Skip to content
MLAH Top Nav-1Marketing Grader Top Nav-1Supered Buzzy Top Nav-1

 

Supered-Buzzy-2025-Main
BUZZY GOT SUPERED POWERS! Learn more about our partnership with Supered⚡️
x
Buzzy-chat
Ask AI Buzzy
close chat
fullscreen chat
Buzzy-chat

Buzzy AI Assistant

Human Chat
Buzzy-chat

I'm HIVE's AI assistant and I'm here to add a dash of nectar-sweet fun to your day! Whether you're navigating just for information or looking for a partner with your marketing needs, I'll be your guide on this whimsical journey. So let's make a beeline to adventure and turn your experience into the bee's knees! 🐝✨

Today
- AI: Hi there! I'm Buzzy!
- AI: How can I help you today?
Buzzy-chat
buzzin for answers
How would you like to interact with Buzzy?
Speak
Text
microphone ai
Speaking to Buzzy Sending message Buzzy is responding
** Buzzy might make mistakes occasionally. It's always a good idea to double-check important information with HIVE.
close chat
Let Buzzy ...

How to Do Your Own Keyword Research


Zach Lemmer
July 26, 2019

Trying to decide which CMS is right for your website?

View CMS Comparison
Read Time:
Don't have time? Download Now as a PDF

If you have a website, then chances are you want to be found online with a simple Google search. Or perhaps you have a pay-per-click campaign and you want your ads to be shown over a competitor's. Either way, you'll need to know which keywords to target in order to optimize your organic search results or ad campaign.

What is keyword research?

Keyword research is all about finding search terms are related to your product or service, and that will trigger Google (or other internet directories) to show a link to your website on their search engine results pages (SERPs). Within your keyword research, you will look for keywords (both short and long-tail) that have adequate monthly search volume, low competition, and realistic cost-per-click costs (for pay-per-click).

Why do you need to do keyword research?

The reason keyword research is important is that you want your website to be found online, otherwise, you miss out on a lot of potential business. In order to get found online you need to optimize for keywords that people are searching for and that are relevant to your business. 

There are two different goals to keyword research. You’re either looking for keywords for a pay-per-click campaign (PPC), or for search engine optimization (SEO). With both, you'll want to make sure that there is adequate search traffic for that keyword ("adequate" can differ from industry to industry).

PPC

In both PPC and SEO keyword research, you will consider search volume and competition, but cost-per-click is also a determining factor when choosing keywords. Cost-per-click (CPC) is all relative to what you want to spend. For example, if your daily budget is $100 and you found a keyword that you want to compete for, but the CPC is $20, that means you can really only likely fit about 5 clicks in your daily budget! Now there is no right or wrong answer to how much is too much CPC for a keyword, it all depends on your strategy, and budget.

SEO

When conducting keyword research for an SEO campaign your full focus will be on search volume and competition scores. Competition score is a score that ranges from 0 - 1, the lower the number, the lower the competition. We recommend competing for keywords that are .6 or lower. These are your low hanging opportunities.

How can you do your own keyword research?


One of our favorite tools that you can use for keyword research is a Chrome extension called Keywords Everywhere. The extension will give you all the relevant information you need to determine if a keyword is worth ranking for, and it’s 100% free!
 

So how does it work?


Once you download Keywords Everywhere, head over to Google and enter a search query for a long tail keyword that you think you want to rank for. Once Google takes you to the the SERP, you will notice a few lines underneath the search bar. They read “Volume | CPC | Competition” and you would use that information to inform your decision of what keywords/terms you want to optimize for.
 
Screen Shot 2019-07-25 at 10.41.45 PM

It’s generally a good idea to find at least 15 keywords that meet your needs and to put them into a spreadsheet for easy reference.

From an SEO perspective - now you can optimize your website by keyword mapping the keywords you want to rank for on your pages or blog posts.
 
From a PPC perspective - now you can see how much a keyword costs, and compare that to its search volume to see if it makes sense for you to compete for that term in your marketing strategy.

Example:
Below I have attached a video to walk you through using Keywords Everywhere to help get you started on your keyword research.


If you have determined that you need further help with keyword research, keyword mapping, SEO, or PPC you can always contact HIVE Digital Strategy for a free consultation. And check out our other free resources to help you with all things inbound marketing. In the meantime, happy researching!

Digital Advertising

 

Latest Blog Posts

Loop Marketing: HubSpot’s New Playbook for the AI Era
Sep 11, 2025

Loop Marketing: HubSpot’s New Playbook for the AI Era

Desiree Landa
HubSpot, INBOUND25

INBOUND25 didn’t just bring product updates. HubSpot introduced an entirely new framework called Loop Marketing, built for the AI-first world we’re all trying to navigate. The immediate question: does this replace inbound marketing? The short...

HubSpot Data Hub AI-Powered Data Management Made Simple
Sep 5, 2025

HubSpot Data Hub: AI-Powered Data Management Made Simple

Jill Schneider
HubSpot Data Hub

HubSpot’s Operations Hub has evolved into the new Data Hub, and it’s more than just a rebrand. Data Hub unifies and centralizes your marketing, sales, and service data on one platform — now enhanced with integrated AI-powered tools. These features...

INBOUND25: The Biggest HubSpot Release of the Year
Sep 3, 2025

INBOUND25: The Biggest HubSpot Release of the Year

Desiree Landa
HubSpot, INBOUND25

INBOUND25 is here and you know what that means, so is HubSpot's biggest product release of the year! If you thought the Spring Spotlight was overwhelming, wait until you see whats rolling out this week. Maybe take these updates one at a time. A week...

HIVE Hexagon
HIVE Hexagon
HIVE Hexagon
HIVE Hexagon
HIVE Hexagon
HIVE Hexagon