Want to learn how to choose the right keywords for your business? Read on.
Choosing the right keywords is one of the most important steps in launching a successful SEO campaign. Get this step wrong, and you’ll attract the wrong type of traffic, or go after keywords that you have no chance of ranking for, at least in the foreseeable future. Both of which result in a lot of time and resources expended for little or no reward.
Choosing the right keywords doesn’t have to be complicated or even a guessing game. It comes down to (a) selecting keywords that align directly with your site monetization strategy and (b) using data to filter out the keywords you have the best chance of ranking for.
In this post, you’ll learn a repeatable 4-step process for finding high-value keyword opportunities, qualifying the most realistic targets, and in the process, choosing the right keywords for your business or client.
Disclaimer: This article does contain some affiliate links. If you purchase a tool through one of those links I will receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. Affiliate links are followed by (aff) in this article. Thanks for the support!
Practical 4-Step Process for Choosing the Right Keywords
Here’s the 4-step process we’re going to follow in this guide:
- Align keyword research with your business model.
- Analyze your competitors’ high-intent subfolders.
- Expand your seed topics with keyword modifiers.
- Use SERP analysis to accurately qualify keyword opportunities.
Editor’s Note: If you want to learn the exact processes I use to scale organic traffic, check out my premium training course, The SEO Playbook, which will be re-opening to another 50 students next month:
Step #1: Align keyword research with your business model
Different sites have different monetization strategies, which are driven by “intent“. Right at the outset, it’s essential to work out what type of keywords you’ll prioritize depending on your business monetization model.
I’ll illustrate this concept with a few practical examples below, but if you’d prefer a quick video tutorial on finding buyer keywords, check this out:
Local business: Sibley Dolman Gipe
A local business like Sibley Dolman Gipe wants to secure greater visibility in Google Map Packs and improve both the number and quality of inbound leads.
They provide a range of legal services from their Florida locations. A quick look in the Semrush (aff) Top Pages report reveals they target legal service keywords like “medical malpractice attorneys” and “truck accident attorneys”:
A local attorney would prioritize lower funnel service-based keywords because they align most closely with their goal of generating new leads each month.
AdSense site: Healthline
Healthline’s monetization strategy is based on AdSense revenue. Their primary goal is to get a huge volume of traffic to their content to generate more ad impressions and clicks.
As a result, a site like Healthline with AdSense as a primary revenue channel would prioritize high-volume informational keywords.
If you check the Top Pages report in Semrush, you can see their top traffic generating pages cover topics like the Ketogenic Diet and the Intermittent Fasting Guide.
For example, their top-ranking page on the Keto diet ranks for 3.8K different keywords and attracts 831.3K visitors per month:
For Healthline, the focus is simple: the more traffic they get, the more money they will make.
Review site: Wirecutter
Affiliate review site Wirecutter generates revenue by driving traffic to mid-funnel investigational content so that they become the final touchpoint before conversion.
Their top-ranking pages include The Best Places to Buy Glasses Online and The Best Humidifier.
Each review ranks for thousands of different keywords. For example, their top-ranking page – The Best Places to Buy Glasses Online – ranks for 8.6K different keywords and attracts 349.1K visitors per month:
Most of their revenue-generating keywords contain “best” as a keyword modifier. For example, “best online glasses” and “best wireless routers”:
SaaS business: Copper CRM
A SaaS business like Copper CRM wants to drive qualified traffic that generates free trial signups or demo requests, so they focus on product, feature, solution and competitor comparison/alternative keywords.
Their top-ranking features pages include keywords like “pipeline management software”, “lead management software” and “email tracking software”:
Ecommerce business: Beardbrand
An ecommerce business like Beardbrand focuses on keywords that drive traffic to mid to bottom-funnel content, so they get more direct purchases and increased revenue.
Their top-ranking product pages include Beard Oil, Combs, Mustache Wax and Beard Softener.
Each product page ranks for different keywords. For example, their top-ranking page – Beard Oil – ranks for 214 different keywords and attracts 8K visitors per month:
Action item: Think about your site monetization model, and then determine which keyword intent aligns best with that model.
Here are a few tips to get started:
AdSense sites: prioritize high-volume informational keywords.
Affiliate sites: prioritize mid-funnel investigational topics with modifiers such as “best, tools, alternative, review” etc.
Lead generation sites: prioritize bottom-funnel service-based keywords, often with geo-modifiers.
SaaS websites: prioritize product, solution and feature-based terms, as well as investigational topics containing modifiers such as “best, alternative, how to choose, versus, for” etc.
