How To Structure Your Keyword List Effectively

Keyword Research Tips, Templates

Welcome to Keyword Tool’s guide on How To Structure Your Keyword List Effectively.

The first step to building a profitable keyword list is to do keyword research. Using a tool like Keyword Tool, you can extract 1000s of keywords on any topic or niche.

Once you have exported your list of keywords, the next step is to structure it based on different intent categories.

Once you have your keyword list ready, watch this short video to learn about the different intent categories and how you can structure your keywords effectively.

Here are the steps if you prefer to read:

Get started by exporting a list of keywords related to your business. From your list of search terms, you would then need to select keywords which fit into the sections of a 4×3 matrix.

keyword research framework

On the top row (highlighted in green) are 4 different keyword categories, which we will call “buckets”.

  1. Brand – Keywords which mention your brand.
  2. Niche – Niche-related or product related keywords. For example, if you are in the business of selling shoes, “shoes” would be a niche keyword.
  3. Competitors – Search terms people would use when looking for your competitor’s business.
  4. Related keywords – Keywords which are related or similar to your niche keywords.

Organizing your keywords into buckets let you systematically target keywords which are most valuable to your business, followed by keywords which are more broadly-related. If your brand is Nike, for example, you want to make sure you are ranking for your own brand keywords first, since these keywords will likely bring the highest ROI.

Each bucket is further divided into “Intent” categories.

  1. Information – Keyword phrases people use when first starting their research into a topic. These searchers are typically not ready to buy and are still researching about your products or brand.
  2. Interested – Search terms in this category have already shown initial intent and interest in your products. They might be looking to do more in-depth research or compare your products with other brands.
  3. Intent-To-Buy – Search terms here usually indicate that a person is looking to make a purchase. These are the low-hanging fruits you need to be targeting at all times.

While it may seem like a no-brainer to only target the keywords in the “Intent-To-Buy” group, it is equally as important to nurture people searching for information or are interested in your products, as ultimately they will end up becoming buyers.

Once you’ve exhausted your brand keywords, you should expand your keywords into other categories such as Niche, Competitors and Related Keywords. These categories are a great way to capture a wider market share as these keywords will make up the rest of the search volume in your niche. Remember to filter for keywords which have a reasonable search volume range, as you don’t want to spend too much effort targeting keywords which are not popular.

How Keyword Tool Can Help You Structure Your Keyword List

To help you compile your keyword list faster, you can use the various features of Keyword Tool to discover keywords which fall into the different “buckets” and “intent” categories. For example:

  • For competitors bucket – Use Analyze Competitors.
  • For related bucket – Use the Related Keywords tab.
  • Information keywords – Use the Questions tab.
  • Interested keywords – Use the Prepositions tab.

In summary, you can use this framework to put structure into 1000s of keywords and prioritize the most valuable keywords for targeting. You can also use this framework to showcase the most lucrative keyword opportunities for your clients.