Keyword Research Overview

Keyword Research Tools

Here are some great keyword tools and guides that you can use to generate and discover keyword ideas.

You can also use Ahrefs or SEMRush to perform keyword research. In Ahrefs you would go to the Keywords Explorer report. In SEMRush you would go to the Keyword Overview report. Simply paste all the keywords in that you want to analyze and process the report. Then exports the results. The results will contain columns for the keyword, volume and difficulty.

Keyword Targeting Recommendations

Choosing the right keywords to target is not an easy job. There are many factors that need to be taken into consideration. If any of these three things are not taken into consideration, it’s very likely that the wrong keywords will be chosen for targeting.

  • Keyword Volume
  • Keyword Difficulty
  • Searcher Intent

Keyword Volume

Keyword volume is the number of times users search for a specific keyword during a month. For example, the keyword “bedroom” has a search volume of 49,500. That means that across the US on average, 49,500 people are searching for this keyword each month.

Keyword Difficulty

Keyword difficulty is an estimate of how hard it would be to use SEO on a new website to hypothetically outrank the websites that are currently ranking on the top pages of Google. Keyword difficulty is a proprietary calculation created by SEO software companies. Each company calculates it differently.

This is usually measured from 1 to 100, with 1 being the easiest and 100 being the hardest. For example, if the keyword difficulty for “bedroom” is 83.58, then it would be very difficult to outrank the other sites ranking on Google for that keyword. Significant SEO budget and many months of hard work would be required.

Searcher Intent

When choosing a keyword to target you have to take the searcher’s intentions into account. For example, if some searches for “bedroom” they could be searching to rent a room somewhere, for design ideas for a bedroom, for bedroom furniture for sale, to see pictures of bedrooms, or who knows what. This is where we need to find out what the intent of YOUR users would be.

There are three main types of intent a user will have when searching:

  • Informational – If they want to find an answer to a question or learn something.
  • Navigational – If they want to locate a specific website or resource.
  • Transactional – If they want to buy something.

For a furniture business, the type of intent that is most important to them would be transactional intent. A furniture business wants users to buy their furniture because that ends up making them money.
For example, instead of targeting a broad, vague term like “bedroom” it would be better to target a more refined keyword phrase that would only include searchers who are looking to buy bedroom furniture. Here are some good examples:

  • Bedroom Sets
  • Bedroom Furniture
  • Buy Bedroom Set
  • Buy Bedroom Furniture

Combining All Three

Now you can combine the keyword volume data, keyword difficulty score and user intent to decide which keyword would be the best to target.

semrush-keyword-data