Keyword research is finding the words people type into search engines about your topic, judging how much demand and competition each one has, and deciding which page should target which keyword. Here is a complete example: a small online store selling cold brew coffee gear starts from the seed "cold brew", expands it into about a hundred real Google searches, removes what it can't win or doesn't sell, groups the rest by intent, and ends with a plan of eight pages, each built around one primary keyword.
Below you get that walkthrough step by step, then examples of every keyword type (SEO keywords, focus keywords, fresh keywords), a single keyword analyzed in detail, and the real Search Console data behind this very page.
Key takeaways
- A keyword research example has five stages. Seed list, expansion, metrics and filtering, grouping by intent, then mapping one primary keyword to each page.
- One seed ("cold brew") plus a handful of modifiers produced well over 100 real Google Autocomplete suggestions in minutes.
- Group keywords by intent, not by wording. Ten close variants can share one page, while two similar-looking phrases may need two.
- Autocomplete hints at competition too. A suggestion like "best cold brew maker wirecutter" tells you a major review site already owns that query.
- On this page's own Search Console data, the plural "keyword research examples" earned more impressions (3,442) than the singular (2,128).
What is keyword research?
Keyword research is the process of discovering the search terms your audience uses, measuring each term's search volume, difficulty and intent, and choosing which terms your pages should target. It produces three things: a list of keywords, the data to rank them, and a map that assigns each keyword to one page.
If you're starting from zero, the keyword research tutorial covers the basics and the tools. This page is the applied version: one example, done completely.
Keyword research example: a cold brew gear store, from seed to final list
The setup. A new online store sells cold brew makers, filters and coffee for cold brew. Its site is young with few backlinks, so it needs keywords it can rank for within months. The goal: blog content that brings in people who will need a cold brew maker.
Step 1: Write the seed list
Seeds are the broad terms that describe what the store sells and what customers want to do. Five are enough to start:
- cold brew
- cold brew maker
- cold brew concentrate
- cold brew coffee
- cold brew ratio
Step 2: Expand the seeds into real searches
Each seed goes into Google with modifiers: "vs", "why is my", "how much", "how long does", "best", "for", plus the alphabet ("cold brew a", "cold brew b"...). Here is a sample of what came back, grouped by modifier:
| Modifier | Real Autocomplete suggestions |
|---|---|
| vs | cold brew vs iced coffee, cold brew vs espresso, cold brew concentrate vs cold brew, cold brew vs nitro cold brew |
| why is my | why is my cold brew sour, why is my cold brew bitter, why is my cold brew so weak, why is my cold brew cloudy |
| how much | how much cold brew concentrate to water, how much cold brew is too much, how much cold brew concentrate equals a shot of espresso |
| how long does | how long does cold brew last in the fridge, how long does cold brew need to steep, how long does cold brew take |
| ratio | cold brew ratio grams, cold brew ratio in cups, cold brew ratio calculator, cold brew ratio french press |
| best / buy | best cold brew maker for home, best cold brew maker glass, best cold brew maker no plastic, buy cold brew coffee maker |
| alphabet | cold brew aeropress, cold brew bags, cold brew beans to water ratio, cold brew brew time, cold brew acidity |
People Also Ask boxes and a keyword tool's "matching terms" or "questions" report add more. After a few minutes, the list passes 100 phrases.
Step 3: Filter out what you can't win or don't need
Three cuts shrink the list fast:
- Off-topic or wrong business: "cold brew near me", "starbucks cold brew menu", "cold brew at costco" (local or brand searches a gear store can't serve), "cold brew beer" and "cold brew black tea" (different products).
- Too competitive for a young site: broad head terms like "cold brew" and "cold brew coffee", and "best cold brew maker", where Autocomplete itself suggests "best cold brew maker wirecutter". When a major publisher's name shows up in the suggestions, expect that publisher on page one.
- Too thin for a page on its own: "cold brew ratio grams" doesn't need its own article; it becomes a section of the ratio guide.
In a keyword tool, you'd apply the same logic with filters: a volume range (most long-tail targets sit between 10 and 1,000 monthly searches) and a keyword difficulty cap of about 20 for a young site.
