What Is a Keyword in SEO?

What it applies to

Every page on the website. Each page should target a primary keyword that matches the search intent of the audience most likely to benefit from that page's content.

How to do keyword research

• Start with seed keywords — the core terms that describe your product, service, or topic area.
• Use tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Google Keyword Planner to expand seed keywords into a full list of related terms, with search volume and keyword difficulty data.
• Filter by intent — focus on informational keywords for blog content, commercial/transactional keywords for service and product pages.
• Prioritise keywords with moderate difficulty and meaningful search volume — targeting ultra-competitive keywords too early is ineffective for new domains.

How to apply a keyword to a page

• Include the primary keyword in the page's H1, URL slug, meta title, and meta description.
• Use it naturally in the first paragraph of body content.
• Include semantic variants and related terms throughout — not just the exact keyword repeated.
• Map one primary keyword to one page — avoid targeting the same keyword on multiple pages (keyword cannibalisation).