When you are the owner of a website, keyword research is one of the most important activities you need to focus on in order to get users to reach you and find an answer to their questions or needs in your content.
Identifying them is both time-consuming and mentally demanding. However, only by going through this stage will you be able to set up an optimal SEO strategy and plan a publishing schedule that not only makes sense but also aligns with your goals.
In addition, finding the right keywords also helps you in digital advertising activities because how web advertising works also relies heavily on the same terms. At Isola we also deal with this: find out more about our activities as a SEM agency e Google Ads agency.
So here is the guide that will help you simplify yourkeyword research operation and give you the breakthrough you’ve been waiting for.
What is meant by keyword research
The search for keywords (i.e. keywords) falls within the large field of SEO. Search engine optimization allows Google to understand the topic you are dealing with and have you appear within the results page (or SERP) for a given search in a higher or lower position based on how useful it judges your text to be for the user’s needs.
In fact, keywords are nothing more than words, phrases or questions that people surfing the Web ask search engines to answer their own question or need. Knowing them-and including them in your texts-will ensure that your content will show up in the first positions of the SERP and that your site will be reached by important traffic that is functional to your business.
Not only that, knowing what users are searching for online also allows you to figure out what topics are useful to talk about in the pages and blog of your site. Or more subtly, what slant to give to articles and descriptions. For example, if you have a shoe e-commerce business and find that a very frequent search is “red shoes,” you can write a blog post on how to match red shoes or a product description that talks about the color of the shoe.
Is keyword research really important?
When you want to create a website, build an e-commerce or develop a landing page, keyword research is not only important: it’s almost everything.
The more you know and use the keywords with which your products, services or the topics you talk about on your blog are searched, the more you will be able to create useful and optimized content. This is crucial for 3 orders of reasons still valid today:
1. most of the traffic on sites comes from search engines
2. more than 90% of web surfers only consult the first page of the entire SERP
3. more than 1 in 2 users open only the first 5 results offered by Google
Now that you certainly understand why you should invest your time in this activity, let the experts at Isola di Comunicazione tell you how to do it.
An initial disclaimer is necessary, however: the SEO Specialist (i.e., keyword research specialist) is a profession that requires study and training and therefore cannot be summarized in a few lines. The same can also be said of the copywriter. In this regard you might be interested in our article SEO copywriting: what it is.

How to perform optimal keyword research
Let’s see together how to perform keyword research that can enable you to achieve the traffic goals you have in mind, distinguishing 3 different stages:
- the initial brainstorming
- competitor analysis
- the actual keyword search
Brainstorming before the actual keyword research
Even before the actual research, it is helpful to have a general brainstorming session in which you put down on paper all the ideas that come to mind. Specifically, the questions you should try to answer are:
- What do I want to talk about?
- What are the topics related to my business?
This is essential in case you own a personal blog, but it can also help you in case you have a showcase site for your business. In fact, the articles do not necessarily have to be only about your products or services, but you can engage users in your world by demonstrating your knowledge, values and writing about trivia and anecdotes that relate to business life or your industry.
At this stage, do not worry about order or making sense of everything. You will categorize what emerged later, schematizing all the insights that came to you.
Competitor analysis: what keywords are they using?

If you have a business you know this: doing business also means knowing what others are doing andexploiting it in your favor. Analyze the sites of all your competitors to find out what they are about, and when you have a list of their topics, put it into yours and try to do better than them by adding your own personal touch.
Search for all keywords that link to your topics
Now that you have a complete list of all the content you want to include on your site or blog, you are ready to get down to the practicalact: the actual keyword research. Specifically, you need to focus on each general topic and study all the recommended keywords on a given topic, looking at search volumes and competitiveness.
The very latter will tell you how users search for information on Google and what aspects they are most interested in. In this way, you can already start jotting down outlines of articles to be made.
To find the most clicked keywords, it is good to make use of online tools. Their operation is more or less always the same. You will need to:
- enter the general theme in the search bar
- click on Analyze and wait for it to load
- Evaluate all the keywords that are given to you
There are many on the web, however, the most popular and used in Italy are:
- Google Trends
- Google Ads
- Seozoom
Google Trends
Google Trends offers a lot of insights into keywords and points to interesting insights that are useful to delve into when you want to know about user behavior. Moreover, it is the tool created by the search engine itself, and who better to tell us how people act on its platform than Google? For that alone, it deserves a chance.
Google Ads
Google Ads is the primary means of creating paid ads online. Similar to Google Trends, it also analyzes keywords and flags the top-performing ones for you, as well as doing acomprehensive analysis of your competitors.
Find out more about the Google Ads management service we can offer you, or learn more about it by checking out the guides in the Web Marketing section of our blog.
Seozoom
On the contrary, SeoZoom is not Google-owned but is just as good, especially the premium version. It is one of the most widely used digital tools in our country and shows search volumes, related keywords, ranking opportunities and difficulties.
In any case, there are plenty of others, first of all SemRush. All you need to find the one you are most comfortable with is an online tour and lots of testing.
The 3 tips from Isola on keyword research
Having finished the steps we have just seen, you will realize one thing: keyword research is very confusing. In fact, the suggested keywords are numerous, and figuring out which ones to choose is difficult. Here are 3 tips from our SEO Specialists:
- Prefer long-tail keywords – These are the longest keywords (consisting of at least 3 or 4 entries) that usually correspond to a lower search volume. It may seem counterintuitive, but ranking for these is definitely easier because there is less competition. Also, the more specific the keyword, the more it reveals the user’s intentions and helps you understand exactly what they want.
- Better quality than excessive repetition – Years ago it was enough to repeat keywords an infinite number of times to rank high in the SERP, but that is no longer the case today. Affecting this are other aspects, such as how long a user stays on your site. Poorly written text will hardly engage the user for so many minutes: focus on quality and fluency.
- Semantic search – As we often say, Google evolves with us. Nowadays, it is no longer just the keyword that is important, but also the intention it hides. In other words, the search engine analyzes more the user’s actual need and not just the words it uses to solve it. Therefore, write comprehensive texts that give actual answers: by doing so you will win your visitor and Google.
Don’t have time? Think about it Isola di Comunicazione
That was the initial premise: keyword research involves theinvestment of a great deal of time and, often, those who run a business lack that. Not only that: the business of content production also requires many other skills, first and foremost the ability to write. The solution, therefore, is to put yourself in the hands of experts who can do these tasks for you.
Isola di Comunicazione offers you both the service of SEO for search engines, as well as thecopywriting activity. In our offices, SEO experts and copywriters work in synergy every day to produce texts that are beautiful to read and capable of making our clients appear in the very first positions of the search results page.
Contact us for an introductory interview with our Team, and let’s start right away to find the best keywords to position you on!