Step 4: Check intent and competition on the results page
Before committing, Google each finalist and look at what ranks:
- "why is my cold brew sour": troubleshooting articles and forum threads. A clear, specific guide can win.
- "cold brew ratio": recipe sites, coffee brands and, given that Autocomplete suggests "cold brew ratio calculator", people want a quick number or a tool.
- "cold brew vs iced coffee": explainers from coffee publishers and brands. Winnable with a better comparison table.
Weak results on page one (a forum post, a thin page, an outdated article) are the opening you're looking for. For a deeper method, see our guide to keyword competition analysis.
Step 5: Group keywords by intent
Variants that want the same answer go on the same page. Different needs get different pages. This is keyword clustering, and it prevents your own pages from competing with each other.
- "why is my cold brew sour / bitter / so weak / cloudy" → one troubleshooting guide
- "cold brew ratio", "ratio grams", "ratio in cups", "concentrate to water ratio" → one ratio guide with a calculator
- "how long does cold brew last in the fridge", "...last after opening", "...concentrate last in the fridge" → one storage guide
Step 6: The final keyword list
Final keyword plan for the cold brew store
| 1 | Troubleshooting guide | why is my cold brew sour | bitter, so weak, cloudy | Informational | Medium | Low |
| 2 | Ratio guide + calculator | cold brew ratio | ratio grams, ratio in cups, concentrate to water ratio | Informational | High | Medium |
| 3 | Buying guide | best cold brew maker for home | glass, no plastic, for mason jar | Commercial | Medium | Medium |
| 4 | How-to | how to make cold brew in a french press | cold brew ratio french press | Informational | Medium | Low |
| 5 | Storage guide | how long does cold brew last in the fridge | last after opening, concentrate last in the fridge | Informational | Medium | Low |
| 6 | Comparison | cold brew vs iced coffee | cold brew vs coffee, vs regular coffee | Informational | High | Medium |
| 7 | Explainer | cold brew concentrate vs cold brew | concentrate caffeine content | Informational | Low | Low |
| 8 | Recipe | cold brew concentrate for espresso martini | how much cold brew concentrate equals a shot of espresso | Informational | Low | Low |
Click a column header to sort.
Priority puts easy, buyer-adjacent topics first: people troubleshooting or measuring their cold brew already make it at home, so they are one step from buying better gear. The ratio guide gets a calculator because, in Outrank's study of 6.2 million pages, free tools and calculators earned 2.11× the click-through rate of the same site's articles at positions 4–10. A broad pillar page for "cold brew" comes later, once these eight pages have earned links and rankings.
A real example: the keywords behind this page
The example above is planned. Here is a measured one. In the 90 days to October 2026, this page appeared in Google for many variations of the same idea. These are the biggest, from Outrank's own Search Console:
Search queries this page appeared for
Hover or tap the chart for exact values.
Three lessons we applied to this rewrite:
- Plural beats singular here. "Keyword research examples" (3,442 impressions) outweighed "keyword research example" (2,128), so the title now leads with the plural.
- Some variants are a different intent. "Keywords example" and "keyword examples" come from people who want examples of keywords themselves, not of the research process. They got their own section below.
- Sub-intents become sections. "Keyword analysis example" and "keyword strategy example" each got a dedicated heading on this page instead of a new article.
That is keyword research in its most reliable form: the queries Google already shows you for. Open Search Console → Performance → Search results, filter by page, and sort the Queries tab by impressions.
SEO keyword examples by type
An SEO keyword is any word or phrase a page targets so it can appear for that search. These examples, all real Google Autocomplete suggestions from October 2026, show each common type:
| Keyword type | What it means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Short-tail (head) | Broad, high volume, mixed intent | cold brew |
| Long-tail | Specific, low volume, clear intent | how much cold brew concentrate equals a shot of espresso |
| Informational | Wants to learn something | is cold brew less acidic |
| Question | Phrased as a question | why is my cold brew bitter |
| Commercial | Comparing before buying | best cold brew maker for home |
| Transactional | Ready to buy | buy cold brew coffee maker |
| Navigational / branded | Looking for a specific brand or site | starbucks cold brew maker |
| Local | Wants something nearby | cold brew near me open now |
| Fresh (time-sensitive) | Tied to a year, season or trend | best cold brew maker 2026 |
A fresh keyword is one whose results Google wants to keep current, usually because it includes a year, a season, a new product or a news event. "Best cold brew maker 2026" will be "best cold brew maker 2027" next year, so pages targeting fresh keywords need regular updates. For the full difference between broad and specific terms, see short-tail vs long-tail keywords.
