Keyword Research — How to Find Keywords That Drive Traffic
Keyword research is the process of identifying phrases that users type into search engines, in order to create content and pages that answer those queries and generate organic traffic.
Why Is Keyword Research the Foundation of SEO?
Imagine you're opening a restaurant. Before you start cooking, you need to know what people want to eat. There's no point in serving sushi in a town where everyone's looking for pizza.
Keyword research in SEO is exactly the same — you find out what people are searching for before you start creating content. Without it, you're shooting in the dark, and the result is recognizable at first glance: articles with no traffic, because nobody checked beforehand whether anyone was even searching for it.
Why it matters so much:
- Content without research doesn't generate traffic — you write an article that nobody's interested in, or you target keywords you have no chance of ranking for
- Research reveals intent — you discover what your potential customers actually need
- Research lets you prioritize — you can't write 1,000 articles at once, so you need to know which keywords will deliver the best ROI
- Research protects against cannibalization — you know which keywords to target on which pages
Good keyword research is not a list of keywords exported from a tool — it is an analysis of the market, intent, and competition that translates into a concrete content strategy. What decides the outcome is not what goes onto that list but what gets struck off it, which we return to in step 4.
Types of Keywords
Before you start searching for keywords, you need to understand their taxonomy. Not every keyword is the same.
Classification by length
| Type | Example | Volume | Competition | Conversion |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Head keywords (1-2 words) | "shoes" | Very high | Extremely high | Very low |
| Body keywords (2-3 words) | "running shoes" | High | High | Low |
| Long-tail (4+ words) | "women's running shoes for asphalt" | Low | Low | High |
The 80/20 rule: 80% of your traffic should come from long-tail keywords. They're easier to rank for, have higher conversion, and there are infinitely many of them.
Classification by intent
| Intent | Signals | Example | Page type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Informational | what, how, why, guide | "how to do SEO" | Blog, guide |
| Navigational | brand name, login, contact | "Ahrefs login" | Business page |
| Commercial | best, ranking, comparison, vs | "best SEO agency" | Comparison, ranking |
| Transactional | buy, price, order, cheap | "SEO audit price" | Service page |
Keyword Research Tools
Free tools
Google Keyword Planner Free, but requires a Google Ads account. Shows volume ranges (not exact numbers unless you're running campaigns). A good starting point.
Google Search Console Your existing data — what keywords you already rank for. The "Queries" section in the performance report shows keywords you appear for in Google (even at distant positions). This is a goldmine of ideas — and the only source in this list that talks about your site rather than about the market.
Google Autocomplete and People Also Ask Type a keyword into Google and see what it suggests. Autocomplete shows popular variations. People Also Ask — related questions. These are real keywords that people type.
AnswerThePublic Generates questions, comparisons, and suggestions based on a keyword. Limited number of free searches per day, but results are valuable.
Google Trends Shows the trend of a keyword's popularity over time. Ideal for identifying seasonality and rising topics.
Paid tools
| Tool | Price from | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| Ahrefs | $99/month | Best link database, Keyword Explorer, Content Explorer |
| Semrush | $129/month | Comprehensive SEO + PPC + content, large database |
| Senuto | PLN 150/month | Best Polish keyword database, Polish ranking monitoring |
| Surfer SEO | $89/month | Content optimization, NLP analysis |
| Mangools (KWFinder) | $49/month | Simple, affordable, good for starters |
Recommendation: To start, Google Keyword Planner + Google Search Console + AnswerThePublic is enough. When SEO becomes a priority, invest in Ahrefs or Semrush + Senuto (for the Polish market).
Step-by-Step Keyword Research Process
Step 1: Seed keywords — starting phrases
Start with 5-10 keywords describing your business. You don't need to be precise — this is the starting point.
If you're an SEO agency:
- "website positioning"
- "SEO audit"
- "SEO agency"
- "website optimization"
- "link building"
Where to get them:
- Your offer — how do you describe your services/products?
- Conversations with clients — how do they describe their problem?
- Competition — what keywords do your competitors rank for? (Ahrefs → Site Explorer)
- Google Search Console — what do you already rank for?
Step 2: Expansion — generating a keyword list
Take each seed keyword and expand it:
In a tool (Ahrefs, Semrush, KWFinder):
- Enter the seed keyword
- Check "Related keywords," "Questions," "Also rank for"
- Export all keywords with volume above 10/month
In Google:
- Enter the seed keyword, check autocomplete
- Scroll to "Related searches" at the bottom of results
- Click People Also Ask questions — they generate more questions
From Google Search Console:
- Filter queries you rank for at positions 10-50
- These are keywords Google is already considering you for — you need better content
After this step, you should have a list of 200-500+ keywords.
Step 3: Clustering — grouping keywords
Many keywords have the same intent. "How to do SEO," "SEO guide," and "SEO how to start" — these are essentially the same question. You don't need a separate page for each.
How to cluster:
- Enter each keyword into Google
- If SERP results overlap (same pages in TOP 5), the keywords belong to the same cluster
- Each cluster = one page/article
Clustering tools: Ahrefs Keyword Clustering, Semrush Keyword Manager, or manually (for smaller lists).
Step 4: Prioritization — which keywords to target first?