Ecommerce websites: prioritize product-based keywords with faceted modifiers such as “color, size, brand” etc.
These is a bit of discretion in this step, but its critical that you understand which keyword intent aligns most closely with your site’s monetization strategy.
Step #2: Analyze competitor subfolders
Once you know which type of keyword intent to target, the next step is to analyze those same intent buckets across each of your top organic competitors to quickly unearth some opportunities.
You can use Semrush‘ Organic Research report to analyze your competitors’ subfolders and find keywords with high intent.
Pro Tip: You can find URL subfolders to reverse-engineer by hovering over links in the main navigation and footer sections of competitor websites.
In the example above, I can see that after hovering over a couple of the product links in the main menu, all of the beard products are conveniently housed in the /products/ subfolder.
Once you know which keyword intent aligns best with your site monetization strategy, take a few minutes to look around competitor websites to see if there are any subfolders or subdomains that house products, services, reviews, topic categories etc.
You can analyze the subfolders and quickly uncover the highest-intent topics your competitors are targeting, and start to build a profitable keyword roadmap for your business.
We’ll have a look at a handful of practical examples below, but if you prefer video, check out this step-by-step tutorial:
Local business: Sibley Dolman Gipe
Most local businesses use a URL subfolder like services or location for their high-intent keywords. For example, Sibley Dolman Gipe has subfolders for their Florida-based legal services.
So, if you were a competitor in that area, you’d first want to check what legal services they provide and what keywords are driving high-value traffic to their service-based pages.
In Semrush (aff):
- Enter the subfolder – e.g. “dolmanlaw.com/legal-services/” – into the Organic Research tool and select the “Positions” tab.
- Set the “Positions” filter to “Pos: Top 10” so that it only shows the top-ranking keywords.
In the report, you can immediately see that keywords ranking for medical malpractice and truck accident legal services are driving the most organic traffic to the site each month. For example:
- “medical malpractice lawyer” (approx. 1,897 organic visits per month)
- “truck accident lawyer” (approx. 1,998 organic visits per month)
- “medical malpractice attorney” ( approx. 1,629 organic visits per month)
Plus, other service-based keywords such as “personal injury lawyer”, “brain injury lawyer” and “workers compensation lawyer”.
You can also click across to the Top Pages report to see which specific URLs within the /legal-services/ subfolder drive the most organic traffic. For example, we can see below that Sibley Dolman Gipe has 91 total pages in the /legal-services/ directory, and its the brain injury page that is bringing in the most organic traffic each month:
Depending on your resources, you can use the organic traffic estimates to help prioritize which high-intent terms to target first.
AdSense site: Healthline
Large sites like Healthline often split their informational content into topic-based subfolders. For instance, Healthline uses directories such as Nutrition, Parenthood, and Women’s Wellness.
If was an established Nutrition blog looking to find new topics to drive more ad revenue, I’d place all my focus on Heathline’s Nutrition subfolder.
In Semrush (aff):
- Enter the subfolder – e.g. “healthline.com/nutrition/” – into the Organic Research tool and select the “Positions” tab.
- Set the “Positions” filter to “Pos: Top 10” so that it only shows the top-ranking keywords.
Already, you can see the top-ranking keywords like “coffee”, “breakfast”, and “keto diet” generate a high volume of monthly searches.
Editor’s note: Apply Advanced Word Count filters to only return phrases with more than two or three keywords. This will help screen out the ultra broad single term keywords, and shorten the list to longer-tail less competitive topics.
Review site: Wirecutter
You can use the subfolder analysis technique to mine a competitor’s affiliate review subfolder and find high-value, investigational intent keywords.
For example, say you have an affiliate site about coffee products. You could check the “/reviews/” subfolder of the Wirecutter review site to find their high-intent keywords.
In Semrush (aff):
- Enter the subfolder – e.g. www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/ – into the Organic Research tool and select the “Positions” tab.
- Set the “Positions” filter to “Pos: Top 10” so that it only shows the top-ranking keywords.
- Add advanced filters using keyword modifiers such as “best” and “coffee” and exclude the brand “wirecutter”:
The report now shows over 600 coffee-related, review-based keywords, such as “best coffee maker”, “best instant coffee”, and “best coffee grinder”, that you can use for your affiliate review site.
SaaS business: Copper CRM
Most SaaS businesses use a URL subfolder like features, product, platform, solutions, or industries to house their high-intent terms. For example, Copper CRM uses the “/features/” subfolder.
