Keyword Research
Keyword research is the process of finding and analyzing the actual search terms people enter into search engines, used to guide content strategy and SEO optimization.
Keyword research is the starting point of any successful SEO strategy. It tells you what your potential customers are actually searching for online, how many people search for those terms each month, and how difficult it would be to rank for them. The process involves using tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Ubersuggest to discover search terms related to your business.
Search intent is particularly important. Keywords fall into four categories: informational ("what is SEO"), navigational ("GRADAX login"), commercial ("best web design companies"), and transactional ("hire web designer"). Matching your content to the correct intent is critical for ranking.
In practice
- A plumbing company discovered that "water heater installation cost" had 10x more searches than "water heater replacement," and reoptimized their service page to target the higher-volume term
- A SaaS startup found that their target audience searched for "project management for small teams" rather than the industry jargon they'd been using, leading to a complete content rewrite
- A wedding photographer identified 30 long-tail keywords like "outdoor wedding photographer [city]" that collectively drove more traffic than a single competitive head term
- An e-commerce store used keyword research to discover seasonal trends, creating content three months before peak search periods to capture early rankings
Not sure how this applies to you?
A senior engineer walks your site, your search presence and the way enquiries reach you, then writes down the three things worth fixing first. You keep the document either way.