Choosing the right keywords is one of the most important decisions in SEO. Pick the wrong ones and you can spend months creating content that never ranks, or that ranks but never brings in customers. Pick the right ones and every page you publish has a clear purpose and a real chance of driving results.
But keyword research has changed. Search volume alone is no longer a reliable guide. AI Overviews now answer many questions directly on the results page, and Google has become far better at understanding what people actually mean. Today, the best keywords are the ones that match real search intent, carry business value and give you a realistic chance to win.
Even Google agrees keyword research still matters. As John Mueller told Search Engine Roundtable, there is “always gonna be a little bit of room for keyword research.” The key is knowing how to use it well. Drawing on guidance from Ahrefs, Semrush, Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal and Search Engine Roundtable, here are six essential steps to choose keywords that actually work.
Step 1: Start With Your Business Goals and Seed Keywords
Every good keyword strategy starts with your business, not a keyword tool. Search Engine Journal recommends mapping every keyword or topic to a measurable outcome, such as leads or revenue, rather than visibility alone.
From there, list your seed keywords. These are broad topics central to what you sell. As Ahrefs puts it, “Seed keywords are essentially topics.” A plumbing company, for example, might start with “water heater repair,” “drain cleaning” and “emergency plumber.”
Good places to find seed keywords include:
- Your core products and services
- Questions customers ask your sales and support teams
- Terms your customers use in reviews, emails and chats
- Your competitors’ main service and category pages
Step 2: Expand Your Keyword List
Once you have seed keywords, use tools and data to grow them into a full keyword list. The most useful sources include:
- Keyword research tools: Ahrefs Keywords Explorer, Semrush Keyword Magic Tool and Google Keyword Planner. Note that Keyword Planner shows only search volume ranges.
- Competitor gaps: Semrush suggests using Keyword Gap to find terms competitors rank for that you do not. Ahrefs’ Content Gap tool does the same.
- Google Search Console: Export your queries and sort by position. Keywords ranking in positions 11 to 20 are strong candidates because you are already close to page one.
- AI prompts: Semrush now treats AI prompts as a keyword source, showing which questions trigger AI answers where competitors appear and you do not.
- Long-tail and modifier keywords: Ahrefs defines long-tail keywords as three or more words. Add modifiers like location, price, audience or “best” to uncover more specific searches.
Long-tail terms are often easier to rank for and closer to a buying decision. For a deeper look at balancing volume and opportunity, see our guide on choosing high-volume keywords for your website.
Step 3: Identify Search Intent
Search intent is the reason behind a search. According to Search Engine Land, “The number one way to understand search intent is to study the search engine results pages (SERPs).” If your content does not match what Google is already ranking, it will struggle no matter how well it is written.
Semrush groups intent into four types:
| Intent type | What the searcher wants | Example |
| Informational | To learn something | “what is amazon kindle” |
| Navigational | To find a specific site | “amazon kindle login” |
| Commercial | To research before buying | “amazon kindle paperwhite review” |
| Transactional | To complete a purchase | “buy amazon kindle paperwhite cover” |
Search Engine Land shares a useful example. A biscotti retailer targeted “chocolate biscotti,” but the top results were mostly recipes. Searchers wanted to bake, not buy. Switching to lower-volume keywords with purchase intent improved conversions.
Also check which SERP features appear, especially AI Overviews. Ahrefs data cited by Search Engine Journal shows the top-ranking page loses roughly 58% of its clicks when an AI Overview is present. Learn more about how Google AI Overviews are changing SEO.
Step 4: Look at Traffic Potential, Not Just Search Volume
Search volume tells you how often a keyword is searched, but not how much traffic you can actually get. Ahrefs shares two examples that show the gap:
- “best dinner recipes” has about 7.4K monthly searches, but the top page gets an estimated 36K monthly visits because it ranks for many related terms.
- “puppy food” has about 14K monthly searches, but the top page gets only an estimated 3.6K visits.
Ahrefs also points to clicks per search. A query like “does a frog have a backbone” gets around 700 searches a month but almost no clicks, because the answer appears right on the results page.