You have 500 keywords grouped into 50-100 clusters. You can't target all of them at once, and the easiest mistake at this stage is to look only at volume — volume without conversion is a nice-looking number in a report and nothing more. Prioritize using the formula:
Priority = (Volume x Business Value) / Difficulty
| Criterion | How to assess | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Volume | Tool (Ahrefs KD, Semrush) | Medium — lots of traffic is nice, but quality matters too |
| Business value | How close to conversion is this keyword? | High — a BOFU keyword is worth 10x a TOFU keyword |
| Difficulty (KD) | Tool + SERP analysis | High — a keyword with KD 90 won't rank for a year |
| Existing positions | Google Search Console | High — keywords at positions 8-20 are easier to improve |
Quick wins = keywords at positions 8-20, with low difficulty and high business value. Start with those.
The rule we hold to when rejecting keywords
Prioritization is a decision about what to do. At least as important is the decision about what not to do, and here we have one hard rule: we reject the "obvious" keywords when the query space is crowded, and go long-tail into a less contested space. Not because it is easier there — because content quality does not protect you from degradation if the query space itself is toxic. That is the whole rule: you cannot write your way out of a crowded space.
Two mechanisms sit behind the rule, both checkable on your own data:
- A longer query matches a longer document better. A four-word phrase describes a specific problem, not a category — an exhaustive text answers it better than it answers a one-word term.
- Less data volume means less signal inertia. Where queries are few, signals shift faster; in a crowded space yours drown in everyone else's.
Honestly: we have no client example of the form "we rejected keyword X, moved to Y, result Z." This article stands on the rule and on one measurement of our own — a measurement of us breaking that rule.
Our counter-example: 3,078 impressions, one click
The "SEO & GEO" cluster on arduralab.com — texts exactly like the one you are reading — produced 3,078 impressions and 1 click in the 3 July 2026 measurement, at an average position somewhere in the fourth decade of results.
That is not a quality problem with those texts. It is the consequence of targeting a query space where we are one of a thousand voices saying roughly the same thing — the rule above, broken on our own site. Three thousand impressions with one click means Google does show us, just from position forty-ish. No title or meta description fix reverses that; only changing the space, or bringing into it something the other thousand voices do not have.
Which is why the rule we failed to follow on our own site appears in this article as a rule, not as a success story.
Step 5: Mapping keywords to pages
Each keyword cluster must have an assigned page:
- Page already exists → optimize it for the cluster
- Page doesn't exist → create it (blog article or service page)
- Two pages target the same cluster → consolidate (cannibalization!)
Keyword mapping is your content roadmap for the coming months. Each cluster is one task in the editorial calendar.
Competitive Analysis — What Can You Learn?
The competition has already done keyword research for you. You just need to leverage it.
Content gap analysis
In Ahrefs: Site Explorer → Content Gap. Enter your domain and 3-4 competitors. The tool shows keywords competitors rank for but you don't.
This is the fastest way to find gaps in your content strategy.
Analyzing competitors' top pages
Check which pages generate the most traffic for competitors (Ahrefs → Top Pages). Pay attention to:
- What content formats dominate? (guides, comparisons, calculators)
- How long are the articles?
- What subtopics do they cover?
- What do their title tags look like?
Don't copy — get inspired and create something better. A competitor's strategy copied 1:1 answers someone else's business goals, not yours, and on top of that it drops you into exactly the crowded space step 4 tells you to avoid.
Keyword Research for Different Business Types
E-commerce
Product keywords: "[product] + price/reviews/shop/buy" Category keywords: "best [products]," "[category] 2026" Guide keywords: "how to choose [product]," "[product A] vs [product B]"
Specifics: huge number of long-tail keywords, seasonality, heavy competition from marketplaces.
SaaS / B2B
Problem keywords: "how to [solve problem]," "[problem] in business" Comparison keywords: "[product] vs [product]," "alternatives to [product]" Transactional keywords: "[category] tool," "[product] pricing"
Specifics: lower volumes but higher CLV. Every click is valuable.
Local business
Local keywords: "[service] + [city]," "[service] near me" Review keywords: "[company] reviews," "best [service] in [city]"
Specifics: local SEO, Google Business Profile, map.
Professional services (agency, law firm, clinic)
Educational keywords: "what is [service]," "how much does [service] cost" Decision keywords: "how to choose [specialist]," "best [company] [city]" Pricing keywords: "[service] price," "how much does [service] cost"
Specifics: E-E-A-T is crucial — Google favors experts in YMYL (Your Money Your Life) topics.
Most Common Keyword Research Mistakes
Seven mistakes, each of which can invalidate the entire research:
- Targeting only head keywords — "SEO" has 100,000 searches, but you won't rank for it for years. Start with long-tail
- Ignoring intent — volume isn't everything. A keyword with 50 searches and transactional intent is worth more than a keyword with 5,000 informational searches
- No clustering — creating a separate page for every keyword leads to cannibalization and content duplication
- One-time research — keyword research is an ongoing process, not a one-time task. Do it quarterly
- Copying competitor strategy 1:1 — get inspired, but don't copy. Your strategy must match your business goals
- Skipping Google Search Console — you already have data about your keywords and you're not using it
- Focusing on volume, not conversion — 1,000 visits from an informational keyword vs 10 visits from a transactional keyword — which is worth more?
Summary
Keyword research is not a one-time task — it's the foundation of the entire SEO and content marketing strategy. Without it, you create content in the dark. With it, you know what to write, for whom, and why. And if you take one thing from this text, make it the one we measured on ourselves: the choice of query space matters more than the quality of the text inside that space. 3,078 impressions and one click is the price we paid for the reverse order.
The process in brief:
- Seed keywords → expansion → clustering → prioritization → mapping
- Competitive analysis → content gap → inspiration
- Repeat quarterly
Want keyword research done the way we do it for ourselves and our clients? Request a free quote — we'll prepare a keyword strategy that translates into traffic and conversions.
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