download them. To be added to your research sheet.

SERP Website Metrics

As you keep scrolling down the page you will notice under the actual website search results that the companies websites listed now show some metrics and numbers under their listings.

The First row shows DA out of 100, Referring domains, Referring links and some other metrics nerds like me will geek out on and use to our advantage. But lets keep this simple. The DA section is useful and so are the Search traffic numbers and the website volume.

The Second row shows some more technical analysis of Googles index and word count on the page. Important but not for now.

Keyword Search Volume with Keyword Surfer

Keyword Surfer will present you on the right-hand side of the screen a list of keyword ideas based on your keyword search. It will also show you the search volume and any overlap with your current search term.

This list is exportable and click to copy and then paste it into your research sheet. You will get several ideas from the search term you enter and its a repeatable process.

Finding Long Tail Keywords & Related Search Terms

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Related Terms from Keywords Everywhere

I find this feature very helpful in planning other keywords that we can use throughout the content we create to rank the web page for our target keywords. Using some relevant and related keywords we can reinforce the topic of the page to Google and readers.

Depending how competitive our market is we could be required in Googles eyes to create a bunch of pages that target the keywords shown in the related keywords section listed below.

Analysing & Selecting Keywords

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Drilling Down on Keywords & Content

Now we know what target keywords we want to target we need to assess our website and if we can add the target keywords to existing pages or we need to create new pages for them to be used on.

Basically keyword research will inform what we want to target and what keywords will drive more traffic to our web pages. But what it doesn’t do is tell us if we have pages already to use target keywords on or if we need to create new pages.

In most cases we need to create new pages for these keywords and use internal hyperlinks to the main service/ product pages to help boost them in Google.

We want to determine the type of content it needs to rank and how it will fit on our website. Our websites are basically marketing funnels that drive visitors to our money-making pages.

Mapping Keywords to Pages

The first thing we need to do in this instance is create a new tab in our research sheet and call it page mapping. This tab will be used to map the keywords we have to web pages we have or will create for the keyword.

Note: Most money-making pages are Pages, and most of your ranking pages will be Posts (Blog posts).

A lot of keyword rankings will come from blog posts that we create to use to get ranked and then push and power our existing money-making pages. This is just how Google works.

I like to list the target keywords and any secondary keywords per group on the first column of my sheet and then map in on another column,n the web pages that I think will suit that keyword or that I need to create for it.

This starts to tell us what we have and what we need to build. Do the mapping for the rest of the keywords until you have done all the keywords and groups that matter to you.

Below is a basic website structure for an e-commerce store. Living Room and Dining Room are category pages and under them are more focuses pages that have items that usually are in the Living or Dining room.

This should take roughly 1-3 hours depending on how many you have.

Create Your Keyword Targeted Content

Now weve done the research and mapped our keywords to existing or new pages we can start to plan out the keyword targeted content plan. Without content we will not rank.

I start by looking at whats ranking already on Google and then creating catchy titles using my target keywords. This helps me identify what type of content is ranking and what I need to be saying to get clicks.

Usually the rule of thumb is this
Product pages: They must provide the critical details of the product and then any supporting content informational as secondary

Service Pages: Must provide the critical information that gives a reader confidence to book/pay for the service then and there.

About Pages: Must provide confidence to the reader that your business can do the thing that they need you to do.

Contact Pages: Must provide a contact methods from reader to your business.

Blog Posts: Must provide information to assist in transactional queries and people who need just a bit more convincing that your product or service is right for them.

Advanced Keyword Research Tips

You can dive into different keyword types if you want to try to get more out of your research and capitalise on the work you are doing. It does work and will produce more results but it can be very time-consuming. You could put Chat GPT to the test and see if it can help you analyse, sort and filter better but that’s completely up to you.

Types of Keywords Research

Search Query

Looking for search terms that would come from interested buyers and people seeking more information about your service or product that type this example search term query on Google “Best Vegan Pizza Crust” you can type this into google but notice as you type Google will auto suggest the next words I take note of these words and add them to a text file for use when compiling URL titles, meta descriptions and content.

Related Search Terms

If you’re struggling to find keywords think more in terms of finding related words that people may use when searching for your product or service.

think of more keywords people might be searching about a specific topic, go to Google.com and take a look at the related search terms that appear when you plug in a keyword. When you type in your phrase and scroll to the bottom of Google’s results, you’ll notice some suggestions for searches related to your original input. These keywords can spark ideas for other keywords you may want to take into consideration buyer intent

Head Keywords

These are usually single-word keywords with insane amounts of search volume and competition (Using our example, “vegan” or “vitamins”). Because searcher intent is very broad within what “vegan” related topic they are looking for its hard to cater to someone searching for the word “vegan” when you are offering the best tasting vegan pizza served 100% organic when they may be looking for “vegan” headbands the search term is too broad to cater for the query directly this makes it quite hard to attract that user with a head keyword the conversion from a single head keyword is significantly lower than say a long tail keyword.

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 “vegan pizza base” or “vegan pizza” are good examples of using body keywords and this search query now allows us to have an increased relative appeal to the search query than a head keyword as we now can relate to more than 1 word generating more closely affiliated relevance to the user intent.

Body keywords can still be competitive but also allow for some less competitive term success

Long Tail keywords
The best way to describe long tail keywords would be to take your head & body keywords and add another word or two to extend them further creating a long tail keyword. These are specific words describing in an extended form your target keyword like example “affordable vegan pizza oven” or “Vegan pizza topping recipes” while they are not going to be getting 50,000 searches per month they will pull their weight with attracting visitor’s to your website.

Long tail keywords convert better as they attract visitor’s that have typed in a more specific search term meaning they know more about what they are searching for where someone searching for “pizza” may just be cruising the web looking for pizza or pizza deals but someone who searches “mouth watering vegan pizza” is one hungry SOB looking for warm tasty vegan pizza.

This search query would be more inclined to purchase pizza over the user searching for a very broad very generic “pizza” search term. It is understanding this search query demand that can make your keyword research more profitable just from understanding the pending conversion thought process.

Latent Semantic Indexing or LSI keywords

LSI Keywords are essentially keywords related to the keyword that you search for on search engines such as Google. Using semantically related words referring back to your target keyword increases the power of your keyword phrase and this has been fully endorsed by Google as a significant page ranking factor and you should consider using this method in your content marketing think more about the user than just creating content aim for your target audience by thinking as if you were looking for information on your product or service.

While it sounds like a super complex conspiracy theory type of substitutionary phrase its not that complex at all its similar to long tail keywords but using words that are more commonly associated with these body keywords.

I quite enjoy using LSI graph for finding LSI keywords the user interface is very smooth and its simple to use, they offer a free download of the best ways to use LSI keywords and its well worth the read. They also offer a opt-in for their plugin.

One thing I am on the lookout for is a reliable ecommerce keyword tool specifically aimed at Shopify, Amazon and Ebay. Ive tested several that don’t meet my standards and the tools mentioned in this review are the ones I use currently and they help identify opportunity. There is always something bigger and better out there maybe someone could drop a comment on what they use for ecommerce keyword research in the bottom of this article.

Alternative Keyword Research Tools Overview