Suppose you think that in 2025, SEO has become irrelevant, and so does keyword research to secure top spots in SERP positions. In that case, you will surely miss a lot of traffic and sales because internet rankings evolve and don’t vanish.
For example, a few years back, using exact keywords was necessary to get more traffic, regardless of semantic sense. Now, keywords are all about latent search intent, and semantically used keywords get more rankings than exact stuffing of keywords. So, you must learn how to research keywords and find high-volume and low-competition keywords to get easy traffic and rankings.
Stay in the loop to learn the steps to find the right keywords for your brand’s digital marketing strategy.
What Is Keyword Research & Why It Still Matters In 2025?
Keyword research is like the steps leading to the peak of the mountain. In actuality, keyword research is finding the phrases potential users search for to buy your product or service.
For example, if you are an electric bike manufacturing company, your ideal consumers would be searching for “best electric bikes to buy” or “best moped-style e-bikes to buy.”
If you want to make your electric bikes visible to these users, you need to use keyword research tools like Google Keywords Planner, Semrush, Ahrefs, etc, and find these words to write content on it. Keyword research has gone from finding written words to identifying voice search terms and even Google’s algorithm updates.
Key Takeaway: Always choose low-competition, high-intent keywords to rank on top spots without getting your content pushed back against competitors with high DA.
What Are Different Types Of Keywords?
Content marketing experts follow three main types of keywords while writing blogs: social media posts, marketing copy, and so on. When you learn how to do SEO keyword research, understand the difference or use case of long-tail, short-tail, information, and other types of keywords to use them naturally in your content.
For example, long-tail keywords are used to solve queries of users searching on Google and other browsers, and short-tail keywords are used following their intent, such as informational, navigational, and transactional intent in content, to meet audience unique needs.
Remember to target latent search intent (LSI) keywords to reach consumers who are also looking for your products and services but with different terms.
Key Takeaway: Identifying keyword intent and writing content according to the intent increases your chances of getting ranked.
Here’s A Guide For the Keyword Research Process To Follow In 2025
We have listed the easy six steps to follow to learn how to conduct keyword research for your business website, social media posts, and other online activities.
Follow each step chronologically to avoid missing anything. To stay at the top of your competitors, meet Google’s E-E-A-T experience, expertise, and authoritative, trustworthy content requirements to rank high.
Step 1: Brainstorm Topic Ideas
First, you need to identify the niche for which you are looking for keywords. For example, if you are looking to find keywords to promote your company’s digital marketing services, then your niche would be content marketing, SEO, social media marketing services, and so on. You can also consult Google Autocomplete, People Also Ask, and competitor blogs for inspiration.
Once you have keywords in your hand, you just need to do some brainstorming sessions to test the waters so that you can decide which phrases you have content or ideas to work on.
Key Takeaway: Always calm the potential audience down by finding out what they are interested in using tools like AnswerThePublic.
Step 2: Identify Seed Keywords
It is time to open the keywords cluster you found in the previous step and only use seed keywords that are potential enough to build topical authority around them. Always try to pick keywords that match your products or services so that you can create a bunch of content around them and interlink with each other.
You can use broad industry-related keywords as a base for,” your blogs and marketing copy. For example, if you offer a paid or free citation generator tool, your seed keyword should be “Tips to Create Works Cited Page,” “Removing Plagiarism,” and so on.
Key Takeaway: Separate seed keywords that can be used in topical authority content forms from the cluster to stand out among competitors.
Step 3: Use Keyword Research Tools
Having a firm grip on any keyword research tool like Ubersuggest is necessary to learn how to do keyword research for Google ads or other content forms. You can choose any platform of your choice, either free or paid, to conduct keyword research. For example, Google Keyword Planner finds free keywords based on search volume and competition.
You can also use Ubersuggest to find challenging or relevant keywords on SERP. Our SEO experts also utilize Semrush or Ahrefs tools to find competitive keywords. You can also use them to learn how to find competitors’ keywords online.
When writing your content’s FAQs, you can use AnswerThePublic to find query-based keywords to target.
Key Takeaway: Never rely on one tool; use at least two platforms to cross-verify the search volume and keyword difficult figures.
