Keyword research: the questions we get asked most

Most teams know this matters. Fewer have decided who owns it. The questions about keyword research that come up most often on our calls.

Search engines are trying to answer a question, so the pages that answer questions clearly tend to do well. The teams that stay on top of it are the ones who put it on a calendar rather than a wish list.

Do we need to care about this?

Search volume matters less than matching intent. None of that requires a large budget, only a decision and someone to own it. The practical test is whether someone new to the project could tell, in a minute, that it had been handled.

Can it wait until after launch?

Occasionally. More often the post-launch version costs several times the pre-launch one. The reasoning matters more than the rule, because the rule has exceptions.

How do we know it is working?

Look at what already ranks before writing anything. That sounds obvious written down. It is still the thing most often skipped. Check it against what you would want a competitor's site to get wrong.

The short version

Search work compounds slowly, which is why it gets abandoned about two months before it would have paid off. Three things worth confirming about keyword research before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Search volume matters less than matching intent — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If you want a second opinion on how yours is set up, ask.