Keyword research sounds like such a daunting task. What’s the point of researching a keyword anyway? Shouldn’t your natural marketing instincts tell you which keywords are most relevant to your business. Not quite…

Without quality keywords, found through effective keyword research, your search marketing campaigns (paid and organic) will be completely misguided.

If people aren’t searching for your keywords then they are essentially useless. Search volume corresponds to interest, and without interest in your keywords, leads won’t be able to discover your ads or organic listings, visit your website, and turn into a paying customer.

On the other hand, if the keywords you’re trying to rank for or bid on are too popular, you might have a hard time getting on the SERP at all, or end up really overpaying for your ad clicks.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through the basics of keyword research, including why it’s important and how to do it right, with recommendations for tips and processes that will make your keyword research easier and more effective so you can drive more traffic to your site.

What Is Keyword Research?

Keyword research is the process of finding the search query strings that people use to search for information on a topic, as well as how often those keywords are used in search engines like Google and Bing. Keyword research is the best way to find new, relevant keywords to expand your paid and organic search marketing campaigns.

Keyword research can be conducted through a variety of tools that I’ll discuss in more detail below, but the main goal is to find the right search terms that have intent aligned with your business’s content and offerings, along with decent search volume.

In addition to search volume, other keyword metrics may be helpful when conducting research and prioritizing which keywords to target, such as cost-per-click (CPC), competition level, and your own site authority.

Why Is Keyword Research Important?

Google now processes over 2 trillion search queries per year, or 5.5 billion per day. That’s a whole lot of keywords!

Now, more than ever before, our economy is running on the internet. Businesses that cannot be found online will not succeed, and keyword research provides the starting point to understanding your buyer’s journey.

For digital marketers, these are the three areas where keyword research is most critical:

1. For SEO

The first and most obvious reason we need keyword research is to optimize for organic search. Search engine optimization (SEO) helps Google bots crawl and index our websites to rank organically on the search engine results pages (SERPs). One of the primary ways that search engines decide what to rank is by crawling for keywords that show relevance between the user’s search query and the content on your website.

While Google is frequently changing their algorithms, keywords are likely never going to lose importance.

2. To Fuel Your Content Strategy

We all know that SEO and content go hand-in-hand. Without content on your website, strong SEO will not follow.

“Effective content strategies start with keyword research,” says Search Engine Land columnist Nate Dame. “Modern keyword research provides significant insight into what audiences want and need.”

Every single piece of content on your site, whether it be a 300-word blog post or 5,000-word guide, should be focused around a keyword that strikes the right balance between high search volume and competition.

3. For Paid Campaigns

Marketers often think about SEO and content when referring to keyword research, but all of your paid campaigns should also be keyword focused. Whether it be your paid search ads, display ads, remarketing, or social media campaigns, all of these strategies need to be keyword focused.

For example, with paid search you’re literally bidding on individual keywords. Keywords make up your ad groups, which make up your campaigns. If these keywords have low search volume, then your ads are going to get little or no traction. Also, if your keywords do not pertain to your target audience, you’re going to get the wrong people clicking on your ads, which wastes your precious budget.

The bottom line is that keyword research is key in all search marketing campaigns!

How to Get Started with Keyword Research

Now that you understand the importance of keyword research, where do you start? Here are two easy steps to get you off to a productive start!

1. Brainstorm a List of Broad Topics Related to Your Business

Start thinking of the different categories and topics that pertain to your business. Start broad, and don’t worry about getting too specific right away.

For example, if you’re a bakery you might break down your topics by the types of baked goods you sell, like cakes, quiches, croissants, cupcakes, brownies, cookies, etc. It can help to use a Google document or excel spreadsheet and create tabs for each of these main topics you’ve brainstormed.

2. Use Keyword Tools to Find Specific Keywords Within Each Topic

Alright, this is where the fun begins! You really need to put yourself in the shoes of your customer, and think how you would go about discovering your business if you were them. If you’re a marketer with little customer-facing interaction it can help to speak with your sales team to see the language that new leads typically use.

