How to find keywords for your startup?

When I started my first business, I knew nothing about keywords or SEO.

My “strategy” was a Facebook post (yes, I’m that old) and hoping for the best.

Spoiler Alert: nothing happened.

So, I turned to Google Ads. Overnight, I got 1,000 visitors to my website.

“Mom, I made it!”

But nobody bought it.

It was painful, but today, I can make jokes about it.

If I could go back 15 years and give myself SEO advice, I would say:

“Sofian, take the time to find the best keywords and optimize for them, forget all the rest”

How do you find the best keywords? Here is the process and Prompt I use today to find relevant keywords and start generating revenue from day one.

1. Generate Relevant Keywords for Your Business

Keywords are the foundation of SEO and SEA strategies. They tell Google whether your business is relevant to a user’s search.
If your page doesn’t have the keywords your users are searching for, you will never get traffic.

Your goal is to balance what best describes your business offers and what your users search for; that’s all.

For example, if you offer iPhones, they can be searched by: “iPhone,” “best phone for work,” “smartphone,” or “Apple phone.”

It is a delicate balance, but you will get there after some trial and error.

To get started, I start and generate the most relevant keywords for my business:

A) Describe Your Offer in Simple Words

Ask yourself 4 simple questions:

• What is your product/service?
• What are its main features?
• What are the core use cases?
• What are the main problems my business is solving?

You can also use the following ChatGPT prompt to get started:

I want to generate root keywords for my business/product/service. 
Here's the information:Product/Service: [Describe it briefly]
Main features: [List features]
Use cases or customer benefits: [Describe use cases]
Problems solved: [Describe the pain points]
Target audience: [Define the demographics/needs]

Based on this information, please provide a list of root keywords 
that align with the product/service, customer intent, and relevant industry search terms.

Write down your answers. Don’t overcomplicate it. When you get 5–10 keywords or keyphrases, move to the next step.

B) Analyze Your Competitors

Your competitors have already done some SEO work. Learn how they describe their offer and see if we can get inspire.

List the following:

• 5 direct competitors: They offer the same service to the same audience. Your goal is to analyze their keywords and try to rank for those, too.
• 3 Indirect competitors: They offer a similar product but to a different audience. You can spot opportunities from them.

Tools like SEMrush (paid) or ChatGPT (free) can help you analyze these keywords.

Following is a ChatGPT prompt I use for my friends who don’t have SEMrush:

Analyze the content of [COMPETITOR'S URL] and provide a list of relevant SEO keywords based on the following:

Headings and subheadings (H1, H2, H3).
Page titles and meta descriptions.
Content themes and recurring phrases.
Product or service descriptions.
Blog or article topics.
Please include both primary and long-tail keywords that the competitor might be targeting.

‍

Add any relevant ones to your list. Now, you have quite an extensive theoretical list of keywords.

Let’s bring back to the “User” side of the equation.

Pro tips: You probably start seeing keywords you don’t want. Track them and add them to your “negative keywords” list. It will be useful later on.

3) Ask Your Users for Insights

Talking to your users can reveal a lot. If you have the time and the people available, Ask them for a 10-minute meeting. Then, ask them:

• When was the last time you faced [Problem you’re addressing]?
• How did you solve it? Can you show me?

First, do they use Google? Maybe they are searching elsewhere (Tiktok, Instagram).

Then, watch and note the keywords they use during their search. This real-world insight is gold.

Don’t have any clients yet? Go to Reddit and find people with the problem you're trying to solve. Note their question and search for keyword repetition. We all need to start somewhere.

No need for chatGPT on this.

Now, you should have a long list of keywords. Let's start ranking and prioritizing them. You don’t need 1000 of them; 100 is more than enough.

2. Rank Your Keywords

Not all keywords are equal. Prioritize them based on the intent behind them and their search volume/keyword difficulty. Let’s start.

1) Keyword Intent

Keyword intent is the hidden reason someone is searching for a keyword. Keywords like “buy shoes” are more valuable than “shoe size” because they indicate an action intent. The more action-driven, the more valuable it is for your business.

There are 3 main stages of the user’s journey:

• Awareness (Informational Intent): Users are discovering they have a problem or need. They search for broad, informational keywords like “what is…” “how to…” or “benefits of…”
• Consideration (Commercial Intent): Users evaluate their options and compare solutions. They use keywords like “best” “reviews” or “compare” in addition to your root keywords.
• Action (Transactional Intent): Users are ready to take action. They search for keywords like “buy,” “order,” or “get started.”

Understanding the intent behind the keyword is crucial to the prioritizations.

As your users move further along the customer journey, they become more valuable for your business.

At the same time, building a solid relationship with your users from the first phase increases your chances of developing valuable connections and boosting conversions.

