Keywords are the words and phrases people type into a search engine. In SEO, they are the demand signal: proof that a measurable number of people want something you can answer, and a way to size the opportunity before you write anything.
They are not magic words you sprinkle into copy. They are research.
What a keyword tells you
Every keyword carries three pieces of information; most people skip the third.
- Volume. Roughly how many searches happen each month. Treat it as a range, not a fact, because every tool models this differently.
- Difficulty. How strong the pages currently ranking are. Useful as a rough sort, useless as a precise score.
- Intent. What the searcher actually wants. This decides whether you write a guide, build a product page, or ignore the term completely.
Intent is where campaigns are won and lost. “Running shoes” and “how to clean running shoes” have similar volumes in some markets and almost nothing else in common. One is a buyer; one is a reader who already owns the product.
The four intent types
Informational searches want an answer. Commercial searches are comparing options before they buy. Transactional searches are ready to spend. Navigational searches are looking for a specific brand or page.
The fastest way to check intent is to search the term yourself and look at what Google serves. If the top ten are all product listings, no blog post is going to break in, whatever its quality.
Where the good keywords come from
Tools are the obvious starting point, but the best terms usually come from somewhere less tidy. Search Console shows you what you already rank for on page two, which is the cheapest traffic available to most sites. Sales calls and support tickets give you the exact language customers use, which rarely matches the neat phrases in a keyword tool. Competitor rankings show gaps you can fill.
We usually start with Search Console, because a page sitting at position 12 for a term with real volume is closer to money than any new article you could plan.
How many keywords per page
One primary keyword, then as many related terms as the topic naturally covers. A page built around “commercial epoxy flooring” will pick up “epoxy floor for warehouse”, “industrial resin flooring” and dozens of others without you forcing any of them in.
Density targets are a relic. Nobody at Google is counting how many times you said the phrase. Write the page for the person searching, then check you have used the primary term in the title, the H1 and the first paragraph. That is the whole job.
If you want your keyword set built from your own search data rather than a tool export, our data insights team starts with Search Console and revenue figures.
Common questions
How many keywords should a website target?
It depends entirely on how many pages you can maintain properly. A local business might build ten strong pages around ten clusters. An ecommerce site with 5,000 products is working with tens of thousands of terms. Quality of coverage beats raw count every time.
Are zero volume keywords worth targeting?
Often, yes. Tools round low volumes down to zero, so plenty of terms marked zero get real searches. If a zero-volume phrase describes exactly what you sell, it is usually worth a line on an existing page.
What is keyword difficulty actually measuring?
Mostly the backlinks pointing at the pages currently ranking. It ignores content quality, brand strength and site authority, so use it to sort a long list quickly, then check the results yourself before committing.
See our glossary entry for keywords for a shorter definition.
