Thirty-five guides on the work every campaign starts with

The Complete Keyword Research Guide

Finding what people actually search for, working out which of it is worth having plus turning that into a plan. Get this wrong at the start and everything built afterwards is aimed at the wrong people, however well it is made.

35 guidesKeyword TypesIntentToolsClusteringTracking
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35 guides
Eight sections
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A raw keyword export is mostly not your customer. Across the trades we have researched, between a third and a half of every file we pull turns out to be somebody else entirely: people wanting to enter the trade rather than hire it, national brands, retail products that share a word, other professions using the same term. Search volume is the most seductive number in this industry plus on its own it is close to meaningless. What matters is who is behind it, plus that is what keyword research actually is.

Start Here

What Is Keyword Research in SEO?

What the work involves, what it produces plus why it comes before anything else. Not a list of search terms, which is what most people expect. A decision about which conversations your business is going to try to be part of, made from evidence rather than from what somebody in the office assumes customers type.

Read the explainer
The vocabulary, settled in one go

What Keywords Are

Six guides covering the whole vocabulary. The types page in particular replaces ten separate definitions that each said one thing, since head terms only make sense next to long tail plus transactional only means anything alongside informational.

The Starting Point

What Is a Keyword in SEO?

What the word actually refers to, plus why the industry still calls them keywords when search engines stopped matching words some years ago. Short, plus it settles a lot of confusion.

The term itself Read the guide → The Fair Question

Do Keywords Help SEO?

Yes, plus not in the way the question usually assumes. Choosing the right subject matters enormously. Repeating a phrase on a page has not mattered for a very long time.

Subject choice, not repetition Read the guide → Ten Definitions, One Page

Keyword Types Explained

Every classification in one reference: by intent, by length, by branding plus by targeting. Transactional, informational, navigational, commercial, head, mid tail, branded, non branded, geo targeted and seasonal.

The complete classification Read the guide → Where Most Businesses Win

What Are Long Tail Keywords?

Longer, more specific searches with less volume plus far more intent behind them. For any business without a national brand, this is where the winnable ground almost always sits.

Less volume, more intent Read the guide → The Concept Behind Everything

What Is Keyword Intent in SEO?

Why the same words can mean quite different things, how to read what somebody actually wants plus why intent decides whether a ranking is worth having. The deep dive, with the four types set out on the types page.

What they meant, not what they typed Read the guide → Less Than The Name Suggests

What Is an LSI Keyword in SEO?

A term used constantly in SEO advice plus one that does not mean what most people using it think. Covers what related terms genuinely do and what the label actually describes.

Related terms, explained properly Read the guide →
The work itself

Doing The Research

Six guides on finding terms worth having. The order matters: find what exists, work out which of it carries intent, then narrow to what you can realistically compete for. Most people do those three at once and end up with a list nobody can act on.

The Method

How to Do Keyword Research

The full process from a blank page to a working list, in the order it should happen. The guide to follow if you want to do this properly yourself rather than read about it.

Start to finish Read the guide → The Ones Worth Having

How to Find High Intent Keywords

Spotting the searches made by somebody close to buying rather than somebody reading. A hundred of these beats ten thousand of the other kind, which is the opposite of how most lists are built.

Fewer searches, more customers Read the guide → What You Can Actually Win

How to Find Low Competition Keywords

Finding the ground you can realistically take rather than the ground you would like. For a new or small site this is the difference between results this year and results in three.

Realistic, not aspirational Read the guide → Increasingly Valuable

How to Find Question Keywords for SEO

Finding the questions people actually ask, including what appears in the people also ask boxes. Worth more than it used to be, since a clear question with a direct answer is exactly what AI assistants draw on.

Feeds AI answers too Read the guide → The Gaps

How to Find Keyword Opportunities Your Competitors Are Missing

Searches your market is not serving, which are frequently the most valuable thing in any research exercise. Usually specific, usually unglamorous plus usually uncontested for exactly that reason.

Unglamorous, plus uncontested Read the guide → The Technique Behind It

What Is Keyword Gap in SEO?

Comparing what you rank for against what your competitors rank for, then working the difference. The analysis underneath the guide above, explained as a method rather than as a button in a particular product.

The method, not a product Read the guide →
Two of these are free and most people never use them

The Tools

Five guides. Paid tools are useful plus they are not the starting point. A business can get a long way on Google's own free data before spending anything.