This is why Google’s John Mueller has warned against chasing raw numbers. He told SEOs “don’t focus on keywords & search volume lists like this, they’ll lead you into mediocracy.”
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Get My Free Keyword Audit →Step 5: Assess Keyword Difficulty and Business Value
A keyword is only worth targeting if you can realistically rank for it and it helps your business. Check three things:
Keyword difficulty
Ahrefs’ Keyword Difficulty score is based on the backlinks pointing to the current top-ranking pages, so a higher score generally means you will need more links to compete. Newer sites should start with lower-difficulty terms and build authority over time.
Business potential
Ask whether you can naturally mention your product or service in content for this keyword. Ahrefs scores this from 3 (your product is an essential solution) to 0 (little or no fit). Prioritize keywords with high business potential.
Commercial value
Cost per click (CPC) shows what advertisers pay for a keyword, which signals its commercial value. Ranking organically for high-CPC terms can save significant ad spend. See our breakdown of how much Google Ads cost for context.
Search Engine Journal shares a real example from a logistics company. The broad keyword “3pl” had 29,000 monthly searches but a KD of 47 and heavy AI Overview presence. The team prioritized “3pl fulfillment” (KD 11, 2,600 searches) and “3pl companies” (KD 18, 5,000 searches) instead, for stronger B2B intent and a better chance to win. As the author put it, “Volume was the last tiebreaker here and not the first filter.”
Step 6: Group Keywords Into Clusters and Prioritize
Instead of creating one page per keyword, group related terms that can be served by a single page. Semrush gives the example of “strength training exercises” (8.1K searches), which can share one page with variants like “resistance training exercises” (3.6K) and “resistance training exercises at home” (1.6K).
To decide whether keywords belong together, compare their search results. If the same pages rank for both terms, and AI Overviews cite the same sources, one page can usually target them all.
Then prioritize your clusters using everything from the previous steps: intent, traffic potential, difficulty and business value. Building topic clusters this way also helps your site show topical authority in both Google and AI search.
Place your keywords naturally
Once a cluster is assigned to a page, Semrush recommends placing the primary keyword in:
- The title tag, near the beginning
- The meta description
- A clean, readable URL
- The H1, with variations in your H2 subheadings
- The first few paragraphs, with related terms used naturally throughout
Avoid forcing keywords into every paragraph. Keyword stuffing makes content harder to read and does not help rankings.
Common Keyword Research Mistakes to Avoid
- Choosing keywords based on search volume alone
- Ignoring search intent and the type of content that ranks
- Targeting highly competitive terms on a new website
- Creating separate pages for keywords that should share one page
- Picking keywords with no connection to your products or services
- Researching keywords but never acting on or measuring the results
That last point matters. As John Mueller said on Search Engine Roundtable, “research alone doesn’t change anything.” You need to understand the data, make changes, monitor and adapt. For more pitfalls, read our guide to the SEO mistakes that are killing traffic.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I choose the right keywords for SEO?
Start with your business goals and seed topics, expand your list with tools and competitor data, check search intent, compare traffic potential, assess difficulty and business value, then group related terms into clusters.
Is search volume the most important keyword metric?
No. Traffic potential, search intent, difficulty and business value often matter more. A lower-volume keyword with strong buying intent can bring more customers than a high-volume one.
What are long-tail keywords?
Long-tail keywords are longer, more specific searches, usually three or more words. They tend to have lower volume but are often easier to rank for and closer to a purchase.
How many keywords should one page target?
One page can target a primary keyword plus a cluster of closely related terms, as long as they share the same search intent and similar search results.
Does keyword research still matter with AI search?
Yes. Keyword research now includes checking AI Overviews and AI answers, and treating AI prompts as another source of ideas. Learn more about how to rank in AI search.
Conclusion
Choosing the right keywords is not about finding the biggest numbers. It is about finding the searches that match what your customers want, what your business offers and what you can realistically win. Follow these six steps, focus on intent and value over volume, and revisit your keyword strategy regularly as search continues to change.
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