Untapped Sources for Your Seed Keywords

Seed keywords are the starting point for your keyword strategy and, most likely, at least a portion of your content marketing strategy. So where can you look to find the most fruitful ones?

Even if search is not a primary channel for your content marketing strategy, investing in some organic keywords is a wise move. They can deliver high-intent traffic to your most valuable pages while boxing out competitors and reducing your paid-media spend and overreliance on email.

But ad-hoc “Let’s a page on [topic X]!” rarely leads to the results that prompted buy-in to SEO. A keyword strategy and map that itemizes and prioritizes your keywords is usually the best play, and the first step in generating one is often with seed keywords.

What are seed keywords?

Seed keywords are the brainstormed and broadly researched keywords that you first use to grow and define the list of keywords you want to target.

For example, if I work for a company that sells patient engagement software to independent medical groups, some of my seed keywords I would jot down and later explore could be:

• Patient engagement software for private practices

• Pediatric patient engagement software

• Patient engagement solutions

• Examples of patient engagement

• Patient engagement tips

• Increase practice revenue

• Patient retention strategies

Using pertinent data from your SEO tool, like keyword volume and difficulty, you may refine those seeds or add new ones that will enable your website to rank higher and give your buyers the information (or entertainment) they want.

For example, in the seed list above, I included “patient engagement solutions” and “patient engagement software.” After researching the volume of the two keywords on Moz, I found that “patient engagement solution” earns nearly 100 more organic searches a month, so I would likely keep that keyword over “patient engagement software.”

Search tools and SERP: The First sources for seed keywords

SEO tools, like Moz and Ahrefs, are an easy initial reference for seed keywords. From their data sets, they can surface keywords your competitors rank for (but you don’t), keywords that you rank for (but don’t have a specific page for yet), and other keywords that may align with your business.

The search engine results page (SERP) is also a useful place to research seed words. The “Related searches” and the “People also search for” boxes on the results pages offer insight into what your buyers may be interested in.

These tools have a downside, though: most content marketers have access to them, which can make for a competitive slog. So what other sources can you consult to find other ideas?

Where else can you find ideas for your seed words?

Your buyers’ RFPs

In long, complex sales cycles, sometimes the buyer will issue a request for proposal (RFP) to a group of companies (like yours) they think can meet their needs. The RFP is an incredibly rich source of keywords (as well as messaging)—you learn from the buyer what their pain points are, what their desired outcomes are, and how they describe and categorize your company and products.

To sift through all the content in an RFP (they can be long) and uncover hidden keywords, try this play:

1. Copy all of the text in each RFP document

2. Paste it into a free word-cloud tool

3. Search for new keyword ideas. (And don’t neglect those that appear only a handful of times. Those may be long-tail treasures.)

Your buyers’ job descriptions

Job descriptions for your personas can be a key input as well for your keyword strategy. They are especially helpful for pain- and solution-aware keywords since the listing often itemizes—in the hiring manager’s own words!—the challenges the business or department is facing as well as the desired outcomes.

For example, let’s say I worked for a company that sells content marketing services to demand gen leaders at high-growth B2B companies. I could use a job description like this to spot seed keywords my SEO tool or the SERP wouldn’t identify immediately:

Customer-success feedback logs

The closer you can get to your buyers, the richer and more precise the keywords become. But post-purchase feedback is especially valuable for keyword. Unlike RFPs, which a team of buyers typically construct, feedback that customer success teams collect often comes from a single person. And most likely that individual is a primary user of the product (making him or her a top persona).

The customer’s feedback may inform what they name your product or certain features, what their desired outcomes are (at a job-function level), and how they describe their pain points.

For example, your company may call its product “patient engagement solution” but the office manager at the medical office your customer success team spoke to calls it “appointment scheduling software.” That may not warrant a change to your product name, but building solution-aware content around that keyword may drive more high-intent traffic to your site.

Internal site search data

Google Search Console isn’t the only Google tool that can aid content marketers in building a seed keyword list. Google Analytics’ site search report is an underestimated gold mine for keyword ideas (and content fixes).

The report’s search term table displays the terms visitors search for on your website’s search engine. But more importantly, its metrics, like % search exits, shed light on content your visitors want but are not getting (or finding) on your site. (The example below comes from Google Analytics’ demo account.)

Your internal product and features guides

Branded product names may be one of the first seeds on your list, but generic product-related terms also deserve a spot. And many product and product marketing teams have internal guides chalk full of terminology worth considering for your seed list.

For example, from a telehealth product, you may identify product and feature-focused keywords like:

• Telehealth solution

• Telehealth EMR integration

• Telehealth CPT codes

• HIPAA compliance

• Automated patient outreach

• Integrated billing support

• Telehealth implementation

Amazon

Amazon’s search engine accounts for 54% of product searches now, which makes it more popular than Google for commerce search. And like Google, it’s ability to propose semantically related terms makes it a valuable untapped source for seed keywords.

For example, “value-based health care” is a strong keyword in the health care vertical despite its complexity. Searching for the term on Amazon yields several other seeds that a tool like Moz may not surface:

The Amazon page for that search uncovers some promising keywords (for B2B health care) worth adding to a keyword list and map:

• Evidence-based practice - 230

• Population health - 1,700

• Quadruple aim - 850

Diverse seed sources are an advantage

SEO tools, like Moz, are a common-sense starting point for building out your seed list—but they shouldn’t be the only source.

With so many teams subscribing to them (leading to homogeneous keyword maps and, as a result, fierce competition), advantages in SEO may partly reside in those off-the-beaten-path sources that are surprisingly rich.