Keyword research
Find the searches your customers actually run, and decide which are worth chasing.
A research pass before any optimization work
Keyword research is less about finding clever words and more about understanding intent: what someone is hoping to accomplish when they type a phrase into a search engine. Our process maps the full set of queries around your business, segments them by intent and difficulty, and produces a prioritized list you can actually act on.
How we approach it
Seed mapping
We start from your services, products, and customer language, not from a generic tool dump. Sales calls, support tickets, and product copy are the best seeds.
- Customer-language interviews
- Product/service taxonomy review
- Competitor surface scan
Expansion & clustering
Seeds are expanded with search engines, autocomplete data, related questions, and reputable third party tools, then clustered by intent so a single page can target a group of related queries instead of one keyword.
- Intent classification (informational, commercial, navigational, transactional)
- Topical clustering
- Question and entity discovery
Prioritization
Every cluster gets scored on opportunity (volume, difficulty, business value, current ranking) so you can sequence the work, usually starting with quick wins on existing pages.
- Difficulty vs. authority gap
- Business value weighting
- Quick-win identification on existing URLs
Hand-off & briefs
Research becomes useful when it turns into briefs writers can follow. We produce content briefs with target queries, intent notes, suggested structure, and internal-link targets.
- Per-page content briefs
- Internal linking map
- Tracking setup for the chosen queries
What keyword research actually produces
A serious keyword research engagement produces three things. The first is a structured map of the search landscape relevant to the business, the topics buyers care about, the queries they use to investigate those topics, the volumes and competition for each, and the intent behind each query. The second is a clear set of decisions the research informs, what to write next, how to structure category pages, whether to invest in a topic cluster, where to focus paid-search bids, where the gaps in the existing site are. The third is a measurement framework that lets you track whether the work that follows is moving you forward against the map. Engagements that produce only the first thing usually fail to justify the investment.
How keyword research actually informs the work
Keyword research is most useful when it's tied to a decision: what to write next, how to structure a category page, whether to invest in a topic cluster, where to focus paid-search bids. Keyword research that produces a 5,000-row spreadsheet without a downstream decision tends to gather dust. We start by clarifying the decisions the research will inform, then scope the research to answer those questions, not the other way around.
The data sources matter too. Google Search Console tells you what your site already ranks for and where the easy wins are. Third-party tools (Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz) give you broader market data with the caveat that the volume estimates are exactly that, estimates. SERP scraping tools tell you what's actually ranking now, which is often the most useful signal of what kind of content earns the position. We triangulate across sources rather than trusting any single one.
Common questions
Do you guarantee rankings?
No reputable SEO does. Search results are influenced by many factors outside any agency's control. We commit to the process and to transparent reporting on what's moving.
How many keywords should we target?
It varies. A focused service business may have 30-80 priority queries; a large e-commerce catalog can have thousands grouped into hundreds of clusters.
How long until we see results?
On-page changes targeting existing rankings often move within weeks. Net-new content typically needs 3-6 months to mature in competitive niches.
Want a research pass on your site?
Tell us about your business and we can scope an initial keyword research project.
Start a conversation