In Semrush (aff):
- Enter the subfolder – e.g. “copper.com/features/” – into the Organic Research tool and select the “Positions” tab.
- Set the “Positions” filter to “Pos: Top 10” so that it only shows the top-ranking keywords.
The report shows a list of their high-intent keywords, including:
- “pipeline crm”
- “sales tracking software”
- “opportunity management”
These are some of the terms you might prioritize if you were selling a SaaS-based sales CRM product.
Ecommerce business: Beardbrand
Most ecommerce sites house their products under top-level URL subfolders, like products, categories, or collections. As we saw earlier, Beardbrand uses the “/products/” subfolder.
In Semrush (aff):
- Enter the subfolder – e.g. “beardbrand.com/products/” – into the Organic Research tool and select the “Positions” tab.
- Set the “Positions” filter to “Pos: Top 10” so that it only shows the top-ranking keywords.
The report now shows a list of all the commercial intent keywords that Beardbrand is currently ranking for in the Top 10, including “beard oil”, “comb”, and “mustache wax”.
If you were running an ecommerce site like Beardbrand, these would be the most valuable quick-win keyword opportunities for you to target.
You can repeat the process for 5-10 of your top direct competitors (those that sell the same products as your business) to find more keywords.
Editor’s note: Not all sites organize content into logical subfolders. In which case, you can just use Keyword or URL “contains” filters at the domain level to surface opportunities.
For example, let’s pretend that for our affiliate coffee site Wirecutter doesn’t have a /reviews/ subfolder to reverse-engineer. In this case, we’d simply enter the domain and then apply two Advanced filters for Keyword Contains “best” and “coffee” in order to surface those investigational intent terms:
Action item: Mine your direct competitors’ subfolders for high-intent keywords, and prioritize your opportunities by organic traffic potential.
Step #3: Expand seed keywords with modifiers
In this step, we use seed terms related to services for local businesses, industry topics for AdSense sites, or products for SaaS, affiliate, and ecommerce sites. And then, we combine those terms with a set of modifiers to extract the highest intent terms.
Semrush lets you plug seed keywords into the Keyword Magic Tool (aff) and layer on keyword modifiers to discover new high-value keyword opportunities.
Let’s look at some tactics.
1. Investigational keyword modifiers
Seed keywords with modifiers are excellent for finding investigational mid-funnel keywords to use in your content, such as “Best [product/feature] tools” type posts.
In Semrush:
- Enter a seed term – e.g. “CRM” – into the Keyword Magic Tool.
- Use the Include Keywords filter, select “Any keywords”, and add 5 keyword modifiers – “best, top, software, tools, platform”:
In the report, you get a list of investigational keywords related to the seed keyword “CRM” based on the modifiers you entered, including:
- crm software
- crm tools
- what is crm software
- best crm for small businesses
- crm platform
- top crm software
Replicate this strategy for each of your product categories and features.
2. Comparative keyword modifiers
Comparative keyword modifiers are also excellent for finding investigational mid-funnel keywords to use in your content, such as “[Competitor] alternatives” type posts.
In Semrush:
- Enter a seed term – e.g. “Similarweb” – into the Keyword Magic Tool.
- Use the Include Keywords filter, select “Any keywords”, and add 3 comparative keyword modifiers – “alternative, competitor, vs”:
In the report, you get a list of investigational keywords related to the seed keyword “Similarweb” based on the modifiers you entered, including:
- similarweb competitors
- similarweb alternative
- similarweb vs comscore
Editor’s note: I used this exact strategy to identify the opportunity and rank for “Similarweb alternatives”, “Ahrefs alternatives”, “SpyFu alternatives“, “Semrush vs SpyFu” and “Moz alternatives”:
This tactic is not limited to SaaS models. Informational sites can use the exact same approach, but instead of using mid-funnel modifiers, you’d enter in broad topics and apply filters such as Keyword Contains Any: what, how, tip, strategy etc.
Action item: Expand your keyword set by entering seed topics and applying modifiers that align closely with the intent you’re targeting.
Add any new keywords to the list that you started in step #1.
This article covers additional examples of this tactic in play for a SaaS company.
Step #4: Use SERP analysis to accurately qualify keyword opportunities
Once you’ve identified a list of high-intent terms that align with your monetization model, you want to extract the right keywords. Or, in this context, the keywords that you can realistically get onto the first page of the SERP within the next 90 days or so.
Image: My agency qualifies and assigns content types to all approved keyword opportunities.
