Choosing keywords is something everyone talks about. But when it is time to actually do it, the reality is less glamorous: dozens of tools, thousands of suggestions and zero certainty about the right direction to take. Without a solid keyword choice, it is impossible to rank on Google or attract truly qualified traffic.
Here we walk you through the method, the tools and the shortcuts to make the right choices from the start.
Keyword choice: the first step to rank on Google
Keyword research is the starting point of any SEO strategy that holds up. Before writing a single line, before even thinking about the structure of your web pages, you must identify the expressions that your future visitors type into the Google search bar.
Every query entered by a user on a search engine reflects a precise search intent:
- To get information
- To compare
- To buy
A good main keyword reflects exactly what your target is looking for.
Typical example: if you sell digital marketing courses, targeting the expression marketing course seems logical. Yet, without analyzing search volume and the search results already ranked, you risk creating content that stays invisible against the competition.
On the contrary, a more targeted main query in your sector like online digital marketing course for SEO freelancers opens the way to the first page of Google and qualified traffic, truly related to your website.
Choosing the right keywords is laying the foundations of a profitable SEO strategy. And an SEO-optimized article always starts there.
How to define your goals before choosing your keywords?
Choosing a keyword does not start in a research tool. It begins with a simple question: what goal are you trying to reach with your website? Generate traffic, improve your conversions, develop your local visibility? The answer guides your entire keyword strategy, and every following decision flows from it.
Identify your target’s profile and search intent
Before launching any research, take the time to draw up the real profile of your users. A user typing a query into Google always has a precise need behind their question, and your job is to understand it. The points to clarify:
- What subject interests your potential customer at this exact moment?
- What level of knowledge do they have on the topic?
- Are they looking for information, a comparison or a product to buy?
An online seller and a blogger do not target the same main keywords at all. For instance, informational intent (“how to choose an electric bike”) and transactional intent (“buy cheap electric bike”) call for very different content:
- the first targets a user in the discovery phase, looking for a guide
- the second targets a customer ready to place an order
Align your keyword list with your content strategy
Once your target is identified, you have to move from the business goal to a keyword list usable on a daily basis. Each keyword must correspond to a precise piece of content in your editorial plan:
- a blog post linked to an informational question
- a product sheet or service page aligned with a transactional query
- a local page meant to capture traffic in your geographic area
First list your main themes, then break them down into families of associated keywords. The lexical field and semantic analysis help you cover every topic in depth, without leaving out any relevant expression.
This global vision structures your entire SEO and prevents you from publishing texts that overlap. If you manage an online store, a well-designed e-commerce content strategy follows exactly this logic.
The essential tools to find and analyze your keywords
A clear vision is a good start. Having the right levers is essential to bring it to life. Because without reliable data, keyword choice is done by guesswork, and the results show it quickly. Here are the most effective free and paid solutions to perform solid keyword research and obtain relevant insights.
Google Keyword Planner, Google Suggest and the Search Console
Google offers three free tools that already cover a solid working base:
- Google Keyword Planner: this planning tool displays search volume, the level of competition and provides estimates of clicks and impressions for every keyword. All you need is a Google account and access to Google Ads to use it.
- Google Suggest: type the start of an expression in the Google search bar, and keyword suggestions appear instantly. It is an excellent way to discover long-tail queries you would not have thought of. Small tip: do this search in private browsing or while not signed in to your Google account, to limit the personalization of suggestions linked to your history.
- Google Search Console: this free tool shows you the actual queries on which your website is already visible in Google search results. You can see positions, click-through rates and the pages associated with each keyword.
These three solutions, combined, give you a sufficient overview to list your first keywords and identify the themes to develop.
Complementary SEO tools
Google tools cover the basics, but to refine your keyword strategy, you need a more complete view. Several specialized platforms go further in the analysis: ranking difficulty, market trends, comparative table of the competition, advanced semantic analysis.
The idea is not to rely on a single source of data, but to cross-reference insights from several AI tools dedicated to SEO to make the best decisions.
A French tool highly valued by SEO experts. It helps identify keywords associated with a topic and evaluate the real competition on every keyword, with a clear reading of difficulty.
A must-have for in-depth competition analysis. Its Keywords Explorer displays the volume, difficulty, estimated clicks and popularity of every query, with precise filters by country and language.
The benchmark for spying on competing websites. Its keyword research tool delivers a complete overview: volume, trend, related questions and new keywords to exploit in your sector.
The most affordable option in this selection. Ubersuggest displays volume data, SEO difficulty and relevant keyword suggestions. A limited free version is already enough to get a first impression of a topic’s potential.
How does Wisewand help you choose the right keywords and create optimized content?
These tools are references in digital marketing, no one is going to argue otherwise. But their cost rises quickly, not to mention the time spent juggling between platforms. Wisewand approached the problem from the other side by integrating dedicated keyword choice features into its WordPress plugin, and they do the job in the vast majority of cases:
- Keywords Ideas: the plugin analyzes your site and displays untapped long-tail keywords, easy-to-rank opportunities and new topics to develop in your sector
- Competitor Spy: enter the URL of a competitor, and you get the exact SEO gap between their site and yours, with the list of expressions on which you are not yet ranking
- AI Semantic Deduplication: this feature spots overly similar keywords, groups clusters and eliminates duplicates before writing to avoid cannibalization between your pages
- Automatic Roadmap: once your list is cleaned up, Wisewand generates a complete editorial plan with the SEO priority, the production order and the estimated potential of every piece of content
And that is where the difference widens compared to traditional tools. Once your keywords are identified, you do not need to switch to another piece of software: Wisewand takes over content generation.
The automatic SERP analysis studies the best-ranked pages on search engines, then adapts the structure, tags and semantic optimization of every text. Your site’s Google ranking progresses article after article, with no extra effort.
Whether you manage a showcase site, an online store or a network of websites, everything is steered from your WordPress dashboard. And if you are looking to automate your blog over the long term, the combination of the plugin and the RSS Feed mode does the work for you, even while you sleep.
