When I first started learning SEO, I thought keyword research was about finding the biggest number.
Search volume seemed to be the obvious place to begin. If thousands of people searched for a phrase every month, surely that was the keyword worth targeting. The logic appeared simple enough, more searches should mean more visitors, more visitors should mean more opportunities and, ultimately, better results.
It took me longer than I expected to realise that search volume only tells part of the story.
Two people can type completely different phrases into Google while looking for exactly the same solution. Equally, two people can type the same phrase while wanting completely different things. One may simply be curious, another may be comparing options and a third may already have their credit card sitting on the desk beside them.
The words are only the surface.
The intent behind those words is where the real insight begins.
Looking back, I think this may be one of the biggest shifts in how I view SEO. I no longer see keyword research as a technical exercise designed to improve rankings. Instead, I see it as one of the most accessible ways to understand how people think, the problems they are trying to solve and the language they naturally use when they are looking for help.
For me, that feels much more interesting than simply chasing bigger numbers.
Most People Start Keyword Research In The Wrong Place
There is no shortage of advice about keyword research.
Open a keyword tool.
Find phrases with high search volume.
Check the competition.
Look at keyword difficulty.
Sort by opportunity.
Repeat.
Those steps are certainly useful, and there is nothing inherently wrong with them. They become problematic when they become the only questions being asked.
I made this mistake myself.
Like many beginners, I became fascinated by the numbers. I found myself comparing search volumes, wondering whether fifty thousand monthly searches must be better than five hundred and assuming that bigger automatically meant better.
What I rarely asked was a much simpler question.
Why is somebody searching for this in the first place?
That question changes everything.
Because the moment you stop looking at keywords as pieces of data and start looking at them as evidence of human behaviour, the exercise becomes something entirely different.
Rather than asking, “Can I rank for this phrase?” you begin asking, “What is this person actually trying to achieve?”
That feels far more like marketing than SEO.
Search Intent Tells A Bigger Story
Imagine somebody searches for:
marketing
That single word tells you very little.
They might be a university student.
They might be researching career options.
They might own a business.
They might simply want a definition.
The search volume may be enormous, but the intent is almost impossible to interpret.
Now compare it with someone searching:
marketing strategy template
Suddenly the picture becomes much clearer.
This person is probably trying to build something.
They have moved beyond curiosity.
They have a task to complete.
Now compare that with:
marketing strategy consultant
Again, the intent changes.
This person may no longer be looking for information.
They may be looking for someone to solve the problem for them.
Three searches.
Three completely different intentions.
Exactly the same industry.
That is why I increasingly believe search intent is far more valuable than search volume on its own. The keyword itself is simply the doorway, understanding why someone walked through that doorway is where the real marketing begins.
Search Volume Doesn’t Always Equal Opportunity
One of the biggest misconceptions I had was assuming that high search volume automatically meant a better opportunity.
It sounds logical.
If more people search for a keyword, surely ranking for it will create more value.
Sometimes that is true, quite often it isn’t.
Imagine you discover two keywords.
The first receives 40,000 searches each month.
The second receives 300.
Instinctively, most people would choose the larger number.
But what if the larger keyword attracts people who are only casually interested, while the smaller keyword attracts people who already understand the problem and are actively searching for a solution?
Which one actually creates more value?
That question has become increasingly important as I have worked on The Frictionless Man.
Initially I looked at broad topics.
Stress.
Anxiety.
Mental health.
Huge search volumes.
Huge competition and very little clarity about what people were actually looking for.
Then I started looking at more specific searches.
Decision fatigue.
Mental load.
Low energy.
Better sleep.
Reduce stress.
Those searches felt different.
They weren’t simply describing broad topics, they were describing lived experiences.
Someone searching “decision fatigue” is often experiencing something very specific. They have recognised a problem, even if they haven’t yet found the language to fully explain it.
That makes the keyword far more interesting, not because it has higher search volume, because it tells a clearer story.
Every Keyword Is Evidence Of Human Behaviour
This has probably become my favourite part of keyword research, every search is somebody trying to solve something.
Sometimes it is practical.
Sometimes it is emotional.
Sometimes it is uncertainty.
Sometimes it is frustration.
When somebody types:
“Why am I always tired?”
they are rarely looking for a definition of tiredness.
They are looking for reassurance and they want an explanation.
Perhaps they want somebody to tell them they are not imagining it.
Equally, somebody searching:
“How do I build a marketing strategy?”
is not really searching for the words themselves.
They are searching because they have a problem they don’t yet know how to solve.
The keyword simply becomes the language through which that problem is expressed, that shift in thinking has changed the way I approach content.
Rather than trying to answer keywords, I try to answer the problem sitting behind the keyword.
The words matter …. The reason they were typed matters even more.
This Is Where SEO Becomes Marketing
The more I have learned about SEO, the less I think it is purely an SEO discipline.
Understanding keywords influences far more than blog articles.
It influences positioning.
Messaging.
Navigation.
Landing pages.
FAQs.
Products.
Email campaigns.
Advertising.
Even the language an organisation chooses to use throughout its website.
Because if keyword research genuinely reflects the questions people are asking, ignoring that information seems like ignoring the customer altogether.
That is one reason I wrote What Should a Marketing Strategy Actually Measure?
The article explores the importance of measuring behaviour rather than simply collecting numbers. Keyword research feels remarkably similar, rather than collecting lists of phrases, the goal is understanding what those phrases reveal about the people behind them.
That is a much more strategic way to think about SEO.
