How to do effective keyword research (Without getting lost along the way)

Doing keyword research seems straightforward until you actually sit down to it. You open a tool, type in your main service, and thousands of terms appear. That's when the trouble starts: which ones do you pick? The one with the highest volume? The one with the least competition? Both?

If that sounds familiar, the problem usually isn't your skill. Most people were simply never shown the real process, beyond the worn-out advice to "look for keywords with high volume and low competition". It sounds reasonable on paper and helps almost no one once they're staring at the list.

In this article I'll walk you through how to build keyword research that points you somewhere, instead of leaving you with more doubts than you started with.

Why most keyword studies fail before they start

The most common mistake happens before anyone opens a tool. It comes down to the order in which things get done.

A lot of people start hunting for keywords without knowing yet which pages will receive them or what the business expects to get out of those pages. What you end up with is a spreadsheet packed with terms that nobody later knows quite where to place or why they're there.

Good research always begins by understanding the site structure and the business goals, before opening any tool and well before looking at search volumes. Once that part is clear, the work turns into a mapping exercise: figuring out what your ideal customer searches for at each stage of their buying decision, and which of your pages can answer those searches better than the competition.

Search intent changes everything

Keywords are not all worth the same, and treating them as if they were interchangeable is one of the costliest mistakes you can make. Every search carries an intent behind it, and reading that intent is what tells the difference between research that gathers dust in a spreadsheet and research that actually moves the business. Three types are worth keeping in mind.

Informational intent

This is the user who wants to learn something. They're after answers, explanations, the occasional comparison. They're not ready to buy yet, but they are ready to inform themselves: "what is SEO", "how Google Ads works", "difference between SEM and SEO". These terms do their best work in blog posts, guides, and content that builds authority. Don't expect direct conversions from them, because that isn't their job.

Transactional intent

This is the user who already knows what they want and is comparing options or ready to hire: "SEO agency Barcelona", "Google Ads consultancy price", "hire web positioning services". These are the most valuable keywords for service pages. They move less volume than informational terms, but their conversion potential is far higher.

Navigational intent

This is the user searching for a specific brand or site, such as "La Teva Web" or "Google Search Console login". Ranking for your own brand makes sense here, but there's little point going much further. Chasing a competitor's navigational terms rarely pays off.

The tools you actually need

I could list fifty tools for keyword research, but in practice two or three used well cover almost everything you need.

Google Search Console

Free, direct, and built on real data from your own site. If you already have organic traffic, this is where you'll find the keywords people are finding you with, some of which you probably didn't even know you had. It's the logical place to start when auditing content or expanding a study that already exists.

Google Keyword Planner

Also free, as long as you have a Google Ads account, and still handy for estimating volumes and surfacing variations of a term you wouldn't have thought of on your own. Its figures come in broad ranges and should be read as approximate, but they're plenty for prioritizing.

Ahrefs or Semrush

These are paid tools, and you can feel the difference. On top of sharper volumes, they show you keyword difficulty (KD), which competitors rank for a given term, and where the content gaps you could exploit are sitting. Anyone managing SEO projects professionally will find one of the two close to indispensable.

The step-by-step process

1. Define your page map before searching for anything

What pages does the site have, or will it have? Which are service pages, which are blog posts, are there ecommerce categories? Each page needs its own main keyword, and that keyword can't be repeated on another page of the same site without triggering cannibalization. Draw this map before you begin and you'll save yourself a fair amount of time and trouble later.

2. Brainstorm without tools

Yes, without tools. Put yourself in your customer's shoes: how would they search Google for what you sell? Write down everything that comes to mind, including synonyms, geographic variations, and the more casual ways people name the service. Then go and ask your sales or customer service team. They speak with real customers every day and know precisely which words they use.

3. Expand with the tools

Take that starting list into the tools and open it up: variations, related long tails, the questions people commonly ask about the topic. This is the point where volume and difficulty data start earning their keep, helping you sort out what matters first.

4. Group by intent and by page

Each group of keywords sharing the same intent should map to a single page. Cluster the terms by how closely they relate in meaning and assign them to the content that will work them. One main keyword and a handful of related secondary ones per page is all you're after.

5. Prioritize by real impact

Opportunities don't all carry the same weight. To decide which ones come first, weigh four things together: how many people search the term each month, how hard it would be to rank for it, whether it fits what the page actually offers, and whether the traffic it brings has a genuine shot at converting. A term with 200 monthly searches, a low KD, and a clean fit with your service can be worth far more than one with 5,000 searches and ferocious competition.

Long-tail keywords: the forgotten ones

There's a pull toward always chasing the highest-volume terms, and it's understandable: more searches, more potential visits. Yet in most cases the long-tail keywords are the ones quietly moving the business along.

It comes down to specificity. Long tails are narrower and run into far less competition, and the people typing them tend to know exactly what they're looking for. "SEO agency" carries plenty of volume and brutal competition. "SEO agency for ecommerce in Barcelona" pulls fewer searches, but whoever types it has already made up their mind about what they need. If that happens to be what you offer, winning that visit is a much easier task.

Research that's done properly keeps both in play: head terms with high volume that are hard to attack, and long tails with lower volume but stronger conversion.

How to analyze the competition within your study

Knowing which keywords your direct competitors are working is one of the most rewarding parts of the whole exercise. Tools like Ahrefs let you see which organic terms they rank for while you don't, which hands you a ready-made map of openings: content they have and you're missing, topics you could step into and pull visits away from them.

The reverse is just as useful. Spotting terms where you already rank and they don't shows you where your advantage lies, so you can shore it up before they notice.

It's not a one-time job

One of the most repeated errors is running the study when the site launches and never touching it again, as though the market had frozen in place. Trends move, terms shift, and new searches keep surfacing as the sector itself changes.

Keyword research that stays alive gets reviewed at least every six months, sooner if your sector moves quickly. There's no need to rebuild it from scratch each time. Checking whether fresh opportunities have appeared, whether some term has lost steam, and whether your existing content is still pulling its weight is usually enough.

What to do with the study once it's done

Keyword research sitting in a spreadsheet is worth nothing. Its value appears the moment it turns into decisions. With the results in front of you, you can optimize pages that have no assigned keyword or a poorly chosen one, find the content gaps your competitors cover and you don't, shape the blog's editorial calendar around articles that target informational terms with room to grow, and untangle a site architecture where pages are quietly competing against each other.

Keyword research is where any serious SEO strategy begins. Get this part right and the rest of your content finally has a real chance of being found.

Need help with your keyword research?

At La Teva Web we've spent years running keyword research for companies across very different sectors. We know what works, how to prioritize so the effort actually pays off, and how to turn a raw list of terms into a content strategy that ranks. If you'd like us to look at your case and the opportunities waiting for your site, get in touch and we'll talk it through, no strings attached.