Keyword Research and SEO: How to Find the Terms Worth Targeting

Key Takeaways

Keywords are the specific phrases people type into search engines, and choosing the right ones determines whether your SEO effort produces business or just traffic reports
The 80/20 rule applies directly here: a small number of well-chosen keywords will drive the vast majority of your results, which means depth beats breadth
Search intent is more important than search volume. A keyword with 80 monthly searches and clear purchase intent will outperform one with 8,000 searches from people who are not ready to buy
Long-tail keywords (phrases of three or more words) are less competitive, easier to rank for, and typically closer to a buying decision
SEMrush is a legitimate tool, but most small businesses in New Zealand can get most of what they need from Google Search Console and Google Keyword Planner before paying for anything
Keyword research is not a one-time task. Revisit your target keywords every six months because rankings shift, competitors move, and how people search evolves

Keyword research and SEO are inseparable. Every piece of content you publish is either targeting a real phrase your customers type into Google, or it is not. If it is not, it does not matter how well the page is written. Nobody finds it. Get the keyword selection right first, and the rest of the work actually pays off.

This guide covers what keywords are in an SEO context, how to research them properly, what the 80/20 rule means in practice, and whether tools like SEMrush are worth your money at different stages of growth.

What Keywords Actually Are in SEO

A keyword is not just a word. In SEO, a keyword is the full phrase a person types into a search engine when they want an answer, a product, or a service.

“Accountant” is a word. “Tax accountant for sole trader Wellington” is a keyword. The second one tells you who is searching (a sole trader in Wellington), what they want (a tax accountant), and where they are. That level of specificity is what makes keyword research valuable.

When SEO practitioners talk about keywords, they usually mean one of three types:

Short-tail keywords are one or two words: “plumber,” “SEO,” “website design.” These have high search volume and fierce competition. Most businesses cannot rank for them without years of authority building, and even if you did rank, the traffic is poorly qualified because the intent is vague.

Mid-tail keywords are two to three words with more specificity: “plumber Auckland,” “SEO for small business,” “website design NZ.” Competitive but achievable with genuine effort. These are often worth targeting once you have some domain authority.

Long-tail keywords are three or more words, often full phrases or questions: “emergency plumber Ponsonby after hours,” “how much does SEO cost in New Zealand,” “best website designer for tradies.” Lower search volume individually, but considerably easier to rank for and far more likely to convert because the searcher has a very specific need.

The strategic insight that most businesses miss: 100 visitors from a long-tail keyword with clear purchase intent is worth more than 1,000 visitors from a vague short-tail term. You are not optimising for traffic. You are optimising for enquiries.

The 80/20 Rule in SEO Keyword Research

The 80/20 rule, or Pareto principle, shows up everywhere in business, and keyword research is no exception.

In practice it means this: a small number of the keywords you target will produce the large majority of your meaningful results. The job of keyword research is to identify that group before you start creating content, not after six months of trial and error.

Most businesses do the opposite. They build a list of 50 keywords, create content for all of them, and spread their effort evenly. After six months, three or four pages are performing and the rest are invisible. The work was not wasted, but it was not the highest-leverage use of time.

A better approach: narrow hard at the start. Ask which keywords represent someone who is actually ready to hire you or buy from you. Then ask which of those are realistic to rank for given your current domain authority. The intersection is your priority list, and it is almost always smaller than people expect.

For a typical New Zealand service business starting SEO with a new or low-authority website, that priority list might be eight to twelve keywords. Not 50. Build authority around those first, earn rankings, then expand.

What this looks like as arithmetic:

Say your primary keyword gets 200 monthly searches in New Zealand. Reaching position 3 gives you a click-through rate of roughly 10 to 12%, based on Sistrix’s large-scale CTR research. That is 20 to 24 visits per month from one keyword. If your website converts enquiries at 4%, you get roughly one enquiry per month from that page.

That sounds modest until you apply it across ten well-chosen keywords each ranking in the top three positions: ten reliable monthly enquiries from organic search. At a $1,500 average job value and 40% enquiry-to-job conversion, that is $6,000 in monthly revenue traceable to those ten keyword choices. The 80/20 rule simply means finding the ten keywords that actually produce that outcome rather than spreading effort across 50 that mostly produce nothing.