A Simple Workflow For Better Keyword Research
One of the mistakes I made early on was opening a keyword research tool before I had properly thought about the problem I was trying to solve.
The software immediately presented me with hundreds of possible phrases, search volumes, competition scores and related questions. It felt productive, but after a while I realised I was answering the wrong question.
I wasn’t trying to find keywords, I was trying to understand people.
Now, my process usually begins long before I look at any data.
First, I ask myself what the organisation is actually trying to achieve, that may sound obvious, but it changes the direction of everything that follows. If the business objective is to generate enquiries from small business owners, the keyword strategy will look very different from a business trying to build brand awareness amongst university students.
Once the business objective is clear, I start thinking about the audience.
Who are they?
What problem are they trying to solve?
What might they already know?
What might they still be confused about?
Only then do I begin thinking about what they might actually type into Google.
At that point, keyword research becomes a process of validating assumptions rather than generating ideas from scratch.
The tools become incredibly useful, but they are no longer leading the strategy …. They are supporting it.
Search Intent Should Influence More Than Blog Posts
I think one of the biggest opportunities many organisations miss is limiting keyword research to content marketing.
Someone researches keywords before writing a blog article, publishes it and then moves on.
But the insights gained from keyword research can influence almost every part of a marketing strategy.
If people consistently search for beginner-level questions, perhaps your website needs simpler language.
If customers repeatedly search for comparisons, perhaps your product pages should include clearer comparison tables.
If people search for reassurance before making a purchase, perhaps testimonials or case studies deserve greater prominence.
The keywords themselves are useful, the behaviour behind them is even more valuable.
This is where SEO starts becoming customer research.
Rather than asking, “How do we rank for this keyword?” you begin asking, “What is this search telling us about the customer?”
Those two questions often produce very different marketing decisions.
Building The Frictionless Man Changed My Thinking
This became particularly obvious while developing The Frictionless Man.
When I first started planning articles, I naturally gravitated towards topics that sounded important.
Stress.
Anxiety.
Mental wellbeing.
Burnout.
They seemed logical because they described the themes I wanted to write about.
The problem was that they weren’t necessarily the language my audience was using.
As I spent more time researching search intent, a different picture began to emerge.
People weren’t always searching for “stress.”
They were searching for:
“Why am I always tired?”
“Decision fatigue.”
“Mental load.”
“Better sleep.”
“Reduce stress.”
Those searches felt much more personal.
They weren’t looking for a diagnosis, they were describing an experience.
That changed how I approached almost every article I wrote afterwards.
Rather than beginning with the topic I wanted to discuss, I began with the question somebody might already be asking themselves.
It made the writing feel more relevant because it started where the reader already was, rather than where I wanted them to be.
I reflected on a similar lesson in How to Build a Website From Scratch: Lessons From My First Two SEO Experiments, where one of the biggest surprises wasn’t learning how websites ranked. It was discovering how often my own assumptions about audience behaviour turned out to be incomplete.
The experiments didn’t simply improve my understanding of SEO, they improved my understanding of people.
Keyword Research Should Connect Back To Strategy
This is probably the biggest lesson I have taken from learning SEO.
Keyword research isn’t something that sits alongside marketing strategy, it should sit inside it.
Every keyword should support a business objective.
Every piece of content should serve a purpose within the customer journey.
Every measurement should help improve future decisions.
That thinking sits at the centre of the Marketing Strategy Planning Workbook I recently created.
The workbook doesn’t begin with keywords.
It begins with business objectives.
Then the audience.
Then the problem.
Only after understanding those things do we start thinking about channels, messaging and measurement.
For me, keyword research fits naturally into that sequence.
It becomes another way of listening to customers before deciding how to communicate with them.
That feels much more valuable than simply chasing rankings.
Better Questions Create Better Keywords
I continue to remind myself, that keyword research improves when the questions improve.
Instead of asking:
“What has the highest search volume?”
I now find myself asking:
“What is this person trying to achieve?”
“What frustration brought them here?”
“What would success look like for them?”
“What question are they really asking?”
Those questions often produce better content because they encourage empathy rather than optimisation.
Ironically, that often produces better SEO as well.
After all, Google’s objective is remarkably similar.
It isn’t trying to rank pages with the best keywords, it is trying to rank pages that best satisfy the searcher’s intent.
The closer those two objectives become, the more sustainable your SEO strategy is likely to be.
Final Thoughts
When I first began learning SEO, I thought keyword research was largely a technical exercise.
Find the right phrases.
Check the search volume.
Assess the competition.
Write the article.
Move on.
Today, I see it very differently.
Keyword research has become one of the simplest ways I know to understand customer behaviour.
Every search represents somebody trying to solve a problem.
Every phrase reflects the language they naturally use.
Every question provides a small insight into what matters to them.
That doesn’t mean search volume is irrelevant, it remains useful context.
But on its own, it rarely tells the whole story.
Search intent does.
Looking back, I think that’s probably the biggest lesson keyword research has taught me.
The words people type into Google are rarely what they’re really searching for.
They’re searching for reassurance.
Confidence.
Direction.
Clarity.
A solution.
The keyword simply happens to be how they ask.
As marketers, understanding that difference may be far more valuable than finding another high-volume phrase.
Because once you understand the person behind the search, you’re no longer creating content for an algorithm.
You’re creating something for another human being.
Here’s to success (and fewer 404s)
Chris
Want to apply this thinking to real keyword research strategy?
I created a practical Keyword Research Planning Workbook to help connect business objectives, audience understanding, identify search intent, build keyword plan and measurement in one place.
