Keyword research

A data analytics platform examined keyword search trends and discovered increasing searches for "marketing attribution" and "multi-touch attribution". Before their competitors, they created content about attribution, built attribution features into their product, and created educational resources. By the time competitors entered the space, this company had established itself as a market authority through organic search visibility. Their keyword research essentially revealed the market opportunity before it became competitive.

Start by listing the main topics and solutions your company provides. Generate related questions and problems that prospects might search for. Use search engines and auto-complete features to see what real people are searching for. Tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Moz provide search volume, competition metrics, and related keyword suggestions.

Evaluate keywords based on three criteria: search volume (is anyone searching for this?), competition (can you realistically rank for this?), and relevance (do people searching this term represent your target market?). A keyword with moderate search volume, moderate competition, and high relevance is typically more valuable than a keyword with high volume but lower relevance.

Group related keywords into content clusters. Rather than creating individual pages for similar keywords, create comprehensive content pieces that address multiple related keywords. A single article about "improving email open rates" might target 15 related variations. This approach is more efficient than creating 15 separate pages.

A change management consultancy assumed they should rank for "change management consultant" and similar navigational keywords. Keyword research revealed that their actual market was searching for "how to manage employee resistance to change" and "implementing change management in distributed teams". These problem-based keywords had significant search volume but minimal competition from competitors targeting navigational keywords. By creating content around problem-based terms, they captured prospects earlier in the buying journey before they'd even decided on a consultant.

Keyword research ensures you're building content around topics your market actually searches for. Many B2B companies create content based on what they assume prospects want to read, then wonder why that content doesn't drive traffic or leads. Keyword research grounds your content strategy in actual search behaviour, not assumptions.

Keyword research also reveals market gaps. If competitors have created content around certain keywords but gaps exist around related terms, those gaps represent opportunities. You can create content that captures demand that currently goes unsatisfied, building traffic and positioning before competitors fill the gap.

For sales and marketing alignment, keyword research reveals what prospects are searching for at different stages of the buying cycle. Early-stage prospects search for educational content about problems. Late-stage prospects search for specific solutions and comparisons. Understanding this keyword progression lets you create content for each stage, capturing prospects at multiple points in their journey.

Keyword research is how you find out the actual words your customers type into a search box when they're looking for what you sell, or for help with the problem you solve. You then use that list two ways: to write content that ranks in Google for free, and to decide which terms are worth bidding on in paid search. The point is simple: build around what people genuinely search for, not what you assume they want to read.

Good keyword research goes past the obvious. Yes, people search for your product category. But they also search the problem ("how to reduce churn"), the outcome they want, comparison terms ("X vs Y"), and educational stuff about their industry. Each of those is a different moment in the buying journey, and you want content waiting at each one.

Keywords sort into rough types:

• Informational , questions about a problem ("how to improve sales conversion")
• Navigational , looking for a specific tool or brand ("best project management software")
• Transactional , buying intent ("CRM pricing")
• Commercial investigation , comparing options ("Salesforce vs HubSpot")

Two numbers matter for each one: how many people search it (volume) and how hard it is to rank (difficulty). High-volume terms bring more traffic but everyone's fighting for them. Long-tail terms, longer and more specific, get fewer searches but face less competition and usually pull in people who are closer to buying. Most B2B wins come from a stack of moderate-volume, moderate-difficulty, highly-relevant terms rather than chasing one giant head term.

How to do it

Start by listing the topics, problems, and outcomes your company touches. Then pull real data. Say you're mapping the search landscape with SurferSEO: you feed it a seed term and it hands back the related keywords, the volume on each, the difficulty score, and which terms your competitors already rank for, so you can spot the gaps where demand exists but nobody's answered it well yet.

Judge every keyword on three things: volume (is anyone actually searching this?), difficulty (can you realistically rank?), and relevance (do these searchers look like your buyers?). A term with moderate volume, moderate difficulty, and high relevance usually beats a high-volume term that pulls the wrong crowd.

Then group related terms into clusters instead of writing one thin page per keyword. One solid article on "improving email open rates" can target fifteen close variations at once.

Proving it pays off

Research tells you what to write; your analytics tell you whether it worked. Say you've published a cluster and you're tracking it in Google Analytics: you can see which organic landing pages bring traffic that actually converts, then double down on the keyword themes that produce pipeline and quietly drop the ones that only produce bounces.

And if you want the search-performance story in one place for your weekly review, say you wire it into a Databox board pulling Search Console and analytics together: rankings, clicks, and conversions for each keyword cluster sit side by side, so the decision about where to write next is grounded in numbers, not a hunch.

An inventory management software company conducted keyword research and found substantial search volume for "inventory forecasting methods" and "demand planning best practices". Competitors had created content addressing these keywords. However, the company discovered a gap around "inventory forecasting for seasonal businesses", a variation with healthy search volume and minimal competition. By creating content addressing this niche term, they captured a specific segment of the market and grew traffic in that segment faster than competitors could move into the gap.