A simple outline of a keyword research process using SEMRush

Posted on by Lani Haque
Keyboard with a piece of paper with the words keyword research and a pencil

This is a brief outline of a simple keyword research process I came up while learning how to use SEMRush.

Keyword research process:  (using SEMRush)

For a given website

  1. Analyze keywords for the domain given.
    1. Order by KD (keyword difficulty) and then by volume.
    1. Depending on the objective the keywords that are of interests will be different.  But in general, let’s focus on those keywords in the “chunky middle”, long tailed keywords that have a reasonable volume and whose keyword difficulty isn’t so great that it will be hard to rank for.
    1. Make a list or download these
  2. For the top 5, check the related keywords and questions.
    1. Find those in the chunky middle or that look interesting now.
    1. Make a list or download those.

Site has no or few keywords it is ranking for

If the site doesn’t have any or many keywords it is ranking for then check their competitors.

  1. Analyze the domain of a given competitor.
  2. From here check to see who are the top 5 competitors of this first competitor.
  3. Check for the common keywords among the given domain and each of the top 5 competitors.
    1. Find those in the chunky middle or that look interesting.
    1. Make a list and download for each competitor.

Educated guess strategy

If you have an “idea” or “guess” as to what keywords you think may be searched by people who may be interested in the service/product your business is providing then use the keyword magic tool to bulk search these keywords.

  1. You can bulk search up to 100 keywords.
  2. This gives a true sense of whether it’s the best keyword to use or not. 
  3. There may be a related keyword with more volume or a more desirable intent to use.

Hopefully something there is something above that is helpful in getting started with keyword research using SEMRush.  If you still need some ideas or suggestions, reach out and I’ll see how I can help! 😊

Lani Haque
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Lani Haque

I enjoy learning and sharing that knowledge. Sharing has been in many forms over the years, as a teaching assistant, university lecturer, Pilates instructor, math tutor and just sharing with friends and family. Throughout, summarizing what I have learnt in words has always been there and continues to through blog posts, articles, video and the ever growing forms of content out there!

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