Step 4: Analyze Keyword Metrics (What to Look For?)
If you want to learn how to find the best keywords for SEO optimization, you need to first look at their search volume and make sure only to consider keywords with high search volume, like 500-10,000 monthly searches, at least to invest your time and energy.
The next step is filtering the collected keywords based on keyword difficulty, which is usually referred to as (KD%). The more competition you target, your chances of becoming the thought leader increase in that sphere. If you are looking for keywords for writing ads, copying social media posts, keeping an eye on CPC (Cost Per Click), and targeting commercial keywords,
The last step for analyzing keywords is placing a hand at the trends bar to conduct trend analysis and decide which keyword to use for more traffic and sales.
Key Takeaway: To achieve better results, always base your keyword metrics analysis on the intent of the keywords and CPC rate.
Step 5: Find Long-Tail Keywords For On-The-Go Rankings
Digital Upswing’s content marketing experts have concluded after decades of SEO and content marketing practices that targeting long-tail keywords is necessary to rank your content in the top spots of search engine results. You should learn how Semrush works and Google Keyword Planner to find long-tail keywords that rank high in searches.
Long-tail keywords are usually query-based and present the whole idea of what your potential consumer is searching for and wants from you. For example, long-tail keywords like “Best budget e-bikes for city commuting in 2025” and “How to increase website traffic without ads” are self-explanatory and clearly indicate what the user wants from you.
Our digital marketing agency has recently worked for HitPaw Online and only targeted long-tail keywords in content creation. After posting just six blogs a month targeting long-tail keywords, rankings were insane and high.
Key Takeaway: Only focus on long-tail keywords with low KD and high search volume for guaranteed rankings.
Step 6: Check Competitor Keywords & Ranking Gaps
The last step in learning how to do keyword research is using Ahrefs Site Explorer or Semrush Domain Analysis to find keywords that your competitors are ranking on SERP. After making a full-fledged sheet of the competitive keywords, you can filter them out by just keeping the low-competition keywords in hand to write your content.
Also, make sure to find low-competition opportunities they haven’t appropriately targeted. Playing on the weak points of your competitors is the best way to tap the spheres they are lacking behind and build your topical authority to cash the potential audience.
Key Takeaway: Always monitor competitors and try to fill the SEO gap that your competition is missing to become the only authority in that sphere.
How to Choose the Best Keywords for Your Blog or Business?
Suppose you ask any expert how to research keywords and find the best ranking-bringing keywords for your business. In that case, the answer will most likely target low-KD and high-search volume keywords with only informational or transactional intent. Don’t just focus on one intent; make sure to keep a balance between information and commercial keywords in your content.
Don’t miss semantic SEO (related keywords, synonyms, and natural phrasing) to attract the users who are most likely searching for your product or service but with slightly different words.
Key Takeaway: Your website intent best defines the keyword type you should focus on. That’s why you should maintain a balance between informational and other intent keywords in your content development.
Free & Paid Keyword Research Tools to Use in 2025
Here is a list of best-performing keyword research tools to practice the steps you have learned above and find the best suitable keywords for your or your customer’s websites.
- Google Keywords Planner
- Semrush
- Ahrefs
- Ubersuggest
- Moz
- AnswerThePublic
Key Takeaway: It is not necessary that paid SEO tools always perform best; sometimes, you can conduct the best keyword analysis from Google for free as well.
Conclusion
Keyword research is key to securing the best rankings for your business. That’s why you learn how to do keyword research by following the steps mentioned above. Don’t make the mistake of ignoring the value of keyword research and writing content without having the right keywords in your hand because it’s not gonna work and bring rankings to you.
If you still have trouble understanding the process of keyword research, feel free to contact our experts and get sorted on the go.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How long does it take for a beginner to conduct keyword research?
A beginner usually takes 15-20 minutes to conduct keyword research for a website using tools like Google Keywords Planner, Semursh, etc.
- What is keyword research in digital marketing?
Keyword research in digital marketing is finding the phrases that potential business users use to search for products or services on Google and other browsers.
- How to do keyword research in SEO?
If you want to sound SEO optimized, the best thing to do with keyword research is to shortlist only long-tail keywords with high search volume and low KD to steal the top spots in SERP.