These are the keywords to prioritize when building out your content pipeline. This way, not only are you going after keywords that can drive immediate value for your business, whether that is sales, leads, ad revenue, or affiliate commissions, but also return that value asap. This is critical for any business type, especially for agencies who need to show clients fast, meaningful results.
Here’s how you can accurately qualify keywords with SERP analysis:
Determine organic traffic potential
While search volume provides a reasonable estimate, it’s better to look at the organic traffic estimates because it tells you the TOPICAL traffic potential based on the primary and secondary keywords that you could rank for.
Editor’s note: As you move further down the funnel, this number usually gets lower. Set a minimum traffic threshold to aim for.
In Semrush:
- Enter your keyword – e.g. sales tracking software – into the Keyword Overview tool.
- Scroll down to the SERP Analysis section at the bottom of the report.
- Click Get Metrics to reveal the number of Referring Domains, Backlinks, and Search Traffic for the Top 10 URLs:
Is there enough traffic potential to warrant producing a new piece of content? It’s important to note here that your traffic threshold will vary largely based on your monetization strategy.
For example, your traffic threshold would be much lower for a sales or lead gen site compared to a site that monetizes primarily through ad revenue.
Once you’ve narrowed the list down to the topics that have enough traffic potential, move onto the next step in the qualification process.
Assess parent topics
Ideally, at least seven of the top 10 results will be directly targeting the primary keyword in their title tag and/or URL string. This is a good indication that the topic warrants a dedicated article to strongly compete for rankings.
If you examine the results in our example – sales tracking software – you can see that quite clearly:
- The 7 best sales tracking software tools of 2021
- https://www.nutshell.com/blog/best-sales-tracking-software-tools/
- Top 10 Sales Tracking Software Tools
- https://www.fool.com/the-blueprint/sales-tracking-software/
- https://www.fool.com/the-blueprint/sales-tracking-software/
- Best Sales Tracking Software2021 – reviews and pricing
- https://www.softwareadvice.com/crm/sales-tracking-comparison/
- #1 Sales Tracking Software for Field Sales Teams
- https://spotio.com/features/sales-tracking/
Identify content type and format
You can identify the content type and format by looking at the URL strings in the SERP Overview report.
If it’s a fractured SERP with many different types, such as blogs, feature pages, and third-party review sites in the Top 10, then go with the type and format that is predominant in the Top 3 or 5 positions as Google is biased towards this type.
In our example, you can see by looking at the title tags and URLs there’s a mixture of list-based blog posts and feature pages that are predominant in the top 10 search results. But two of the Top 3 are listicle blog posts, so a blog content type in a listicle format would likely be the best play for this term. The second option would be a longer form feature or feature page:
Check page authority scores
Next, you want to check the page authority in the SERP Overview report. Ideally, you’ll see at least 3 pages ranking in the top 10 that have an Authority Score (AS) that is +/- 5 AS points from your page, and at least one of those in the Top 3 (for existing content).
For new content, you want to look for SERPs that have at least 5 pages showing AS metrics below 20.
The logic here is that we want to target keywords where there are sites already ranking that have a similar page authority to your site. As long as you can create a competitive piece of content with similar page-level link count, the data would suggest you also have a good chance of ranking.
Analyze page-level link metrics
Finally, you want to see SERPs where most URLs rank with single-digit or low-teen referring domain counts. Also, you want to see the high AS URLs that are ranking with next-to-zero referring domains.
This tells you two things:
1) High AS sites are only ranking because of their domain-level metrics. So, if we can create better content and generate more page-level authority (backlinks), we have a shot at competing in the SERP.
2) If sites with comparable authority scores are ranking with few page-level backlinks, you can quickly make ground for this keyword.
That’s not the case in our example for “CRM software” where most of the Top 10 have a high number of referring domains:
On the other hand, a search term like “beard growth oil” shows eight of the Top 10 pages have single-digit or low-teen referring domains:
Step #4 Action: Use SERP data – organic traffic, page authority, page-level link counts, and content type/format – to accurately qualify and streamline your keyword set.
Start Choosing The Right Keywords For Your Business
Over to you!
Follow this 4-step process to start choosing keywords for SEO:
- Align keyword research to your business and monetization model.
- Analyze your competitors’ subfolders to mine high-intent keywords.
- Use seed topics and modifiers to expand your keyword set.
- Use SERP analysis to accurately qualify keyword opportunities.
Editor’s Note: If you want to learn the exact keyword research processes I use to scale organic traffic, check out my premium training course, The SEO Playbook.
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