Daily Junction.mobi portalMarketing · July 6, 2025 · Harper Quinn · 6 min
Keyword research is finding the words people actually type into search engines so you can create content that meets that demand. This guide explains search intent, volume, difficulty and the tools that make the job easier.
Most content fails for a simple reason: nobody was searching for it. Keyword research is how you avoid that trap. Instead of guessing what to write, you find out what your audience genuinely types into search engines — and then create something that answers it. Done well, it is the difference between publishing into a void and meeting demand that already exists. This guide covers the four things beginners actually need: intent, volume, difficulty and tools.
Keyword research is the practice of discovering the words and phrases people enter into search engines, then deciding which ones are worth targeting with your content. A "keyword" can be a single word or, more usefully, a whole phrase — what people in the industry sometimes call a query.
The point is not to collect a giant list of words. It is to understand demand: what your potential customers want to know or do, in their own language, and how often. From that understanding you build content that is genuinely useful and that search engines can confidently match to real searches. It sits at the heart of any serious approach to on-page SEO and to search engine optimisation versus newer approaches.
Keyword research is really audience research with numbers attached. You are listening to what people ask, at scale, before you decide what to say.
If you remember one thing, make it this: search intent matters more than the exact words. Intent is the reason behind a search — what the person actually wants to happen next. Two people can type similar words and want completely different things.
Intent is usually grouped into four types:
| Intent type | What the searcher wants | Example phrase |
|---|---|---|
| Informational | To learn or understand | "how does compound interest work" |
| Navigational | To reach a specific site | "monzo login" |
| Commercial | To compare before deciding | "best budgeting apps uk" |
| Transactional | To buy or take action | "open a savings account online" |
Why does this matter so much? Because if you write a detailed buying guide for an informational query — or a thin definition page for a transactional one — you have answered the wrong question, and search engines will favour content that matches the intent instead. The quickest way to read intent is to search the term yourself and look at what already ranks. If the results are how-to guides, that is informational; if they are product pages, it is transactional. Match what the page actually needs to do.
Search volume estimates how many times a term is searched in a given period, usually shown as an average per month. It tells you the size of the demand, which helps you prioritise.
But volume is easy to misread, so keep three things in mind:
This is why experienced marketers love long-tail keywords — longer, more specific phrases with lower individual volume. "Running shoes" is huge and brutal to rank for; "best running shoes for flat feet" is smaller, far less contested, and the searcher knows exactly what they want. A handful of well-chosen long-tail terms often beats one impossible head term.
Volume tells you the prize; keyword difficulty estimates the price. It is a rough measure of how hard it would be to appear near the top of results for a term, based largely on how strong the existing competing pages are.
You do not need a paid tool to assess this sensibly. Ask:
The sweet spot for beginners is the overlap of three things: enough volume to be worth it, low enough difficulty to be winnable, and clear intent you can actually satisfy. Start where those three meet.
You can do real keyword research without spending anything. A practical free toolkit looks like this:
Paid tools add speed, larger databases and competitor analysis, but they are an accelerator, not a requirement. The thinking is the same either way: find real demand, read the intent, weigh volume against difficulty, and choose terms you can win and serve well.
A short note on the changing landscape. Search is no longer only ten blue links — AI-generated summaries increasingly sit at the top of results and answer questions directly. That shifts, but does not remove, the value of keyword research: you still need to know what people ask. CM Beyer explores this shift in its analysis of how AI overviews are reshaping UK search traffic, and the practical takeaway is to target genuine questions clearly enough that both people and AI systems can find your answer.
Keyword research turns guesswork into evidence. Lead with search intent — match the kind of answer people actually want — then use volume to gauge demand and difficulty to judge whether you can realistically compete, favouring specific long-tail phrases where the two balance. Free tools like autocomplete, Google Trends and Search Console get you a long way. Aim not for a giant list, but for a focused set of terms you can genuinely rank for and serve well.
![[View image]](/img/keyword-research-basics.jpg){kind=link}