Search Console in particular is underused. It is the only source that reports the searches that genuinely brought people to your site rather than estimating what might.

Real Data, Not Estimates

How to Use Google Search Console for Keyword Research

Mining the searches you already appear for, which is the closest thing to certainty available in this work. Sits alongside our Search Console guides and is the canonical home for this particular job.

Free, plus already yours Read the guide → Free, With A Caveat

How to Use Google Keyword Planner

Google's own volume data, plus how to read it given that it was built for advertisers rather than for organic work. The ranges it shows are broader than they look until you are spending money.

Built for advertisers Read the guide → Before You Pay For Anything

Free Keyword Research Tools

What is genuinely available at no cost, what each one is good for plus where the free options stop being enough. Most small businesses need nothing beyond these.

Where free stops being enough Read the guide → The Overview

How to Use Keyword Research Tools

What these tools do, how to read what they report plus how much confidence any of their figures deserves. Every estimate you will see is modelled rather than counted, which is worth remembering before planning around one.

All estimates are modelled Read the guide → One Paid Option

How to Use Ahrefs for Keyword Research

Working through one of the established paid platforms, for anybody who has decided to buy one. Included as a walkthrough rather than a recommendation, since the free options above cover most needs.

A walkthrough, not a recommendation Read the guide →
Four figures, plus what each is worth

The Numbers

Every keyword arrives attached to some numbers. Two of them matter a great deal, one is useful for a reason people do not expect plus one stopped meaning anything years ago and is still chased.

The Seductive One

What Is Search Volume in Keyword Research?

What the figure represents, how it is arrived at plus why it is an estimate rather than a count. The number that gets quoted in every proposal and explains the least.

An estimate, not a count Read the guide → The Useful One

What Is Keyword Difficulty in SEO?

How hard a term is to compete for, how the score is worked out plus how much weight to give it. Read alongside volume, since a large number you cannot reach is worth less than a small one you can.

Read it against volume Read the guide → A Proxy For Value

What Is Cost Per Click in Keyword Research?

What advertisers pay for a term, which matters even if you never advertise. A high cost means somebody has worked out that clicks on this search turn into money, which is a useful second opinion on intent.

Useful even if you never advertise Read the guide → Stop Chasing This

What Is Keyword Density in SEO?

What it measured, why it mattered once plus why writing to hit a percentage now makes a page worse. Included because people still ask, not because you should be calculating it.

A measure that stopped counting Read the guide →
A list is not a plan

Organising What You Find

Three guides on the step between research and building. A spreadsheet of two thousand terms is not a strategy. Grouped into subjects, assigned to pages plus sequenced into a plan, it becomes one.

Group Before You Build

What Is Keyword Clustering in SEO?

Sorting terms into the subjects they genuinely belong to, then grouping those into topic clusters. The step that decides how many pages you need plus stops you writing five that compete.

Includes topic clustering Read the guide → One Page, One Job

What Is a Keyword Map in SEO?

Assigning every target to exactly one page plus recording it. Unglamorous, plus the document that prevents cannibalisation before it starts rather than diagnosing it two years later.

Prevention, not diagnosis Read the guide → Turning It Into Work

How to Build a Content Strategy Around Target Keywords

Sequencing what gets built and in what order, so the research becomes a plan somebody can actually work through rather than a document that gets filed.

Research into a running order Read the guide →
The same method, three quite different jobs

By Business Type

Three guides for situations where the standard approach needs adjusting. A local firm, a shop plus a site with no authority yet are researching for different constraints, even though the technique is the same.

Most Of Our Clients

How to Do Keyword Research for a Local Business

Place names, near me searches plus the fact that a modest national figure can be a large local one. Also how to avoid building for towns you do not actually serve.

Where geography changes everything Read the guide → Thousands Of Terms

How to Do Keyword Research for an Ecommerce Website

Product terms, category terms plus the long tail of specific model numbers and variations. A larger exercise than any other kind, plus one where clustering does most of the work.

Scale is the whole problem Read the guide → Starting From Nothing

How to Do Keyword Research for a New Website With No Authority

What to target when you cannot yet compete for anything obvious, plus how to prioritise so the early wins come quickly enough to keep going. Ambition is the enemy here.

