Topic 8: Keyword Analysis
📖 5 min read · 🎯 beginner · 🧭 Prerequisites: seo-fundamentals, about-seo-types-of-seo
Why this matters
Here's the thing — when someone in your city wants a "cake shop near me" or "best digital marketing course online," they're not browsing randomly. They're typing specific words into Google, and Google decides whose website to show. If your content doesn't include those exact words, you simply don't exist to that person. Keyword analysis is the skill of figuring out which words your audience actually types — not the words you think they type. Get this right, and your content starts finding the right people. Get it wrong, and you're writing into a void.
What You'll Learn
- What keywords are and why they determine who finds your content
- How to use tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, and Ahrefs to research keywords
- How to evaluate keyword data: search volume, competition, and relevance
- How to implement keywords across on-page SEO, content creation, and PPC campaigns
- How to monitor keyword performance with analytics and adapt your strategy over time
The Analogy
Think of keyword analysis like reading a city's tourist map before opening a new café. The map shows you which streets get the most foot traffic (high search volume), which corners are already crowded with competitors (high competition), and which neighbourhoods match the vibe of your menu (relevance). Opening on a busy street sounds tempting, but if three identical cafés are already there, you'll be fighting for scraps. The smart move is finding a street with steady foot traffic, few competitors, and customers who genuinely want what you're serving — that's exactly what keyword analysis does for your digital presence.
Chapter 1: Understanding Keywords
Keywords are the words and phrases that people type into search engines when they are looking for information, products, or services. Every time someone fires up Google and types a query, they are handing marketers a direct signal of intent. Keyword analysis is the practice of collecting, evaluating, and acting on those signals.
Example — online bookstore: If you run an online bookstore, your customers might search for:
buy books onlinebest novels 2024discounted eBooks
Each of those phrases is a keyword. Ranking for the right ones means the right people land on your pages, not random visitors with no intention of buying.
Keywords generally fall into two categories:
- Short-tail keywords — broad, high-volume terms like
books. Lots of traffic, fierce competition. - Long-tail keywords — specific, lower-volume phrases like
new mystery novels 2024. Less traffic individually, but far easier to rank for and far more likely to convert.
Chapter 2: Keyword Research Tools
Before you can analyze keywords you have to find them. For an Essentials-level workflow, start with the free tools — they cover most of what you need to find your first round of target keywords:
Google Keyword Planner (free, requires a Google Ads account) A free tool inside Google Ads. Enter a topic or URL and it returns related keyword ideas with monthly search volume ranges and competition levels. Because the data comes directly from Google, it reflects real search behavior. This is the tool you should learn first.
Google Search Console (free) For your own site, GSC shows every keyword that already brings users to your pages — impressions, clicks, average position, and CTR — pulled from Google's real index. No third-party estimation, no sampling.
Google Trends (free) Plots relative search interest for any keyword over time, surfaces rising queries, and shows geographic breakdowns. Great for spotting seasonality.
You will also meet two paid tools later in the Advanced course — they are powerful but expensive (typically $120+/mo each), so treat them as future upgrades, not Essentials staples:
SEMrush (paid) A paid platform that goes beyond your own keyword list. SEMrush shows you which keywords your competitors rank for, how much organic traffic those keywords drive, and where gaps exist that you could exploit. Its Keyword Magic Tool surfaces thousands of related variants from a single seed word.
Ahrefs (paid) Known for its enormous link and keyword database, Ahrefs excels at two things: generating keyword ideas from a seed term and scoring each keyword's difficulty (how hard it would be to outrank current results). Its "Keyword Explorer" also shows the estimated number of clicks a keyword receives — because not every search results in a click.
Activity: Pick one of these tools and search for keywords related to your business or a topic you care about. Filter for keywords with high search volume but low competition. Note at least five candidates — those are your starting treasures.
Chapter 3: Analyzing Keyword Data
Collecting a long list of keywords is step one. The real skill is evaluating them. Three metrics matter most:
Search Volume The average number of times a keyword is searched per month. High search volume means the topic is popular and the potential audience is large. A keyword with 50,000 monthly searches is attractive — but only if you can compete for it.
Competition How many other websites are actively trying to rank for the same keyword? In Google Keyword Planner, competition is rated Low / Medium / High. In Ahrefs and SEMrush, it's expressed as a Keyword Difficulty (KD) score from 0–100. A low KD means you have a realistic shot at ranking without years of authority-building.
Relevance A keyword can have enormous volume and low competition, but if it doesn't match what your audience actually wants from your site, the traffic it brings is worthless. Relevance means the keyword aligns with your content, your products, and your audience's intent.
Example — putting it together: For the online bookstore, new mystery novels 2024 scores well on all three dimensions: it has reasonable search volume from readers actively looking to buy, it faces less competition than the broad term books, and it is directly relevant to the store's catalog. That's a keyword worth targeting.
Keyword | Volume | Competition | Relevance
---------------------|---------|-------------|----------
books | 500,000 | High | Broad
buy books online | 40,000 | Medium | High
new mystery novels | 12,000 | Low | High ✅
discounted eBooks | 8,000 | Low | High ✅
best novels 2024 | 25,000 | Medium | High
Chapter 4: Implementing Keywords
Finding great keywords only pays off when you actually use them. Three channels matter here:
On-Page SEO Weave your target keywords into the structural elements of your pages:
- Page
<title>tag <h1>and subheadings (<h2>,<h3>)- Meta description
- URL slug
- Body copy (naturally, not forced)
- Alt text for images
Content Creation
Write blog posts, buying guides, comparison articles, and other content that naturally incorporates your keywords. A post titled "The 10 Best New Mystery Novels of 2024" earns the keyword new mystery novels 2024 without manufacturing it — because the phrase fits the content organically.
