Keyword Research

Almost all SEO begins with keyword research. Understanding what people are searching for and how many people are searching helps form a solid content strategy.

Beyond the basics, keyword research encompasses many more advanced considerations, including SERP features, keyword search intent, competitive analysis, and even internationalization.

Read the latest Moz posts on keyword research. We’ve also included links to our most popular keyword research resources to help your SEO journey.

Keyword Research : Everything you need to get started with keyword research.

Keyword Research Learning Center : Our free keyword research learning hub. Here, we’ve gathered our top resources in one place.

What is search intent and why does it matter? : Learn more about the power of search intent and how to use it in your keyword research strategy.

Keyword Explorer : Want to dive in? Try our top-rated keyword research tool, with over 500 million keyword suggestions.

Most Recent Articles on Keyword Research

The 3-Tier Keyword Conversion Model
Steven Macdonald

The 3-Tier Keyword Conversion Model

The foundation for a great website is keyword research. By identifying keywords that people use in search engines that relate to your products or services will make or break your organic revenue. Since the focus shifted to quality content and high quality links, getting your keywords to rank high in search engines has become more and more difficult. But, when it comes to keywords everyone loves a number one ranking, right?

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The New AdWords Keyword Planner & Your Keyword Research Process
Mary Merritt

The New AdWords Keyword Planner & Your Keyword Research Process

If you didn't already know (brace yourself!), the tried and true AdWords Keyword Tool is quietly being retired in favor of a shiny new tool, the "Keyword Planner." While most people seem to be distracted by the new features that the Keyword Planner is offering (and a few of them are great), no one seems to care about the INCREDIBLY HUGE HOLE that will be left after the old Keyword Tool is gone:

An Introduction to Keyword Research Using Free Tools
Adam Whittles

An Introduction to Keyword Research Using Free Tools

I often find that keyword research is an overlooked part of the SEO process. Many SEOs will tend to stick with using Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool and as a result, they will most likely be targeting the exact same keywords as the competition. The ultimate goal with keyword research is to find those juicy, low-hanging fruit - the long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are sometimes defined as keyword phrases containing multiple words of four or more. However, this is not how I like to define them. For me, the long-tail keywords are those that have lower volumes of traffic and are less competitive to rank for. In other words, they may contain multiple words or they could contain as few as two words.

Deciding Between Synonymous Keywords
Bart van der Meer

Deciding Between Synonymous Keywords

The SEOmoz blogs and YOUmoz blogs always provide me with a lot of help and support. So I figured it's my time to give something back. In this post I will take you through the process I went through while doing keyword research. In the post I use the original Dutch keywords, but that shouldn’t be an issue. Also in the Netherlands Google accounts for 97 - 98 % of all searches on search engines so in the post below I will only focus on Google.