A Detailed Guide to Keyword Research for eCommerce

Your eCommerce website is more than a sales instrument. It can also attract thousands of visitors if you can optimize it for the search engines.

There are many optimization techniques you should use to improve your site’s ranking, but it starts with keyword research.

It allows you to find the phrases people use in search to find products like yours online and optimize your website to be visible for those phrases.

In this practical guide, you’ll learn what keyword research is, what its unique features and challenges are, and how to do proper eCommerce keyword research.

What is Keyword Research?

Keyword research is the process of finding and vetting search phrases people use on Google and other search engines to find services like yours.

To do keyword research for an eCommerce site, you’ll need to brainstorm seed keywords, use SEO tools to find similar ones, and group them into clusters by similarity. You then match these clusters to individual pages on your site and optimize those pages for the keyword cluster.

This way, search engines can understand what your page is about and show it for every related search, resulting in higher search visibility and traffic figures.

Keyword research has several core principles and goals, but the details of the process can differ from one industry to another.

eCommerce Keyword Research vs Keyword Research in Other Industries

The main difference between keyword research for eCommerce and other industries is the sheer number of keywords you need to research.

An HVAC company may do ten services in three areas. This means they’ll likely have no more than 30 landing pages for each service in each area. They’re starting keyword research with 30 seed keywords.

A company like this can expand its keyword research with informational keywords, but the scope of research for purely transactional keywords is rather small.

An eCommerce website might list thousands of products and dozens of category pages. This means you start research with thousands of keywords, potentially. It will take more time to both do research and implement the findings.

Monitoring and improving keyword research and optimization strategy also becomes harder due to the sheer number of search terms in eCommerce.

Why is Keyword Research Important in eCommerce?

Doing keyword research is crucial for any company in any industry. Without it, your website pages will appear for irrelevant searches that won’t result in any conversions.

The main benefit of eCommerce keyword research is that you can ensure most of the search traffic that comes to your product pages is highly relevant and has a higher chance of converting into paying customers. There are plenty of other benefits.

• Find more keywords to increase search traffic potential.
• Assess keyword difficulty to prioritize optimization.
• Understand the competition.
• Understand the search intent of your keywords.
• Understand larger search trends.

Keyword research can also help you find ideas for new products to sell.

How to Do Keyword Research for E-commerce in 9 Steps

No matter what industry you’re in, you’re going to go through these steps to perform a thorough keyword research. Let’s explore them one by one.

1. Create a seed keyword list

The first thing you need to do when researching keywords for an eCommerce website is create a list of seed keywords. These are the keywords that you think are associated with your business and products. You’ll use them with keyword research tools later to find similar words and phrases.

You’ll need to come up with seed keywords for your home page, category pages, and product pages. For instance, if you run a gardening shop, the seed keywords might look like this.

• Home page: Buy gardening equipment, gardening shop in Delaware
• Category page: Buy perennial seeds, lawn mowers under $250
• Product page: Buy anemone seeds, DeWalt electric cordless lawnmower

The easiest way to come up with seed keywords is to take every category and product page and brainstorm with your team. You can use data to supplement the list you create.

• Product names
• Site search data
• PPC keywords
• Keywords from Google Search Console
• Review data mining
• Similar categories and products on marketplaces like Amazon
• LLM prompts to find relevant keywords

Save all the seed keyword ideas in one place and prepare for analyzing them.

2. Choose the Right E-commerce Keyword Tool

Before you start keyword research, you’ll need several analytics tools. Here are a few options.

• Main keyword research tool: SE Ranking. This tool can show you keyword metrics like difficulty to rank and search volume, define intent, as well as provide an extensive list of similar and related keywords.
• Marketplace intelligence: Jungle Scout. This tool can analyze keywords used on marketplaces like Amazon.
• Trend analytics: Google Trends. This free tool shows trending keywords and can compare keyword search volumes. It might not work for low-volume keywords well, though.
• LLM tool: ChatGPT. This tool can help you come up with keyword variations and seasonal keywords.

