6 Keyword Research Tips for the SEO Pros

Looking for tips for successful keyword research? Of course you are, because we all want that number one spot on Google.

Picking the right keywords (at the right time) is one of the most important steps in an effective SEO strategy. It helps to increase your website’s organic traffic by attracting the right audience to your carefully crafted content. 

Here are our six best tips for keyword research in 2024, and how to put them into action:

Tip #1: Think like your target audience

You might not belong to the demographic you’re targeting, but you do need to know how to think like them. Getting inside your target audience’s head(s) is a big part of conducting effective keyword research.

Your internal marketing team most likely has ideal customer profiles (ICPs) and buyer personas on hand, which puts you in good stead for understanding who they are, how they think, and how they ‘work’. But SEOs can – and should – back this up with their own data. Similarweb’s Demographics tool shows who is visiting your website – and you can check for your competitors’ websites too. Here’s an example with homedepot.com:

On top of audience’s age, gender, and geography, you need to think about:

• What they’re searching for
• Which channels they use most
• What keywords or terms they search
• Any seasonal search behaviors
• Other hobbies and interests

If you’re not resonating with your target audience, you’re not going to get any engagement from our target audience. It’s as simple as that.

Within the Demographics tool, you get insight into the browsing habits of a website’s visitors, including other industries and topics of interest, as well as similar websites they visit.

Tip #2: Audit your website’s content

Our next tip? See what’s on your website already. By auditing your site and content, you can get a good idea of topics you’re excelling in, content you need to optimize, and content you’re completely missing out on.

Sorting and prioritizing your focus topics are important to do before you begin the keyword research process.

While you can use Similarweb to see how your website is performing, its most-visited pages, the keywords that get users there, and the traffic share of your subdomains, there are other tools that dive deeper into the SEO content itself.

Once you’ve done that, look at the topics and subtopics your competitors cover. This will give you a big-picture overview of what you are up against and help you prioritize your content goals for the near future.

Site audit tools are great for understanding your competitors’ content hierarchies. For instance, you can use the Similarweb Site Audit tool to crawl your competitor sites. Use the All Pages report to analyze their site structure based on their folder structure.

To get started:

• Crawl a competitor site with the Site Audit tool
• Navigate to the All Pages report
• Export the data

Tip #3: Research your competitors

Now it’s time to do the same, but to your competitors’ websites.

Yep, that’s right – using Similarweb, you can get a sneak peek into all your competitors’ digital data, including website performance and the keywords they’re targeting (both paid and organic).

Reading your competitors’ content (like their blogs, feature descriptions, product pages, white papers and even customer reviews) to see the language they use is a good start, but you want to dive deeper than that… with the cold, hard data.

Similarweb reveals not only the top keywords that get users to Nike’s site, but also the traffic and search volume behind those keywords. Not to mention the SERP features they’re winning.

But there’s more – you can even compare your website’s keywords with your competitors’ using our Keyword Gap tool. Let’s take a look the keywords that Nike shares – and doesn’t – with its main and well-known competitors in 2023:

Looks like Nike reigns supreme in terms of website traffic share for its top keywords on paid and organic search, but “basketball shoes” looks like a search term they want to keep their eyes on.

Tip #4: Expand your keyword list

Now you’ve had a sneak peek into your competitors’ marketing strategy and your keyword gaps, you might have more search terms to include in your keyword strategy.

Because here’s the thing: one core keyword ain’t going to cover it.

You need to consider a full range of variations of each keyword in your strategy – long-tail, short-tail, semantic, and sometimes even spelling mistakes.

This is something you can easily do with Similarweb. Our Keyword List feature offers applicable suggestions around your core keyword and a customizable feature, where you can add any keywords you want and see their performance as a whole.

This helps to make sure you’re targeting the full range of keywords that link to your business, and understand the general performance of a topic or theme. This will give you a good balance of short-tail and long-tail keywords, and differing keyword difficulty.

In fact, skipping out on long-tail keywords with a lower search volume is where a lot of businesses go wrong. It’s actually one of the biggest keyword research tips for small businesses.

In the aggressive world of search where everyone wants the top spot on Google, the smaller wins do make the difference, helping you break into the bigger, more competitive topics.

Tip #5: Keep it fresh

We’ve already mentioned how your keyword strategy or keyword list should include or consider variations of each core keyword, right? But when 1 in 6 Google searches are *brand new* searches, this gives room to a lot more variations coming in.

Your keyword list should grow as your business grows, but also when the search landscape grows – and that’s a quick rate to grow at. Make sure your keyword data is fresher than fresh, so your strategy can keep up with trending topics and new search queries that relate to your business.

Similarweb provides you the tools to do just that, with data that measures what’s happening in the digital world at all times. Thanks to its ultra fresh keyword data and Last 28 Day view, you can spot trends as they happen, whether that be a topic or a specific keyword.

This is our Last 28 Days view, showing fresh data about very recent reports of bed bugs in Paris.

Keeping up with trends is vital if you want to win as a business. It gives you the opportunity to resonate more with your target audience, and gain visibility on relevant searches. Our Keywords by Industry module helps you target industry-specific trends so you don’t miss any opportunities to benefit from rising search volume.

Here we have the trending keywords within the Travel and Tourism industry.

Tip #6: Stay up to date with the SERPs

The thing about search is that it’s always, always changing. Whether it’s another Google algorithm update, a new Gen Z search habit (or TikTok trend), or just an entirely different way to optimize your content, it’s hard to keep on top of – especially when you rely on digital to win business.

Staying up to date with the SERPs is not only a great habit, it’s now crucial to business growth. We recently introduced Search Tracker to help you do that, because we know it’s not the easiest of things to monitor on top of your day job.

With Search Tracker, you get a holistic view of the SERPs, looking between paid and organic search results and how they change on a daily basis. Within this new module, you’ve got Rank Tracker which monitors the organic search results on a daily basis – you can track where you are versus your competitors and spot any sudden changes in rankings.

Quick and easy keyword research with Similarweb

With all the tools you need to perform accurate and actionable keyword research, Similarweb is a must-have toolkit for anyone in the SEO game. Taking into account trending keywords with rising search volume, your search strategy will never miss a beat.

Try Similarweb for free or speak to one of our experts to hear exactly how it will work for your business (and get some sneaky competitive insights along the way).

FAQs

What is keyword research? 

Keyword research identifies and analyzes words or phrases users input into search engines to determine the most relevant terms for a particular niche or business.

Why is keyword research important for SEO marketers?

It’s essential for understanding user intent, achieving higher SERP rankings, driving quality traffic, and gaining a competitive edge in the digital space.

How does keyword research impact a business? 

Keyword insights guide content strategy, offer a window into consumer behavior, inform product development, and are pivotal for effective advertising and PPC campaigns.

Can keyword research be used beyond search engines? 

Absolutely! It’s beneficial for platforms with search functions like YouTube, Amazon, and app stores.

How often should keyword research be conducted?

Given the dynamic digital landscape, revisiting keyword research every few months is advisable.

by Limor Barenholtz

Director of SEO at Similarweb

Limor brings 20 years of SEO expertise, focusing on Technical SEO, JavaScript rendering, and mobile optimization. She thrives on solving complex problems and creating scalable strategies.