How to Research Keywords for SEO

There is no mystery to keyword research once you understand the process. It is methodical, not creative.

Start with what you actually do

List every service you offer and every location you serve. Each combination is a potential keyword foundation. A builder who does renovations, extensions, and new builds in Auckland, Hamilton, and Tauranga has nine starting points before typing a single query into any tool.

Listen to how customers describe their problem

The most valuable keyword insights often come from paying attention to the language actual customers use. How do enquiries arrive? What words do people use when they call or email? What do Google reviews say when a happy customer describes what you did for them?

Customers rarely use industry terminology. They describe their situation. “My bathroom is leaking” not “plumbing maintenance services.” “I want more people to find my website” not “organic search visibility improvement.” Write content in their language and you will rank for the phrases they actually search.

Use tools to validate and expand

Tools do not replace thinking. They confirm whether a phrase you have already identified is actually searched, how often, and how competitive it is.

Google Search Console is free and shows you the exact queries people are already using to find your site. If you have any organic traffic at all, this is the most honest keyword data you have. Filter by “Queries” and look for terms with decent impressions but a position below 10. Those are pages nearly ranking and often the fastest wins available.

Google Keyword Planner is free inside Google Ads, even if you are not running ads. It gives volume estimates for any phrase you input and suggests related terms. Volume is shown in ranges rather than exact numbers, which is a limitation, but for direction it is perfectly adequate.

SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Moz are the paid options. They give more precise volume data, competitor keyword gap analysis, keyword difficulty scores, and rank tracking. At $140 to $200 per month USD for a basic subscription, whether they are worth it depends on how much SEO work you are actually doing.

Check what is already ranking

For any keyword you are considering, search it yourself. Look at the first page. Is it blog posts, service pages, product pages, video results? This tells you what Google considers the right format for that search. If every top result is a long-form guide, a 400-word service page will not rank regardless of how well it is optimised. Match the format to the intent.

Also look at who is ranking. If positions one through three are Seek, Trade Me, and a national association, the competitive dynamics are very different from a first page full of small local businesses. The latter is a keyword you can realistically take.

Is SEMrush Worth the Money?

Honest answer: it depends on the stage you are at.

SEMrush is a genuinely capable tool. The keyword data is reliable, the competitor research features are useful, and the site audit function catches technical SEO issues that are otherwise easy to miss. For an agency managing multiple clients or a business running a serious content programme, it earns its cost.

For a small New Zealand business just starting SEO, the picture is different. The Pro plan costs around USD $139.95 per month (roughly NZD $230 to $250 at current rates). For that price, you are getting features that will be useful maybe two or three times a month until your site has enough content and authority to make detailed analysis worthwhile.

In the first six to twelve months of an SEO campaign, most of what you need is available for free:

Google Search Console tells you what is and is not ranking
Google Keyword Planner validates whether a phrase is actually searched
Searching Google directly shows you who you are competing against
Google Analytics tells you which pages are converting

The case for paying for SEMrush becomes clear when you need competitor gap analysis at scale, when you are tracking 50 or more keywords weekly, or when you are building a link prospecting pipeline. Before that point, the free tools are not a compromise. They are the right tools for the job.

If budget is a constraint but you still want a paid tool, Ubersuggest’s entry plan at around USD $29 per month gives keyword research and basic rank tracking at a fraction of the cost. Less capable than SEMrush, but more than adequate for most sole operators or small businesses early in their SEO journey.

The bigger point: no tool will compensate for poor keyword selection or thin content. SEMrush in the hands of someone who understands intent and competition will produce results. SEMrush used to generate a keyword list that then informs 50 shallow pages will produce an expensive traffic problem.

Matching Keywords to the Right Content Type

Finding a keyword is the beginning, not the end. Once you have a priority list, you need to decide what kind of content each keyword requires.

The content type must match the search intent. This is not a stylistic choice. Google infers the dominant intent behind a query and promotes content that fits it. Getting this wrong is one of the most common reasons well-written SEO content fails to rank.