Includes prioritisation Read the guide →
Where research meets the page

Putting Them On Pages

Three guides on using what you found. The mechanics of writing a page sit in our on page SEO guides, so these stay on the keyword side of that line: how many to target, where they belong plus what happens if you overdo it.

Fewer Than You Think

How Many Keywords Should You Use for SEO?

How many a single page should genuinely target plus why trying to cover several unrelated ones usually means ranking for none. One clear subject per page is close to the whole answer.

One subject per page Read the guide → Rank Plus Convert

How to Use Keywords to Optimise Landing Pages for Conversions

Matching the words on a page to what the searcher was actually after, so it earns the visit plus converts it. Two jobs that pull against each other more often than people expect.

The tension between the two Read the guide → What Not To Do

Why Does Keyword Stuffing Hurt SEO and What Should You Do Instead?

Why repeating a phrase now damages a page rather than helping it, plus what covering a subject properly looks like instead. Still worth saying, because plenty of sites are still doing it.

Still happening, still harmful Read the guide →
Research is not a one-off exercise

Tracking And Fixing

Four guides for after the plan is built. Terms move, markets shift plus your own pages start competing with each other as a site grows. None of that is a failure, plus all of it needs somebody watching.

Watching It Properly

How to Track Keyword Rankings in SEO

What rank tracking is, how to do it plus how much to read into any single week. Positions move constantly, so the trend over a quarter tells you far more than a screenshot does.

Trend beats snapshot Read the guide → Less Often Than You Fear

How Often Should You Update Your Keyword Strategy?

When a review is genuinely due plus when leaving it alone is the better decision. Constant reworking is its own problem, since nothing gets long enough to prove whether it worked.

Leave it long enough to judge Read the guide → When Something Slips

How to Recover Rankings for Keywords That Have Dropped

Working out why a term slipped plus what to do about it. Establish the cause first, since a competitor improving, a page decaying and an algorithm update all look identical from a rank tracker.

Diagnose before you rewrite Read the guide → Competing With Yourself

What Is Keyword Cannibalisation and How Do You Fix It?

Several of your own pages chasing the same search, which holds all of them back at once. Almost inevitable on any site publishing for a few years without a keyword map behind it.

The cost of no keyword map Read the guide →
Done properly on every plan, from £350 a month

We Strip The File Before We Plan Anything.

Every account starts with a full keyword pull for the trade plus the area, then the part most agencies skip: taking out everybody who is not your customer. People wanting to enter your trade, national brands, retail products sharing a word, other professions using the same term. You get the breakdown of what came out and why, whether you sign or not.

What the research produces:

A filtered, defensible term list Demand for your own towns Difficulty read against volume Clustered into subjects Mapped one page per target Reviewed as the site grows
£350per month

One clear retainer. No setup fee. The research is yours to keep.

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Using these guides

Frequently Asked

Where should I start?
With what keyword research is, then intent, since intent is what separates a term worth having from a term that merely has volume. Then the method. If you have an existing site, Search Console is the fastest useful data you already own.
Do I need to pay for a keyword tool?
Most small businesses do not. Search Console shows the searches genuinely bringing you traffic, Keyword Planner gives Google's own volume ranges plus the free tools guide covers the rest. Paid platforms save time and add competitor data. They do not tell you anything the free ones cannot at the scale most local businesses work at.
Is a high search volume worth chasing?
Frequently not, plus this is the most expensive misunderstanding in the subject. A large figure usually means broad intent, heavy competition plus visitors who were not looking to buy. Read volume against difficulty and against intent before deciding anything. Ten searches from somebody ready to hire beats a thousand from people browsing.
How much of a keyword file is actually usable?
Less than most people expect. Across the trades we have researched, between a third and a half of a raw export is somebody other than the customer: people wanting to enter the trade rather than hire it, national brands, products that share a word, entirely different professions using the same term. Filtering that out is most of the work plus it is the step that separates a defensible plan from an impressive-looking number.
How many keywords should one page target?
One subject, which usually means one main term plus the natural variations of it. Trying to cover several unrelated searches on one page tends to produce a page that ranks for none of them, plus it is how sites end up competing with themselves. A keyword map is how you stop that happening in the first place.
How often should the research be redone?
Less often than most people fear plus more often than most people manage. Reviewing constantly means nothing runs long enough to prove whether it worked. Leaving it for years means missing shifts in how your market searches. The strategy guide covers when a review is genuinely due and when leaving it alone is the better call.