Keyword Analysis: The Complete Guide for 2026

6 Steps to Get AI to Recommend Your Brand

Finding a ton of keywords is one thing, but knowing which keywords are actually useful to your SEO campaign is another thing altogether.

Keyword research—the process of uncovering keywords and search terms your target customers are looking for—can only take you so far. You need to conduct keyword analysis to narrow your selection down to the most relevant and profitable terms.

Keyword Research Strategies

You can perform keyword analysis by looking at the difficulty, monthly search volume, the search intent behind the query, and conversion potential of individual search terms. By doing this, you discover the keywords that work best for you.

Choosing the correct keywords requires sorting and sieving millions of keywords, prioritizing, and relevance to find the best keywords for your domain. Without proper [keyword research strategies](/content/hub/seo/keyword-research-strategies "SEO Marketing Hub 2.0"/index.html), ranking becomes hard, if not impossible. Let’s ease your fears and set you on the straight-and-narrow path to higher organic traffic.

Today, learn how to cherry-pick the keywords that will best complement your current SEO strategy.

What is Keyword Analysis?

Keyword analysis is the second stage of [keyword research](/content/tools/keyword "Keyword Research for SEO: The Definitive Guide + Template"/index.html). Once you’ve gleaned competitors’ blog posts for keyword ideas, or used search engines to uncover long-tail keywords, what do you do with them?

You should conduct SEO keyword analysis to determine which search terms could actually benefit your campaign. Keyword analysis can also help you determine which keywords are most important.

For example, if you’ve conducted keyword research for a paleo diet blog you’re about to start, and your list of keywords includes the likes of:

Some of these may not be worth targeting initially as the competition for them may be too fierce. Or, some may not be as directly relevant to your SEO campaign as others.

How to Conduct Keyword Analysis

Keyword analysis can be conducted by examining the keyword difficulty, monthly search volume, conversion potential, and the intent of a keyword.

Keyword Difficulty

[Keyword difficulty](/content/hub/seo/keyword-difficulty "Keyword Difficulty: What It Is and How to Measure It"/index.html) refers to how difficult it would be to rank for a given keyword. The ranking difficulty of a keyword is determined by many factors.

Keyword difficulty is a good metric when determining what keywords to use, as it reflects your chances of ranking for that keyword yourself.

Topical Authority

Topical Authority looks at how authoritative your domain is for specific topics. This can help you identify exactly where you can excel in search rankings.

Monthly Search Volume

Monthly search volume is an estimate of how many times your keyword was searched nationally over a month. The higher this volume, the more online interest there is regarding the keyword.

Conversion Potential

Conversion potential is how likely a web user is to buy your product, sign up for your mailing list, and so on. The more the keyword is worth, the higher the conversion potential—but how do you measure a keyword’s worth?

Keyword Intent

Simply including a keyword in your content isn’t the same as “targeting a keyword”. To accurately target a keyword, you need to understand the reason why the keyword is being searched for. Misunderstanding keyword intent is where a lot of content goes awry.

The main search intent categories include:

Why Analyzing Keywords is Important

It helps you budget wisely

You can expertly pick out the keywords that hold conversion potential, instead of throwing your money at keywords that won’t convert.

It helps you manage your time

Knowing the individual importance of each keyword helps you to better plan out your content strategy timeline.

It helps you reach the SERPs

You can target keywords that you can rank for in the meantime, instead of chasing highly competitive keywords that you won’t rank for immediately.

Analyzing Keywords Also Helps You Create A Keyword Map

You need to create a keyword map in order to keep your website organized and avoid keyword cannibalization issues. A main keyword would be something like “The Benefits of the Paleo Diet”.

Keyword Analysis Tools

Semrush

You should make your go-to suite both for effective keyword research and analysis. It’s a multi-faceted toolbox that can help you out at all stages of your SEO campaign.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is most useful for analyzing keywords that are already on your site.

Google Trends

[Google Trends](/content/hub/content/google-trends "How to Use Google Trends for SEO"/index.html) is a tool that allows you to analyze the current and long-term popularity of keywords.

Google Keyword Planner

[Google Keyword Planner](/content/google-keyword-planner "How to Use Google Keyword Planner [New Guide]"/index.html) is mostly useful for keyword research purposes, but it can also be used to thoroughly analyze your keywords once you’ve collated them.

SERP Gap Analyzer

SERP Gap Analyzer from Semrush finds keyword opportunities by analyzing specific weaknesses in the top 10 search results.

Analyzing Keywords: Specialist Methods

Local and Geo-Targeted Analysis

[Local keywords](/content/local-seo-guide "Local SEO: The Definitive Guide"/index.html)—or, geo-targeted keywords, as they are sometimes referred to—are keywords that target a specific audience in a specific area.

Seasonal and Trending Analysis

Seasonal keyword analysis involves examining how keywords rise and fall in popularity over time.

Keyword Analysis for Voice Search

You must also include [voice search](/content/optimize-for-voice-search "Voice Search: The Definitive Guide"/index.html) terms in your keyword analysis and incorporate the results into your content marketing campaigns.

Keyword Gap Analysis

Keyword [gap analysis](/content/hub/seo/content-gap "Content Gap Analysis: The Complete Guide"/index.html) is the process of comparing your own keywords to your competitors and identifying terms that they’re ranking for that you are not.

Analyzing Keyword Ranking

All the hard work you put into finding and analyzing keywords would be wasted if you didn’t check in on them and make changes where necessary.

FAQs

What must you avoid when conducting keyword analysis?

You should avoid only examining one metric while conducting keyword analysis—specifically monthly search volume.

How long should keyword analysis take?

Keyword analysis shouldn’t take you long if you’re using a premium keyword analysis tool.

Is keyword analysis still relevant?

Keywords are still relevant because they both define your content strategy and also help search engines and web users understand what your content is all about.

How often should I update and refine my keyword strategy?

You need to check in on your keyword analysis strategy at least once a month and update it whenever necessary.