You can start with a simple brainstorm. Let’s go back to our bakery example for this one, focusing in on the “cakes” category. Since you make cakes for special occasions you might write down some keywords like “wedding cakes,” “affordable wedding cakes,” “stylish wedding cakes,” “summer wedding cakes,” etc. Then you may focus in on other occasions that you sell cakes for like birthdays or anniversaries. You’ll then recall that people often search for specific flavors like “red velvet” and “marble.” Oh, and location is important! You should add the keyword “near me” to the end of these searches, like “affordable wedding cakes near me.”

Should you stop there? NO! Instinct will only get you so far – it’s easy to miss whole pockets of relevant keywords that you should be targeting, or you may find that the keywords you think would drive traffic are so low-volume that they won’t get you anywhere. You need to use keyword tools to make sure you’re surfacing all the relevant keywords that should be in your content plan and search campaigns.

Type each of your main topics (“cakes,” “cookies,” etc.) into a keyword tool to get a list of related keywords, their associated search volume and other data. You can also type in any specific keywords from your brainstorm session to see what kind of volume they get.

Remember, if they’re far-fetched or too specific, keyword research tools will reveal that your keywords are not worth focusing on. On the other end of the spectrum, your keywords might be too broad, and result in super high search volume or a high level of competition. If you’re a small, local bakery, you wouldn’t want to compete with a global cookie company. Rather, your keywords should be more targeted around your location.

Keyword research tools will help you discover which keywords are worth investing in. The list of the top tools below will help you determine which ones to try first.

5 Favorite Keyword Research Tools

1. WordStream’s Free Keyword Tool
2. Google’s Keyword Planner
3. Moz’s Keyword Explorer
4. SEMrush
5. Google!

Keyword Research for PPC

Let’s take a moment to review some of the specific considerations related to keyword research for PPC, or paid search marketing. Keyword research for paid search can be a bit more daunting, since your budget is on the line. In order to spend it wisely, and actually see an ROI from the keywords you bid on, keep these four tips in mind when conducting keyword research for paid campaigns.

1. Research the Associated Costs for Each Keyword

All of the keyword tools outlined in this post typically include metrics around the cost-per-click (CPC) associated with each word. Keeping cost in mind will help you determine if certain keywords are in or out of budget for your upcoming campaigns.

You want to ensure you’re able to bid high enough to rank in the first 0-3 slots on Google, but not so high that you’re paying an absurd amount for one single click. Pay attention to these metrics when researching and deciding on keywords for your ad groups.

2. Make Sure to Do Negative Keyword Research

Conducting negative keyword research is just as important as regular keyword research when it comes to PPC, because if you’re not excluding irrelevant words you could be wasting money on irrelevant clicks. You’d be amazed how much money you can waste this way. This is especially important when using broad or even phrase match types.

Tools like WordStream Advisor’s QueryStream will help you see what your searchers are typing in to reach your ads, and from there you can exclude the irrelevant words.

Also, just typing your keyword into Google and seeing what appears as suggestions to search for can help you identify negative keyword terms. For instance, if I’m selling cakes, I’m probably not interested in showing up for any “recipe” queries, since I’d have to pay for those low-intent clicks.

3. Bid Highest on Commercial Intent Keywords

Your goal in advertising on Google is likely not just to drive clicks. If it is, well then ignore this tip!

However, if you’re actually looking to target the most interested and qualified searchers, driving more conversions and sales, you should focus most of your budget on commercial intent keywords – such as those containing words like “buy now,” “discount,” “free shipping,” brand names, and any other terms that demonstrate the searcher is ready to make a purchase.

While you may still need to target keywords outside of this bucket, I’d recommend allocating a higher budget to keywords with high commercial intent since they’re the most likely to have the highest return.

Find more tips on how to allocate your AdWords budget to different keyword types here.

4. Group Your Keywords Properly

Once you’ve identified your high-intent, commercial, appropriately priced keywords, you need to group them in order to configure your campaign. Small groupings of tightly related keywords is how you should approach structuring your ad groups. If you have a long list of keywords, and this task seems daunting, check out WordStream’s Free Keyword Grouper to help you out! Just drop in the keywords the it does the work for you.