Transactional keywords (“electrician Christchurch,” “SEO packages NZ”) need service pages, not blog posts. These searchers want to hire someone. Give them a page with a clear offer, social proof, and a direct way to contact you.

Informational keywords (“how to write a meta description,” “what is domain authority”) need content that genuinely answers the question. These are teaching pages. The commercial benefit is indirect: you build authority and trust with an audience who may become a customer later.

Comparison keywords (“SEMrush vs Ahrefs,” “WordPress vs Webflow for SEO”) need honest, balanced analysis. People searching these terms are in research mode. They will leave immediately if the content reads as a thinly veiled sales pitch.

Local keywords (“web design agency Wellington,” “Google Ads management Tauranga”) need location-specific service pages with real local signals: suburb references, local schema markup, and ideally Google reviews from customers in that region. A generic “we serve New Zealand” page does not satisfy the local intent.

What to Do With Keywords Once You Have Them

A keyword list is not a strategy. It becomes one when each keyword is mapped to a specific piece of content, assigned a priority, and given a creation or optimisation date.

The practical steps:

Group related keywords together. Closely related phrases should inform a single well-optimised piece of content, not fragment into separate thin pages. “SEO for small business,” “small business SEO NZ,” and “affordable SEO for small business” belong on one page, not three.

Check what you already have. Before creating anything new, look at whether an existing page could be improved to target the keyword. Updating a decent existing page is almost always faster and more effective than starting from scratch. Content refreshes consistently outperform new content for keywords where you already have some authority.

Map your priority keywords to the content gap. Which high-priority keywords have no page targeting them? Start there.

Set a publishing cadence you can actually maintain. One genuinely useful piece of content per fortnight, published consistently for twelve months, will outperform a burst of 20 articles followed by silence. Consistency is how you build the topical authority that makes future content rank faster.

Track what moves. Once you have published content targeting a keyword, check its position in Search Console every four to six weeks. A page stuck below position 20 after three months probably needs more depth, stronger internal links, or external links pointing to it.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I research keywords for SEO? Start by listing every service you offer and every location you serve. Then check whether those combinations are actually searched using Google Keyword Planner (free). Look at what your competitors rank for by searching your service terms and noting who appears. Filter to keywords where the intent is clearly commercial and the competition is realistic given your domain authority. Free tools are sufficient at the start.

Is SEMrush worth the money? For most small New Zealand businesses in the first six to twelve months of SEO, no. Google Search Console, Keyword Planner, and manual Google searches cover the essentials without cost. SEMrush earns its keep once you are tracking 30 or more keywords regularly, doing competitor gap analysis, or managing SEO across multiple sites. For solo operators, Ubersuggest at a lower price point is worth considering before committing to a full SEMrush subscription.

What is the 80/20 rule in SEO? It means a small number of well-chosen keywords will drive the large majority of your results. Rather than targeting 50 keywords evenly, most businesses get better outcomes by targeting eight to fifteen specific, intent-rich keywords with genuine depth. Find the group that will drive 80% of the value first, build authority there, then expand. The mistake is spreading effort so thinly that nothing ranks well.

What are keywords when researching? In SEO, a keyword is the full phrase someone types into a search engine, not just a single word. “Electrician” is a word. “Electrician for commercial fit-out Auckland” is a keyword. The full phrase reveals the intent, the location, and the specificity of what the person wants, and that information determines what kind of content will rank for it and convert the visitor.

How often should I redo keyword research? At least every six months. Search behaviour changes, competitors shift their focus, and seasonal patterns emerge. Importantly, your site’s own authority grows over time, which means keywords that were unrealistic to target in month three may be genuinely achievable in month twelve. Treat keyword research as an ongoing audit, not a one-off setup task.

Keyword research is not the glamorous part of SEO. It does not involve writing or design. But it is the decision that determines whether all the work that follows is aimed at the right target. Get it right at the start and every subsequent step builds on something solid.

If you want an honest look at which keywords your business should be targeting right now, and which ones are not worth your time, talk to the team at Lucid Media. We work with businesses across New Zealand and will tell you exactly what we find.