Keyword Research

Also known as: Keyword discovery, Search term research

What is keyword research?

Keyword research is the process of finding the exact words and phrases people type into search engines, then deciding which of those terms are worth targeting with content or ads.

It is the foundation of every SEO plan, every paid search campaign, and every well-written ad headline. Without it, marketers guess what their audience wants. With it, they know.

Keyword research answers four questions:

• What are people searching for?
• How many search for it each month?
• How hard is it to rank for the term?
• Will the term move the business?

Get those four right and the rest of search marketing falls into place.

How keyword research works

Keyword research breaks into four stages. Each stage filters the list smaller and sharper.

1. Discovery

Start with a seed term. A seed is the most generic phrase someone might use to describe what you do. For an ad-creative platform, seeds might be "facebook ads," "ad creative," or "ad copy."

Plug the seed into a keyword research tool. Ahrefs, Semrush, and Google Keyword Planner all return a list of related terms with volume, difficulty, and CPC. Pull the data. Save it.

Then expand:

• Question searches. Use AlsoAsked or AnswerThePublic to find every "what," "how," "why," and "when" form of the seed.
• Competitor terms. Drop a competitor domain into Ahrefs Site Explorer. Pull their organic keywords. Anything they rank for that you don't is a gap.
• Search Console. Export the queries your site already shows up for via Google Search Console. The "almost ranking" page-2 terms are the highest-impact targets.

A first pass produces 200 to 2,000 keywords. Don't filter yet.

2. Scoring

For every keyword, write down four numbers:

Metric	What it tells you
Monthly search volume	How many people search the term per month
Keyword difficulty (KD)	How hard it is to rank in the top 10
Cost per click (CPC)	The commercial value of the term in paid search
SERP feature presence	Whether AI Overviews, featured snippets, or shopping results dominate

Volume without intent is noise. A high-volume term with informational intent rarely converts to a sale. A low-volume term with commercial intent often does.

3. Intent classification

Group every term by what the searcher actually wants. The four classic search intent buckets:

• Informational. "What is keyword research." Content target: definitions, how-to guides, glossaries.
• Navigational. "Coinis pricing." Content target: branded landing pages.
• Commercial. "Best keyword research tool." Content target: comparisons, reviews, alternatives pages.
• Transactional. "Buy ahrefs subscription." Content target: pricing pages, demo CTAs.

Match the page format to the intent. Writing a comparison page for an informational query loses every time.

4. Prioritization

Rank the surviving keywords by a simple formula:

Priority = (volume × CTR_at_position × conversion_rate) / KD

The result is an ordered list. Top of the list goes into the content calendar first. The bottom of the list either dies or gets bundled into a longer pillar page.

Why keyword research matters

Keyword research compounds. A term you rank for in month one keeps delivering traffic in month thirty-six. A keyword strategy that ignores intent burns content budget on pages that never convert.

Three concrete payoffs:

1. Lower customer acquisition cost. Organic traffic costs nothing per click after the page is published. CPC for the same term might run $5 to $50 in paid search.
2. Sharper ad copy. Knowing the exact phrase a buyer types lets you write a headline that mirrors their wording. CTR climbs 20 to 40 percent on RSAs that match search-query language verbatim.
3. Faster product positioning. If the term you want to own already has 10 incumbent pages, the keyword data tells you to pick a narrower angle. Long-tail, vertical-specific, or new-format.

Real-world example: keyword research for an ad campaign

A direct-to-consumer skincare brand wants to launch its first paid campaign on Meta and Google.

The marketer pulls 1,400 keywords from Ahrefs around the seed "moisturizer." Volume ranges from 12 to 90,000 per month. KD ranges from 3 to 92.

After scoring and intent classification:

• 22 transactional terms make the cut. Examples: "best moisturizer for combination skin," "fragrance-free moisturizer for eczema."
• 8 commercial terms become long-form comparison pages. Example: "vanicream vs cerave."
• 65 informational terms become a content cluster around skin types and ingredients.

Google Ads campaigns target the 22 transactional terms only. Bid ceilings are set at 1.5x the average CPC. Ad copy uses the exact keyword phrasing in the H1 and the description.

The result, three months in: paid search ROAS settles at 3.2. Organic traffic to the cluster pages reaches 14,000 monthly visits. Both numbers came from the same keyword research pass.

Keyword research for ads, not just SEO

Most keyword guides treat the topic as an SEO task. Paid teams use the same data differently.

In an AI ad platform like Coinis, keyword research feeds three places:

• Ad copy generation. Pulling top-volume queries into the prompt produces headlines that mirror real search behavior, not a marketer's hunch.
• Audience seeds. Search terms with strong commercial intent become Meta detailed-targeting starts and TikTok keyword interest groups.
• Negative keyword lists. Terms with the wrong intent (informational queries, branded competitor names) get dropped into the negative list before the campaign goes live.

The keyword list isn't just for blog briefs. It's the raw material for every line of ad copy, every audience definition, and every negative filter.

Related terms

• Long Tail Keyword
• Keyword Research Tool
• Search Intent
• Search Volume
• Keyword Difficulty
• Search Engine Optimization Seo

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between keyword research and keyword analysis?

Keyword research is finding terms. Keyword analysis is judging them. Research surfaces a long list. Analysis ranks each term by search volume, keyword difficulty, intent, and business value, then narrows the list to the few worth targeting.

How long does keyword research take?

A first pass for a single page takes 30 to 60 minutes. A full site or campaign plan takes 4 to 12 hours for a small business and a week or more for an enterprise. Most of the time goes into clustering by intent and validating volume against the SERP.

What tools do you need for keyword research?

One paid tool plus Google Search Console. Ahrefs, Semrush, and Moz dominate paid. Free options include Google Keyword Planner, Google Trends, AlsoAsked, and AnswerThePublic. Search Console is the only source of keywords your site already ranks for.

Is keyword research only for SEO?

No. Paid search bidders use the same data to set CPC ranges and group ad copy. Ad creative teams use it to write hooks that match how people search. Coinis pulls keyword data into ad-copy generation so headlines match the actual search intent, not a marketer's guess.

How often should you redo keyword research?

Refresh the priority list every quarter. Add new terms continuously as products and audiences change. Search behavior shifts when platforms change (TikTok search, AI Overviews) and when competitors enter the SERP, so old keyword maps decay fast.