How to Choose SEO Keywords: Prioritizing Goals, Search Volume, and Competition

To choose SEO keywords, first define your goal—visibility, inquiries, or sales. Use that goal to discover and filter candidate keywords, identify search intent, and then compare search volume and organic search competition. Higher search volume does not automatically make a keyword more worthwhile, nor should the lowest-difficulty keyword always come first. Prioritization also depends on whether your website can meet searchers’ needs and whether targeting those searches can help you achieve your goal. Search volume cannot be treated as expected traffic or revenue.

Define your goals first to know which searches are worth pursuing

If your goal is brand visibility, broad informational keywords can have value. If you want inquiries, focus on searches for service comparisons and pricing. An article from David’s Camp contrasts “SEO” with “recommended SEO companies” and “SEO service pricing”: people searching for the first may be beginners, students, or simply curious readers. Those searching for the latter two are more likely to be comparing providers—but that still does not guarantee a sale.

An article on Neil Patel’s website also uses hypothetical numbers to illustrate the point: a keyword with 50 monthly searches and clear commercial intent may be more valuable than an informational keyword with 5,000 searches but no practical path to conversion. This is an example of how to assess value, not a performance forecast.

Expand topics into candidate keywords, then group them by need

Start with topics relevant to your business or content area, then use search suggestions and related searches to expand your list of candidate keywords. An author sharing their experience on iThome uses “making money online” as an example, branching into terms about methods, scams, recommendations, and platforms. Although these terms share a topic, readers are trying to solve different problems. You can group them by need:

• Facing a problem: looking for an explanation or solution.
• Gathering information: seeking to understand the topic and available options.
• Comparing options: looking for differences, pros and cons, or criteria for choosing.
• Taking action: ready to buy or find a service.

As part of our content services at Procrustes, we turn questions customers genuinely care about into articles, with ongoing content planning, writing, and updates.

You can also follow the approach suggested in Tenten’s article: first use AnswerThePublic to discover questions, then check search volume and competition with Ubersuggest, Semrush, or Ahrefs. Finding a question does not prove that enough people are searching for it.

When comparing metrics, do not confuse advertising competition with SEO difficulty

First, check how a tool defines “competition.” A response on Warrior Forum notes that advertising competition metrics are not the same as organic search competition. A 2024 Semrush article distinguishes between overall keyword difficulty and personalized difficulty; the latter accounts for a specific website’s topical relevance and authority, so the two may produce different assessments.

High search volume does not necessarily mean high difficulty: popular keywords are not always difficult to rank for, and low-volume keywords may face intense competition because of their commercial value. Examine the websites ranking in the search results, along with the depth and format of their content, to determine whether your content can meet the same needs. According to a 2026 Seer Interactive article, search features such as AI Overviews and featured snippets also affect how clicks are distributed.

Prioritize feasible opportunities, then plan long-term investment

Neil Patel’s website suggests starting with low-difficulty keywords that have reasonable search volume to gather ranking data. Then, invest in keywords with strong commercial intent and gradually add high-volume informational keywords that build awareness. This is one possible strategy, not a fixed rule.

If your immediate goal is inquiries, do not prioritize informational keywords over service-related keywords simply because they have higher volume. Reassess candidate keywords if they do not align with the needs reflected in the search results.