PPC Campaigns In Google Ads, keywords are the targeting mechanism for pay-per-click advertising. You bid on keywords, your ad appears when users search those terms, and you pay only when someone clicks. Keyword research directly determines which searches trigger your ads and what you pay per click.
Tip — avoid keyword stuffing: Repeating a keyword unnaturally throughout your content to try to rank higher is called keyword stuffing. Search engines penalize it, and readers hate it. The rule of thumb: write for humans first. If the keyword fits naturally, use it. If it doesn't fit, don't force it.
Chapter 5: Monitoring and Adapting
Keyword strategy is not a one-and-done task. Search trends shift, competitors move, and algorithm updates change what ranks. You need a regular review cycle.
Set up tracking Connect your site to Google Analytics (or an equivalent like Plausible or Matomo) and Google Search Console. Search Console in particular shows you which queries bring users to your site, your average ranking position for those queries, and your click-through rate.
What to look for on each review:
- Keywords where your ranking improved — double down with more content on that topic
- Keywords where your ranking dropped — check if competitors published stronger content or if your page needs a refresh
- New keyword opportunities emerging in your niche that you haven't targeted yet
- Keywords that send traffic but no conversions — consider whether the intent matches your offer
Create a review schedule Monthly is a healthy cadence for most sites. Set a calendar reminder, pull your Search Console and analytics reports, and spend 30 minutes adjusting your keyword list and updating underperforming pages.
Activity: Connect your site to Google Search Console today. After one week of data collection, open the "Performance" report and look at the queries tab. You'll see real keywords real users typed to find your content — that list is the foundation of your next keyword strategy.
🧪 Try It Yourself
Task: Build a keyword research mini-report for a real or fictional business.
- Go to Google Keyword Planner (free with a Google account) or sign up for a free trial of Ahrefs or SEMrush.
- Enter one seed keyword related to your business — for example,
online bookstore. - Export or copy the results into a table with four columns: Keyword, Monthly Volume, Competition, Relevant? (Y/N).
- Identify three keywords that are high-volume, low-competition, AND relevant.
Success criterion: You should end up with a table of at least 10 keywords and a shortlist of 3 clearly marked "target" keywords that you could realistically rank for.
| Keyword | Volume | Competition | Relevant? |
|--------------------------|---------|-------------|-----------|
| buy books online | 40,000 | Medium | Y |
| new mystery novels 2024 | 12,000 | Low | Y ✅ |
| ... | ... | ... | ... |
🔍 Checkpoint Quiz
Q1. What does "search volume" tell you about a keyword?
A) How difficult it is to rank for
B) How many times it is searched per month on average
C) How relevant the keyword is to your business
D) How much a keyword costs in a PPC campaign
Q2. A marketer is building a keyword list for a vegan recipe blog. They find two keywords:
recipes— Volume: 800,000 / Competition: Higheasy vegan dinner recipes— Volume: 18,000 / Competition: Low
Which keyword should they prioritize first, and why?
A) recipes, because more searches means more traffic
B) easy vegan dinner recipes, because low competition and high relevance give a realistic ranking opportunity
C) Neither — both keywords are too generic for a niche blog
D) recipes, because short-tail keywords always outperform long-tail
Q3. Read this page snippet:
Buy books online today. When you buy books online at our store, you get the best books online. Books online are available 24/7. Buy books online now with our buy books online discount.
What SEO problem does this demonstrate, and what penalty does it risk?
Q4. You notice in Google Search Console that your page ranks in position 14 for the keyword discounted eBooks — just off the first page. What is the most appropriate next step?
A) Delete the page and start over with a new keyword
B) Add the keyword to a PPC campaign only and ignore organic
C) Refresh and strengthen the page content to push it into the top 10
D) Increase your ad spend on unrelated keywords to compensate
A1. B — Search volume is the average monthly count of searches for a keyword. Competition measures ranking difficulty; relevance measures fit; CPC is the cost metric.
A2. B — A long-tail keyword with low competition and strong topical relevance is far more winnable than a broad, brutally competitive short-tail term. Getting to page one for easy vegan dinner recipes generates real, converting traffic.
A3. This is keyword stuffing — overloading content with a target keyword unnaturally. Search engines like Google detect this pattern and can penalize the page by demoting it in rankings or removing it from results entirely. Well-written content uses the keyword where it naturally fits and varies phrasing.
A4. C — Position 14 means you're close. Refreshing the page with stronger content, better structure, and additional supporting detail (internal links, images, updated data) is the most direct path to pushing it onto page one.
🪞 Recap
- Keywords are the search phrases your audience uses — finding the right ones is the foundation of SEO and paid search.
- Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, and Ahrefs are the primary research tools, each offering keyword ideas, volume data, and competition scores.
- Evaluate every keyword on three axes: search volume, competition, and relevance to your content and business goals.
- Deploy target keywords across on-page SEO elements, content, and PPC campaigns — but never stuff them unnaturally.
- Monitor performance regularly via Google Analytics and Google Search Console, and update your strategy as rankings and trends shift.
📚 Further Reading
- Google Keyword Planner Help — official guide to finding and filtering keywords inside Google Ads
- Ahrefs Keyword Research Guide — comprehensive walkthrough of keyword difficulty, search volume, and long-tail strategy
- SEMrush Keyword Overview — how to use SEMrush's Keyword Magic Tool for competitor gap analysis
- ⬅️ Previous: Types of SEO
- ➡️ Next: On-Page SEO