Keyword Research Checklist

Use this for: The selected draft or published page being reviewed.

In your research sheet, name the audience, actual offering, country or region and content language. List exclusions such as services you do not provide or markets you cannot serve. These settings affect both query meaning and tool metrics. Do not use your own physical location as a substitute for the website’s intended market.

1. Name the offering and audience.
2. Choose the intended market and language.
3. Write clear exclusions before collecting ideas.

Use this for: The selected draft or published page being reviewed.

Review product categories, service descriptions, support questions and real customer wording. Write broad seed topics and the tasks behind them. Seeds are starting points for discovery, not automatic page titles. If using AI to brainstorm, treat its suggestions as hypotheses; generated phrases and search-volume numbers are not evidence of actual demand.

1. Collect real offering and question language.
2. Group it into seed topics.
3. Keep the underlying task beside each seed.

Use this for: The selected draft or published page being reviewed.

Search a seed and review related questions or suggestions that are actually shown. If you already have Google Keyword Planner access, open Discover new keywords and enter a seed topic. Set the intended location and language, then review relevant ideas. In another keyword tool, use its matching or related-terms view with equivalent market settings. Add relevant phrases to the sheet with their source and checked date. Keep ambiguity visible and remove unrelated meanings. A suggestion is a research lead, not proof that it needs its own page.

1. Search each useful seed.
2. Collect relevant suggestions or tool ideas.
3. Remove unrelated meanings and keep source context.

Use this for: The selected draft or published page being reviewed.

Open Search Console’s Performance report, choose a suitable period and market filters, then review the Queries tab. Export relevant rows or copy a manageable set. Look at clicks and impressions together, and open a query’s Pages view to see which URLs appear for it. These are searches where your site was shown, not a complete market-demand database.

1. Choose the period and filters.
2. Review relevant queries and their page associations.
3. Add promising unmet questions to the research sheet.

Use this for: The selected draft or published page being reviewed.

Search the CMS and page inventory for each promising topic. Read the matching pages and compare their purpose with the query. Choose to improve an existing page when it can answer the task well. Keep a genuinely different product, service or guide page distinct. Several pages appearing for one query is a clue to review, not automatic evidence of harmful overlap.

1. Find matching existing pages.
2. Compare their actual tasks and coverage.
3. Mark reuse, improve or genuinely new page.

Use this for: The selected draft or published page being reviewed.

For each keyword metric you use, retain the provider, checked date, geography, period and relevant settings. Keep original values or ranges rather than inventing precision. In Keyword Planner, average monthly searches includes close variants and depends on selected settings. A blank, unavailable or grouped value is not a verified exact-query count.

1. Inspect the metric’s definition and settings.
2. Keep the original value or range.
3. Mark missing values n/a and distinguish grouped terms.

Use this for: The selected draft or published page being reviewed.

Use a suitable historical window in the keyword tool or Google Trends when data exists. Compare the intended market and meaningful time periods. Trends shows normalized relative interest, not an absolute search count; low-volume terms may show zero. Use seasonal patterns to plan timing, and do not label a brief spike as durable demand without more evidence.

1. Review a relevant historical period.
2. Compare like-for-like market settings.
3. Mark seasonal, stable or uncertain demand.

Use this for: The selected draft or published page being reviewed.

Do not treat Keyword Planner’s Competition column as an organic SEO difficulty score; it describes advertiser competition. If a third-party tool gives an organic difficulty estimate, read its definition and use it as one input. Open competing pages and judge format, evidence, established brands and the work your team can credibly produce. No score guarantees an easy ranking.

1. Identify what the competition metric measures.
2. Read relevant competing page bodies.
3. Describe the evidence and resources your answer would need.

Use this for: The selected draft or published page being reviewed.

Combine the topic with useful tasks, attributes or audiences, such as compare, measure, repair, size or beginner. Keep only combinations your site can answer accurately. Search promising variants and review their meaning before adding them to the map. Do not generate location or product pages by swapping words when the offering and answer do not materially differ.

1. Choose relevant task and attribute modifiers.
2. Create a bounded set of meaningful hypotheses.
3. Validate their intent and site fit before planning content.

Use this for: The selected draft or published page being reviewed.

Search the candidate phrase in the intended context and open relevant results. Identify whether the reader needs information, a comparison, a service, a product list, a specific product or a tool. Record mixed intent when the results genuinely differ. Use observations as evidence of current intent, not a guarantee that every successful page must copy the same format.

1. Search the query and a close variant.
2. Read the result pages rather than only their titles.
3. Choose a supported page type or flag ambiguity.

Use this for: The selected draft or published page being reviewed.

Compare candidate queries by task, format and required information. Group them when one coherent page could satisfy them without stretching its scope. Use overlap in relevant result pages as supporting evidence, then check the meaning manually. Separate queries when the needed format or outcome is materially different. There is no universal overlap percentage that settles every case.

1. Compare query tasks and required formats.
2. Group equivalent answers.
3. Separate genuine differences and flag uncertain clusters.

Use this for: The selected draft or published page being reviewed.

For each cluster, choose a representative primary phrase that clearly names its task. Add supporting queries, page type, reader outcome and the existing or planned URL. The primary phrase is a writing focus, not a limit on the searches a page can answer. Keep a question as a section when it fits naturally inside the page’s larger task.

1. Choose a representative primary phrase.
2. Assign the page and supporting questions.
3. Mark existing update, new page or section treatment.

Use this for: The selected draft or published page being reviewed.

Order the mapped opportunities by relevance, observed demand, existing-page potential and the ability to create a useful answer. Keep uncertainty and missing inputs beside the recommendation. Supply the chosen intent, supporting questions and evidence needs to the writer. Hand business commitments and resource decisions to the strategy owner rather than turning an estimated volume into a promised result.

1. Compare fit, evidence and delivery feasibility.
2. Choose a manageable research priority order.
3. Hand the writer a page purpose and required answers.