How should you use AI for SEO keyword research?

An SEO keyword list gives your website optimization a target. It is like archery: if you do not even know where the target is, you cannot decide which direction your SEO should take.

Traditionally, consultants and specialists spent hours choosing keywords from a business’s services and products, weighing search volume, relevance and competitors. That process takes considerable time and effort, and it has become a barrier that keeps many brands from getting started with SEO.

Can AI do this now? Absolutely. But the method may be different from what you expect. Here is how a specialist can use AI to develop a useful SEO keyword list.

Simply asking AI does not solve the problem

Let me be direct: if you give AI a prompt like this, you can end up with a junk list that is no use at all:

Please research the market for buying vintage spirits and give me an SEO keyword list to use as the foundation for my future SEO work.

There are two problems:

1. AI needs keyword data. Without access to search-volume data, it has no reliable basis for judging which keywords are useful.
2. In my experience, you need to explicitly ask AI to research the web. Web research requires an extra step; if it can answer directly, it may skip that work and miss the things users actually care about.

Here is how to build an SEO keyword list with AI

1. Prepare a tool that gives AI access to keyword search volume. You can set up Google Ads, use a third-party platform such as DataForSEO, or ask AI to suggest a suitable tool.
2. Use the following prompt:

My core business includes buying vintage spirits, coins and antiques. Research these markets with the goal of producing an SEO keyword list. Follow this process:
1. Use a browser to search for each core business area and collect the first three pages of search results.
2. Analyze the websites in those results. Extract commonly used keywords from headings, page titles, descriptions and body content. Keep the keywords relevant to my business.
3. Use the keyword-volume platform to obtain search-volume data. Remove keywords whose search volume is too low for this project, and retain keyword groups with sufficient demand.
4. From these groups, identify related areas that take my core business in different keyword directions. Use them as the core topics for the next round, and repeat steps 1–3.
5. Continue building the list until it contains 100 keywords.

This process gives you a useful keyword list supported by search-volume data and competitor research.