Are You Doing Keywords Research in SEO Wrong? (A 5-Point Audit)

Key Takeaways

• Search volume alone doesn't matter. A keyword that is targeted depends on the intent of the search.

• Long-tail keywords (three or more words) make up the majority of all searches and tend to convert better than short, generic terms.

• Keyword cannibalization is the silent destroyer that robs pages of rankings by having multiple pages on your site vying for the same keyword.

• Skipping a real difficulty check wastes weeks of writing on keywords you were never going to rank for.

• Grouping keywords into clusters instead of writing one-off articles is what actually builds topical authority.

The term "keyword research" may seem like a simple task. Type a word into a tool, glance at the search volume, write an article around it. Done.

That's exactly the problem.

If you've been publishing regularly with little activity and that activity still isn't going anywhere, it's not necessarily due to the quality of your writing. It's what happened, or didn't happen, before you wrote a single word.

While keyword research may be done correctly, it's not about finding out the "big number" keywords. It's all about knowing why people are looking a term, then planning those terms as a plan rather than a random list.

Here's a 5-point audit to check where your process is going wrong, and exactly how to fix it.

The 5-Point Keyword Research Audit: Are You Making These Mistakes?

Go through this list honestly. Most sites are guilty of at least two or three.

1. You're chasing volume, not intent 

A keyword with 10,000 searches a month looks exciting on paper. However, if most of those searchers are searching for free information and your page is offering something for sale you will not rank or convert. Coffee maker is mentioned in both “Coffee maker” and “Best coffee maker under $50”. They don't use the same keyword.

2. You're ignoring long-tail keywords

Short, generic keywords get all the attention, but they're also the most competitive. Longer, more specific phrases are easier to get ranked for—and will generally convert more, as the person searching already knows what they are looking for.

3. You don't know you're cannibalizing yourself 

This occurs when two or more pages on your site subtly compete for the same keyword. You get two or three weaker page ranks instead of one strong one, and Google doesn't know which one to display.

4. You're guessing at difficulty 

Putting an article up and waiting for it to be ranked isn't a strategy. Unless the blog post's packed with high-authority sites, it has little chance of doing well, regardless of how well written it is.

5. You're treating every keyword as a standalone article 

If you're writing just one article per keyword and no connecting articles in between, then you have a jumbled site. If your site covers a topic thoroughly, instead of dozens of posts that are thin on the ground, then search engines will be impressed.

How to Fix Each Mistake (and Actually Start Ranking)

Knowing the mistakes is half the job. Here's how to fix each one, and how the right tool makes it faster.

Fix intent first, always. Before you write, ask: is this person trying to learn, compare, or buy? The free Search Intent Checker by SirWritesALot classifies a keyword into three categories: informational, commercial, and transactional, and will tell you which kind of content works best for your search keyword.

Build a long-tail list. Rather than competing for "shoes" go after "best running shoes for flat feet. SirWritesALot's free Long-Tail Keyword Generator transforms one long keyword into dozens of short, easy-to-rank phrases in seconds.

Audit for cannibalization before publishing anything new. Use a Keyword Cannibalization Checker to determine the presence of another page on your site targeting your target keyword. If it is, then update this page rather than creating an entirely new page.

Check difficulty like you mean it. Before committing to a keyword, examine the actual competition, search volume, and cost-per-click (CPC) – a great indicator of the commercial value of a keyword. SirWritesALot's free Keyword Difficulty Checker shows all three in a single search.

Cluster before you write. Sort your keyword list into topic groups and intent groups and write an article for a complete cluster of keywords, rather than just one. SirWritesALot's keyword clustering tool collects all of the keywords a competitor ranks for and clusters them by commonality, meaning that you will never be stuck with what to write next.

Real-World Examples: What Smart Keyword Research Looks Like

Take Allbirds. The shoe brand has three separate pages related to “running shoes”, one is a blog article about washing and caring for running shoes, one is a product page of shoe recommendations for beginners, and one is a running shoes page that contains multiple products. Three jobs altogether different and all with the same keyword. That's not cannibalization; that's smart differentiation, because each page matches a different reason someone might be searching.

Now, on the flip side of that. In the past, Backlinko's own articles, "SEO Tools" and "Best Free SEO Tools," were competing for the same search terms and intent for almost the same queries. Once combined into a single article with a redirect, the number of clicks went up by 466% year-over-year for the next two months. Same content goal, split across two pages, quietly working against itself the whole time.

Both stories point to the same lesson. It's not a problem if the same keywords appear on several pages. What is really being asked is what if each page is for a different question? If it does, leave it alone. If it doesn't, merge it.

This is also where long tail keywords come into play. In fact, that's the case for about 92% of all search queries, according to Backlinko's own analysis of more than 300 million keywords. A majority of the opportunity in keyword research in SEO isn't in large, general words. It's in those specific ones that no one really thinks about targeting.

Conclusion

Do a keyword search in SEO, which is not a one-off task that you do prior to writing. It is a continuous process, and not only is intent, competition, cannibalization, and structure worthy of initial review, but they should be checked regularly.

On your next few articles, go through these 5 and try to find out how many you will find yourself guilty of? It likely is more than one.

Fortunately, SirWritesALot offers several free keyword tools available to catch exactly these mistakes in advance, before they cost you months of traffic, such as the Search Intent Checker and the Keyword Cannibalization Checker. Pair that with the full platform's keyword clustering and competitor analysis, and keyword research stops being a guessing game and starts being an actual plan.

FAQs

How often should I redo my keyword research? 

Revisit it every few months, or any time traffic drops. A search trend and competition, and search intent, can all change over time.

What's a good keyword difficulty score for a new website? 

The newer sites tend to fare better when they begin with low-traffic, long-tail, keywords. Earning authority with simpler keywords helps to get more competitive keywords along the way.

Is keyword research still important with AI Overviews around? 

Yes, without a doubt. However, the answers provided by AI are still based on pages that are well aligned with the search intent, making it even more important to grasp search intent.

How many keywords should one article target? 

One main keyword, a few closely related long-tail and question keywords, all with the same intent. Having multiple articles with the same content but different keywords typically results in low rankings.

Do I need a paid tool, or are free keyword tools enough? 

You can use free tools, such as SirWritesALot's Keyword Difficulty Checker or Keyword Cannibalization Checker, to check keywords one by one. With a full content calendar, a complete platform makes clustering and tracking much less hands-on.