Copy/paste the following prompt into chatGPT when uploading your list of keywords.

I am uploading a list of keywords. 
Please analyze and categorize them into the following stages of the buyer's journey:
Problem Awareness – Keywords that indicate the user is aware of a problem but is not yet searching for specific solutions (informational or early-stage keywords).
Consideration – Keywords that show the user is researching potential solutions and comparing options (solution-oriented or mid-stage keywords).
Action – Keywords that suggest the user is ready to make a purchase or take action (transactional or late-stage keywords).Please provide the sorted keywords under each stage, with a brief explanation for why each keyword fits its category.

You now have keywords sorted into 3 categories. The last category, “action,” is the most valuable for driving business growth.

You can also use my Free keywords Generators to map all your keywords with their intent.

2) Search Volume & Keyword Difficulty

Search volume is how often a keyword is searched monthly.

Keyword difficulty is how hard it is to rank for that term.

The sweet spot is keywords with high volume and low difficulty. These are your best bets for ranking quickly. You don’t see them often, unfortunately.

To check the search volume of keywords, you have 3 options:

1 • Free: Free keywords Generators by Sofian Bettayeb

You can copy/paste your chatGPT list of keywords into the text input, choose your country of analysis, and click “Analyse Keywords.”

Then, export the CSV list and move to the next section.

2 • Paid: Tools like SEMrush provide detailed keyword data, including search volume.

For this step, I highly recommend using SEMrush. You can start a free trial and do the steps in less than 7 days. Don’t forget to set an alarm to remove your account after 6 days…

3 • Free: Google Ads’ Keyword Planner offers search volume insights at no cost. The downside is you need to create/have a Google Ads account.

3. Build a Short-Term & Long-Term Keyword Strategy

Question: How do you prioritize your keywords to get traffic today and optimize for long-term growth?

Answer: Choose your keywords battles and focus on the easy ones!

The truth is, you won’t rank organically for competitive keywords tomorrow. However, you can buy those keywords and still appear in the first position (sponsored).

Is it worth it to pay for Keywords?

It depends on the keywords. Keywords with commercial and transactional intent are the most valuable ones. By betting on the keywords where your business is the most relevant and with clear business intent, you will get a high ROI, even if you must pay for it.

If you rank for Keywords with Action intent and they are connected to the right product/offer, it is worth paying to get the trafic.

How do you prioritize your keywords?

1. Prioritize the Money Keywords

Map your keywords across the user journey. Draw a horizontal line showing your audience's journey and start positioning your keywords in 4 buckets: Informational, navigational, commercial, and Transactional.

Remember, you can use my Free Keyword Research tool to get the intent of each keyword on your list.

• On the left, list problem-based keywords (research stage). Those are the keywords we want to rank in the long term.
• On the right, list solution-based keywords. The more right, the more valuable the keyword is. Also known as Money Keywords. We want to start ranking those today.

2. Prioritize the easy keywords

The more competition, the harder it is to rank for keywords.

Fortunately, knowing how difficult it will be to rank for a Keyword is easy. Most keyword tools tell the KD (keyword difficult) on a scale from 0 to 100. The lower the KD, the easier it is to rank.

Another essential metric to look at is the search volume. Search volume is an estimation of the monthly search of the keyword.

Of course, the most competitive keywords get the most search volumes (number of people searching for the keywords).

For both Information keywords and Money keywords, you want to avoid competition. The easiest way is to get more specifics with your keywords than your competition.

For example, let’s look at some search queries in the USA:
SEO agency: KD= 74 (very difficult) and SV = 27 000 (high search volume)
Webflow SEO agency: KD = 6 (very easy) and SV = 30 (low search volume)

Now, on the next table,

1. Separate your keywords by KD, KD> 20 (difficult keywords) and KD < 20 (easy keywords)
2. Select max 5 keywords with KD> 20 based on your business offer. Choose the most relevant one. If you have less than 5, it’s also ok.
3. For each Difficult keywords, go more specific and find 10 Easy Keyword with KD < 20.

Your short-term goal should be to pay for commercial-intent, high-difficulty keywords that bring revenue now.

Your long-term goal is to cluster the rest of the keywords to build organic traffic and long-lasting relationships with your users.

Conclusion:

SEO success involves finding, prioritising, and mapping keywords to the user journey.

You should leverage tools to help you find the relevant keywords. ChatGPT is a great one, but it won’t help you find search volume or possible competition.

Don’t seek to rank organically for every keyword. It’s OK to pay for it when you get an high ROI.

Avoid competition at first, you don’t want to fight heavy weight if your business depend on it.

Aim for keywords with low keyword difficulty and search volume. If the search volume is too low, cluster your keywords with others.

Start with the ones that will make money and build from there.