Keyword research sounds like something that belongs in a spreadsheet, not a blog post. It sounds technical and slightly joyless, like something you’d have to do before you’re allowed to do the actual writing.
I avoided it for years. And I have the traffic stats to prove it.
Keyword research is simply the process of finding out what your potential readers are already typing into Google — and then writing posts that answer those searches. That’s it. No special software required, no marketing degree, no spreadsheet (unless you want one, in which case, there is a LOT of scope for spreadsheets here). Just writing for what people are actually looking for, rather than what you feel like writing about.
It’s the difference between shouting into a void and having a conversation that someone wanted to have.
Why bloggers skip it (and what happens when they do)
The thing about keyword research is that skipping it feels completely fine at the time. You have a topic you know well, you write a solid article, you hit publish. Nothing happens. So you write another one. Still nothing. You share it on social media, you tell your friends, you maybe spend £200 on a Pinterest course (hypothetically).
Still nothing.
This was me, for most of the time between 2012 and 2018. During my personal finance blogging era, I was writing articles like “how to be frugal” and “how to save money on meal prep.” They were well written. They were useful. But they were written in a vacuum — there was no research behind the topic, no understanding of what people were actually searching for or how competitive those terms were, and no natural thread connecting one article to the next. The site had no direction. It was just a series of random takes.
Since StumbleUpon shut down, there is no such thing as accidentally finding a website anymore. Either Google sends you there, or nobody finds it. Social media can give you a short spike, but it’s not a sustainable traffic strategy for a blog. Search is (for now). Which means that if you’re not writing for search, you’re essentially publishing into thin air.
Keyword research is what connects your writing to the people who need it.
The three things that make a keyword worth targeting
Not every keyword is worth writing about. As a new blogger especially, you need to be selective — the playing field is not level, and trying to rank for the wrong terms early on is a fast way to get demoralised.
A good keyword meets three criteria:
Search volume
People are actually searching for it. For a new site, you want somewhere in the range of 100 to 1,000 searches per month. Too low and even a first-page ranking won’t send you meaningful traffic. Too high and you’re competing with sites that have been around for a decade.
Low competition
The posts currently ranking for this keyword are beatable. You’re looking for a keyword difficulty score under 40 (more on how to check this in [Article 21]), and ideally for search results that include actual blog posts rather than just mega-sites like Wikipedia, Forbes, or Healthline.
Search intent match
Your article gives people what they were actually looking for when they typed the keyword. This one is subtle but it’s arguably the most important of the three — we cover it in detail in [Article 22], but the short version is: if someone searches “best pothos plants for beginners” and your article is a care guide rather than a comparison, they’ll leave. Google notices that. It hurts your rankings.
All three matter. A keyword with huge volume and low competition is useless if your content doesn’t match what the searcher wanted.
Short-tail, long-tail, and everything in between
Keywords come in a few different shapes, and as a new blogger, the shape matters as much as the topic.
Short-tail keywords are broad, high-volume, one-to-three word searches. “Keyword research.” “Frugal living.” “Pothos care.” These get millions of searches a month and are dominated by huge, established sites. You will not rank for these early on. Don’t try.
Long-tail keywords are longer, more specific phrases — usually four words or more. “How to do keyword research for free.” “How to save money on meal prep for a family of four.” “Why are my pothos leaves turning yellow.” These have lower search volume individually, but there are far more of them, they’re far easier to rank for, and the person searching is usually closer to finding exactly what they need. Long-tail is where new blogs win.
Mid-tail keywords sit in between — specific enough to be winnable, broad enough to get decent traffic. “Keyword research for beginners.” “Frugal meal prep ideas.” These are worth targeting once you have a bit of authority behind you, but for your first 20 or 30 posts, long-tail is your friend.
The goal isn’t to rank for one big keyword. It’s to rank for dozens of smaller ones that add up.
What keyword research actually looks like in practice
Here’s the thing that nobody tells you: keyword research doesn’t have to mean obsessing over data. Some of the best keyword research is just thinking like your reader.
When I started Planet Houseplant in 2019, I barely tracked keywords at all. I wrote about houseplants because I’d become obsessed with them, and I wrote about the specific things I’d been searching for myself six months earlier. What does it mean when a Monstera grows aerial roots? Should I cut them? Can I propagate from them? I wrote that article because it was a natural part of covering Monstera care thoroughly — not because I’d done any formal research.
That article made me £20 a day for about three years, and is still going to this day.
It turned out “Monstera aerial roots” was a keyword with real search volume and almost no competition at the time. I stumbled into it by thinking about what a Monstera owner actually needs to know, rather than what would get clicks. Imagine if I’d done that intentionally from the start.
That’s what keyword research lets you do. It takes the guesswork out of “will anyone find this?” and replaces it with a degree of confidence that you’re writing something people are actually looking for.
Keyword research vs. writing what you want
There’s a version of keyword research advice that makes it sound like you should never write anything that isn’t confirmed by a tool. I don’t believe that, and I don’t work that way.
Your site needs direction — and keyword research gives you that. But it also needs to make sense as a whole. Some articles you’ll write knowing you’ll never rank highly for them, because your readers would expect to see them. On the pothos site I’m building as I write this, I’m never going to outrank the big houseplant sites for a general “how to care for pothos” guide. But it would be strange not to have one. It anchors the site.
The balance to strike is this: use keyword research to plan the majority of your content, and use your understanding of your reader to fill in the gaps that data alone wouldn’t surface. The two approaches aren’t in conflict — they’re better together.
Why it matters more than almost anything else you’ll do
There are bloggers who are better writers than me who earn nothing from their blogs. There are bloggers who are worse writers than me who earn thousands a month. The difference, most of the time, isn’t talent. It’s whether they’re writing for search.
Between 2012 and 2018, I write hundreds of articles and the only money I made was likely due to someone’s fat fingers. I was writing consistently, improving my craft, building something I was proud of. But I wasn’t writing for the people who were searching. I was writing for myself. And no, I was NOT aware of that fact.
Keyword research is what closes that gap. It’s what turns a blog you love into a blog other people can actually find.
What to do next
The next step is actually doing it — which sounds daunting but is more straightforward than you’d expect, and you don’t need to spend any money to get started.
[Article 21: How to Do Basic Keyword Research for Free] walks through the exact process I use, step by step, using only free tools.
If you want to go deeper on search intent first — because it’s the piece most beginners get wrong — [Article 22: What Is Search Intent and Why Should Bloggers Care?] is the place to start.
Frequently asked questions
Do bloggers really need to do keyword research?
Yes — but it doesn’t need to be complicated or expensive. Even a basic understanding of what people are searching for will put you ahead of the majority of bloggers who publish without thinking about it at all.
How long does keyword research take?
Once you have a process, around 20 to 30 minutes per post. The first few times will take longer while you get a feel for the tools and what you’re looking for.
Can I do keyword research without paid tools?
Yes. Google Autocomplete, People Also Ask, and the free tiers of tools like Ubersuggest and AnswerThePublic will get you very far. Paid tools are worth exploring once you have 40+ posts and want more granular data — but they’re not where you start.
I’ve never used them.
Oh, and don’t forget to use your own brain. What sorts of things do you google when trying to find info in your niche?
What happens if I ignore keyword research?
You’ll write posts that nobody finds through search. You might get some social media traffic, but it won’t be sustainable. Most blogs that “failed” didn’t fail because the writing was bad — they failed because nobody could find them.
It would be disingenuous to say that SEO and keyword research is the be all and end all like it used to be. It’s not. BUT writing articles that don’t rank in search means you’re missing out on a tonne of potential traffic.