How Do You Choose and Keep Tracking Target Keywords?

When choosing target keywords, first confirm that they align with your business and searchers’ needs. Then weigh search volume, competition, and your website’s current authority to identify terms you have a chance of ranking for. After publishing content, keep tracking rankings for these keywords alongside impressions, clicks, and organic traffic to assess performance, then refine your content and keyword choices. Do not choose terms solely because they have the highest search volume, or assume that higher rankings directly mean more revenue.

First identify what searchers want, then decide which type of page will meet that need

Start with terms that clearly describe your products or services, review competitors’ websites, and use keyword tools to expand your candidate list. Relevance matters more than list length: if your product is not specifically designed for churches, “church website builder” may not be a suitable primary target keyword for your homepage.

Next, assess search intent and examine the actual search results rather than relying only on a tool’s classifications:

• Navigational intent: looking for a specific website or page.
• Informational intent: wanting to learn about or understand a topic.
• Commercial intent: comparing options to help make a purchase decision.
• Transactional intent: ready to buy, sign up, or take action.

A single keyword may reflect multiple intents. Checking whether the top results are homepages, service pages, or instructional content can help you decide what kind of page to provide.

At Procrustes, we plan, write, and update articles around the questions our clients genuinely care about.

Consider competition and your website’s capabilities, not just search volume

High search volume does not mean a keyword is worth targeting immediately. Even if a keyword is relevant to your business, intense competition may make it worth starting with related, less competitive terms to build authority gradually.

Semrush recommends considering search volume, competition, intent, and website authority together rather than simply setting a search-volume threshold. Several low-volume keywords may bring more traffic than one popular keyword for which you can only rank on the second page, but not every website will see this outcome.

Also examine demand trends: terms with steadily growing demand may be worth assessing first. For terms with declining demand, consider how easily you could attract the remaining search traffic. Prepare content for seasonal topics before demand peaks.

Build a tracking list and keep the settings consistent

Once you have selected keywords and published content, use a rank-tracking tool to monitor the full set of target keywords over time rather than occasionally searching for a few terms manually. Confirm the target location, language, search engine, and device in your settings so that each comparison covers the same scope.

In addition to organic search rankings, local businesses should also track Google Maps rankings in their target areas. Monitor these separately to avoid combining different search contexts into a single performance measure.

Ranking changes are a starting point for investigation, not proof of a cause

Regularly review ranking gains and losses for your target keywords alongside impressions, clicks, and average position in Search Console, as well as your website’s organic search traffic. Assess these metrics together; rankings alone cannot establish improvements in conversions or revenue.

When substantial fluctuations occur, compare date ranges before and after the change. If the timing overlaps with a known search engine update, treat that as a clue for further investigation. Timing alone does not prove that the update caused a ranking decline. Continue reviewing content based on performance and adjusting your strategy.