Hey there,
Hope you’re having a productive week so far. Last Thursday, we focused on building content that speaks—to your audience, their needs, and the message you want your brand to deliver.
But even the best content can’t help your business if the right people never find it.
That brings us to this week’s topic: smarter keyword research for WordPress. We’ll dig into the practical side of uncovering the search terms your audience is already using, choosing the ones that genuinely fit your market, and applying them thoughtfully across your site and content. This is where SEO shifts from theory into strategy—helping your website attract the visitors who are actively looking for what you offer, not just anyone passing by.
Week #11 - Smarter Keyword Research - How to Get Found Without Guesswork
Weekly Picks
This guide explains keyword research from the ground up, showing how to identify search terms, evaluate intent, understand ranking potential, and apply findings directly to content strategy for stronger long-term organic visibility.
A modern look at keyword research in an era shaped by AI search, evolving search intent, and SERP changes. It focuses on practical techniques that keep websites visible despite shifting algorithms and collapsing keyword assumptions.
A clear breakdown of short-tail versus long-tail keywords, their strengths, weaknesses, and best use cases, helping site owners balance traffic potential with ranking difficulty and better align content with real search behavior.
This article walks through structured competitor keyword research, including discovering who you’re competing with, analyzing their content strengths, and turning their winning queries into strategic opportunities. Ideal when inspiration runs dry (hey, it happens).
Lists, Lists, & Lists
A practical list of up-to-date keyword research tools for budgets of all sizes, with strengths and weaknesses highlighted so you can quickly choose what matches your workflow without wading through marketing fluff.
A helpful roundup of the most common keyword research pitfalls, from ignoring intent to chasing vanity keywords. It’s the kind of list that helps beginners avoid painful months of wasted work (and missed clicks).
A curated selection of tools designed to expose what your competitors rank for, how much traffic they earn, and where their weaknesses lie. Ideal for building a smarter SEO strategy instead of guessing.
A beginner-friendly breakdown of SERP analysis, walking through how to evaluate pages already ranking and use those insights to create content that matches search intent and stands a real chance of competing.
Smooth Operations
Seasonal search behavior becomes a huge opportunity at this time of year, especially as holidays, promotions, and high-intent buying seasons kick in. But sustainable WordPress growth doesn’t come from chasing spikes alone. This week we’re looking at how seasonal trends and evergreen keywords can work together to build steady traffic year-round while still capturing key moments when customers are actively hunting for solutions.
A practical guide to balancing seasonal spikes with stable evergreen searches, helping you build predictable traffic without missing short-term opportunities (holidays, sales, trends, etc.).
A simple introduction to creating content that ranks consistently, supports long-term topics, and keeps sending traffic long after publication — digital compound interest in action.
Extra Boost
Course | Full SEO Tutorial for Beginners
A complete SEO training series that explains the fundamentals step-by-step, perfect for beginners who want structured guidance rather than scattered tips. Great for building confidence quickly without feeling overwhelmed.
A practical walkthrough for identifying real online competitors, not just who you think they are. Includes multiple methods, tools, and frameworks for discovering sites competing for the same audience and keywords.
Infographic | Infographic: The 5 Steps of Keyword Research
A visual, bite-sized breakdown of the core keyword research process. Easy to scan, easy to remember, and a perfect reference to keep nearby while planning your content strategy.
Guide & Templates | SEO Topic Clusters: Complete Guide, Examples & Free Templates
A detailed explanation of topic clustering, complete with examples and templates. Ideal for turning individual blog posts into structured content ecosystems that drive stronger rankings and internal linking benefits.
A deep dive into using AI to generate keywords strategically, including tools, prompts, and workflows. Useful when you want speed without sacrificing search intent or relevance (no AI “magic thinking”).
Weekly Tip | How to Validate a Keyword Without Any Paid Tools
Keyword research often feels like something only big-budget teams with premium SEO subscriptions can do. But for most SMBs, early-stage businesses, and WordPress site owners, paid tools aren’t necessary to validate whether a keyword is worth targeting. With a smart, systematic approach, you can understand search volume, competition, and content expectations using just the tools you already have — and a bit of curiosity.
Why Keyword Validation Matters for Small Sites Choosing a keyword isn’t about guessing or writing what “sounds good.” It’s about evaluating whether the terms you want to rank for
have real demand,
are achievable for a site of your size, and
match the expectations of the people searching.
Without validation, you risk spending hours writing content or optimizing product pages that never stand a chance of performing — not because the idea is bad, but because it’s misaligned with what search engines and users expect. Validation turns content decisions from emotion-driven to evidence-based.
Step 1 — See If People Are Searching for It. Start with Google itself. Type the keyword into the search bar and look at autocomplete suggestions as you type — these reflect real searches people perform frequently. You can also scroll to the bottom of the search results page for “Related Searches.” If nothing appears in either place, it may be too obscure. If you see variations, modifiers, or follow-up phrases, that’s a good early signal.
Step 2 — Check What the Competition Looks Like. Open the first page of Google and analyze the results. Are you seeing major publishers dominating — sites like HubSpot, The New York Times, or enterprise SaaS blogs? For a smaller site, that keyword might be hard to win. But if the results are a mix of blogs, small businesses, niche sites, or even forums, the playing field may be within reach. Also note the average Domain Authority of ranking sites using a free browser plugin like MozBar — not mandatory, but helpful for context.
Step 3 — Evaluate Search Intent. What type of pages are already ranking? Blog posts? Service pages? Product listings? Comparisons? Guides? This instantly tells you what Google believes the searcher wants. If every result is a product listing and you were planning an educational blog post, you’re misaligned. When your content shape matches search intent, you dramatically increase the odds of ranking.
Step 4 — Look at Content Depth and Gaps. Skim the top 5–10 results and ask:
What do they cover in common?
What is missing?
What do people seem to care about most?
Could your content be clearer, simpler, more complete, or more useful? Even without paid tools, you can spot gaps that represent real opportunities — a missing FAQ, an outdated tutorial, a lack of multimedia, unaddressed objections, or steps that are unclear.
Step 5 — Reality-Check With Your Own Data. If your WordPress site already has Google Search Console connected, search for related terms in your existing queries report. Sometimes you’ll discover:
you already rank for related terms,
there’s an audience already finding you,
your site is seen as relevant for that topic. That can be all the validation you need to confidently commit to a keyword.
Takeaway
You don’t need paid tools to make smart keyword decisions — you just need a structured approach. Look for evidence that real users are searching, determine whether the competitive landscape is realistic for your site, ensure your content aligns with search intent, and confirm that you can create something genuinely more useful than what’s already ranking.
With just Google Search, Search Console, and a sharp eye, you can make informed, strategic SEO decisions — and publish content with confidence, not guesswork.
That’s a Wrap
Edition #11 finishes here, and you should feel proud — keyword research is one of the toughest steps for new site owners to approach, and you’ve now built a meaningful foundation.
This week was all about understanding how your audience searches, choosing the terms that support your goals, and applying them in ways that make your WordPress presence stronger and more intentional. Small steps, steady progress — the good kind.
Next week, we’ll refine things even more with On-Page SEO — Titles, Meta, URLs, Images, focusing on how to communicate clearly to both search engines and real humans.
You’re growing, your site is growing — keep going.
See you in the next issue! 📬
Gabor, for WP Growth Weekly