How to determine your business keywords
Published May 22, 2025
The SEO landscape is always changing, especially these days. Search is transitioning more and more to favor AI responses in every search engine and software that you use. That doesn’t mean SEO is dead for getting found online, and your business keywords absolutely do still matter! In fact, it’s more important than ever to be highly intentional about how you want to show up in search.
I still believe every business should have primary keywords that they’re targeting throughout their website content, both for informational and navigational intent as well as commercial and transactional. You can absolutely still show up online, you just need to be strategic and focused.
Here’s what it should look like for you.
Jump to:
Brainstorm from your audience’s POV
When you’re just getting started, it’s important to bring it back to basics. Don’t even go near any SEO tools yet, and don’t start freaking out about what even goes into SEO.
Your very first step should be simple–just jot down search terms that come to mind when you think about your business and offerings.
It can be anything, like the main keywords that describe what your business is, as well as keywords that summarize your products or services. Here’s an example of what my initial list looked like when I did this exercise:
Content marketing agency
Content marketing services
Marketing consultant
Content strategy
Content management
Content writing
This example is more based around my primary business offering and my services, but you can make your list as long as you want. You can also start thinking about the common questions you get or the information that people need to know before they book with you.
This step is so important because at the heart of SEO (and Answer Engine Optimization) is people. Instead of jumping straight into how you can feed the algorithm, it’s crucial to think about how the average person would describe or think about your business.
2. Invest in a keyword research tool
The list you brainstormed is the perfect place to start, but people will always think differently from you.
You need a keyword research tool to see what people are actually searching for (not just what you would search for). They might have a slightly different way of asking a question, describing your business, or searching for a solution.
Keyword research shows you this information so you can refine your list. Without this step, it’s harder to show up. Essentially, it’s crucial to meet people where they are and use the language they’re already using.
For this step, you can use a tool like ahrefs or semrush (I use the ahrefs starter plan as one of my recommended content marketing tools!).
Within these tools, you mostly want to take a look at the keywords’ search volume, traffic opportunity, keyword difficulty, and intent.
Search volume tells you the average number of people who are searching for the given keyword. This metric is different from platform to platform, so be sure to check what type of average they’re giving you.
Traffic opportunity tells you how much traffic you might get if you were to rank #1 for that keyword and relevant keywords.
Keyword difficulty is a measure of how hard it is to rank for the given keyword. If a keyword has a high difficulty score, it means the current sites that are ranking already have a high authority (think Wikipedia, .gov, .edu sites, and larger brands and companies).
Intent tells you the users’ goal when they use the given keyword. More on this below, but it basically helps you understand how you should be using the keyword on your website.
3. Or, do some free research
The keyword research tool I use (the ahrefs starter plan) is only $29 per month. With the starter plan, you have a limited amount of data and reports that you can get each month, which works for my current needs. However, most tools do scale up a ton from there–I’m talking $140 per month for most–and that’s just starting.
If you just don’t have that budget right now, I totally get it. The good news is that there’s still so much keyword information you can get for free!
Google autocomplete: Use your brainstorm list and start plugging in terms directly into an incognito Google browser. The autocomplete feature will show you some of the suggested search terms that other people are using.
Google Trends: This is a free Google tool that can help you understand if the broad terms you want to use are relevant. For example, when I plug in “content marketing,” I can actually see that interest in that term has risen over the past year.
Google Keyword Planner: This is another free Google tool that’s designed to help you set up ads. Just like other keyword tools, you can see average search volume, competition, and cost per click.
Answer the Public: You can get a few free searches per day with this tool to see relevant questions related to your search terms.
4. Be realistic about what you can rank for
Whether you’re using free tools or paying for SEO software, all of your research should lead you to refine your list of search terms and gather more data.
Ideally, you should have a list of business keywords that you know your audience is actually using.
Plus, you have enough information to find the sweet spot between volume and difficulty. That means you want to find keywords that enough people use but that you can realistically rank for.
My tip: If you own a small business, look for keywords with at least an average search volume of 50 and a keyword difficulty no greater than 50.
The greater the search volume and lower the difficulty, the better, but it isn’t always that straightforward, so keep in mind that this is a general rule of thumb. Some keywords might show that they have 0 search volume per month, but they can actually end up driving the most traffic to your site (especially for branded content).
5. Organize your business keywords by intent
You should have a solid list of business keywords that you can actually rank for now. So what do you do with them?
From here, let’s organize by keyword intent. That means assigning them to the types of content that people actually want to see. There are four main keyword intents:
Informational: Informational keywords are best-suited for blog posts since people are just looking for education or an answer to a question.
Navigational: A navigational keyword is what people use when they want to land on a specific site or page. These are almost always branded keywords.
Commercial: Commercial intent means that users are looking for more information to make a purchase. These terms can include both branded and non-branded keywords, such as use cases, comparisons, lists of best tools, and lists of alternatives.
Transactional: Transactional keywords are what people use when they’re fully ready to make a purchase. This is what you should be targeting through your service or product landing pages.
6. Make keyword research part of your content marketing workflow
Whether you’re just tweaking your website, creating branded content, or building out a new strategy to grow your traffic, your list of business keywords is a crucial part of your content marketing workflow.
Your keyword list can help you figure out what content types you need to create, and it can also help you when it comes time for ideation. Your search terms can easily become content titles and topics, while the intent leads you to what content formats to publish.
You don’t need to be an SEO expert to create your list of business keywords, but you absolutely do need business keywords if you own a business.
If you don’t have the time to get started right now, reach out today to hand off your content strategy. Not only will I audit your SEO and build your keyword list, but I’ll also solidify your brand positioning. As a result, your content will attract customers and convert them.
Let’s grow your business online!