Focus keyword examples
A focus keyword is the one primary phrase a page is optimized for: it goes in the title, H1, URL and first sentence, while related keywords support it in the headings and body. Here is how focus keywords map to page types:
| Page | Focus keyword | Supporting keywords |
|---|---|---|
| Category page | cold brew maker | cold brew coffee maker, cold brew maker glass |
| Blog guide | cold brew ratio | cold brew ratio grams, cold brew ratio in cups |
| Comparison post | cold brew vs iced coffee | cold brew vs regular coffee |
| B2B landing page | crm for insurance agents | crm for real estate agents (separate page if intent differs) |
| Local service page | emergency plumber cost per hour | emergency plumber cost |
Each focus keyword belongs to exactly one page. If two pages share a focus keyword, they compete, and usually neither ranks well.
Keyword analysis example: "cold brew ratio"
Keyword analysis means judging one keyword before you build a page for it. Here is the checklist applied to "cold brew ratio":
- Intent: informational, and specific. The searcher wants a number (how much coffee to how much water), fast.
- Variants: Autocomplete shows "ratio grams", "ratio in cups", "ratio by weight", "ratio calculator", "ratio french press" and "ratio concentrate". All one intent, so one page.
- Format clue: "cold brew ratio calculator" in the suggestions means a calculator or a quick table will satisfy more searchers than a long essay.
- Competition: recipe sites and coffee brands. A page with an exact table by batch size, both grams and cups, plus a calculator can beat generic recipes.
- Business fit: high. Everyone who measures cold brew makes it at home, so they're potential buyers of a maker.
- Decision: build it, as priority two in the plan above.
Keyword strategy example: turning the list into a plan
A keyword strategy is the order and structure in which you publish pages for your keywords. For the cold brew store, a simple three-month strategy looks like this:
- Month 1: troubleshooting guide, ratio guide with calculator, French press how-to. All low difficulty, all close to a purchase.
- Month 2: buying guide, storage guide, comparison post. Each links to the month-one pages and to the matching product category.
- Month 3: concentrate explainer, espresso martini recipe, then a "cold brew" pillar page linking to all eight.
- Every month: check Search Console for new queries each page earns, and add sections for them, exactly as we did with this page.
If you'd rather skip the spreadsheet entirely, Outrank runs this whole loop for you: it researches keywords with live volume and difficulty, writes one SEO article a day around them, and publishes to your CMS. For the long-tail part of the process in more depth, read our long-tail keyword research guide.
FAQ
What is an example of keyword research?
A coffee gear store starts with the seed "cold brew", expands it with Google Autocomplete into specific searches like "why is my cold brew sour" and "cold brew ratio grams", removes off-topic and overly competitive terms, groups variants by intent, and assigns one primary keyword to each planned page. The output is a prioritized list of pages, each with a focus keyword and supporting variants.
What are examples of SEO keywords?
SEO keywords range from broad head terms like "cold brew" to specific long-tail phrases like "how long does cold brew last in the fridge". By intent, "is cold brew less acidic" is informational, "best cold brew maker for home" is commercial, "buy cold brew coffee maker" is transactional and "cold brew near me open now" is local.
What is a focus keyword example?
A focus keyword is the main phrase one page targets. For a blog guide on brewing ratios, the focus keyword could be "cold brew ratio", with "cold brew ratio grams" and "cold brew ratio in cups" as supporting keywords in the headings. Each focus keyword should belong to only one page on your site.
What is a fresh keyword?
A fresh keyword is a search where up-to-date results matter, usually because it includes a year, a season, a new product or a news event, such as "best cold brew maker 2026". Pages that target fresh keywords need regular updates to keep ranking when the year or the facts change.
How do you analyze keyword competition?
Google the keyword and study the top 10 results: the type of sites ranking, how well each page matches the query, and how old or thin they are. Then check difficulty in a keyword tool. A page one with forum threads, thin pages or outdated articles is a good opening; ten strong, specific pages from major brands is not.