Do your research on SEO tools and get a subscription. In many cases, the basic plan would be enough to start with eCommerce keyword research.

3. Build and Categorize Your Keyword List

Once you’ve created a list of seed keywords and chosen a set of tools, analyze the keyword list and find similar keywords.

Most keyword analytics tools will show you a list of similar and related keywords, accompanied by keyword difficulty and search volume metrics. Not all of the keywords will be relevant to your list, so you might have to filter them.

For industries with a smaller number of keywords to analyze, you can add individual keywords from the suggested list. Since in eCommerce keyword research you’re working with thousands of keywords, it’s best to first add as many keywords as possible and then delete the irrelevant ones.

Save all the suggested keywords and run them through a keyword grouper tool. It will put keywords that describe a similar concept or product in clusters. You can then delete irrelevant keywords from each cluster either at this stage or when optimizing pages for these keyword groups.

4. Segment Keywords by Funnel Stage

Another layer of keyword segmentation is dividing the groups of keywords by the funnel stage. This can help you get a better understanding of the type of content the keywords require to perform well and prioritize optimization.

You can put keywords in these three categories:

• Top of the funnel (TOFU) – Keywords used on the awareness stage, typically informational ones, like “lawn mower care tips.”
• Middle of the funnel (MOFU) – Keywords used on the consideration stage, typically commercial, like “best lawn mowers under $250.”
• Bottom of the funnel (BOFU) – Keywords used on the conversion stage, typically transactional, like “buy DeWalt lawn mower.”

In keyword research for eCommerce, the bulk of keywords would be transactional. Focus your attention on those keywords first.

Then optimize for commercial MOFU keywords. ESW survey shows that almost a quarter of consumers research a product before buying, so optimizing for these keywords can help you connect with this audience. Typically, this involves creating articles with lists of products or buyer guides.

Do the informational TOFU keywords last as they provide the least potential for conversion. You’ll have to create blog articles and guides to attract traffic for those keywords.

5. Conduct SERP and Competitor Analysis

Competitor analysis with an SEO tool can show you which keywords your major competitors rank for. You can use the keywords from the list to supplement your own optimization strategy.

It requires careful study of the competitor’s keyword list, though, as many of the keywords they rank for would be irrelevant to your business.

Analyze search results for the keywords on your list to understand the search intent behind them. Search intent is the reason behind a search. If the search intent for the keyword doesn’t match what your page offers, even if it ranks high, it won’t convert as well because it’s irrelevant to the users.

To assess it, look through the top ten search results. The pages that rank well are likely to answer the search intent. Let’s look at a couple of examples to understand this better.

A search for “best lawn mowers for a small yard” returns mostly articles with product reviews.

This means this keyword has a commercial intent, and you should produce similar content to capture traffic from it. If you run a gardening supply store, you can create an article about the best lawn mowers for that specific goal and link to the products in your store.

A search for “Milwaukee lawn mower” returns mostly pages from the manufacturer’s website.

This might mean the search intent is navigational—purely to find a specific page on the Milwaukee website. In this case, it’s best not to optimize for this keyword at all and focus on more specific product names and modifiers instead.

This search for “fuel self-propelled lawn mower” returns mostly category pages on different websites.

This means this is a commercial or transactional keyword, and you should optimize category pages for it.

This type of analysis takes a lot of time, so reserve it for the main keywords in the group or for keywords you’re having doubts about.

6. Research Product-Specific Keyword Modifiers

Keyword modifiers are phrases people add to the main product keyword to narrow down their search, like adding “push” or “cordless” to the “lawn mower.” Getting as many of those modifiers as you can helps you optimize your category and product pages for very specific keywords and potentially improve the conversion rate.

There are several ways to find those.

The first method is to look at Google search autocomplete and at the People Also Search For section in SERP.

Another method is to search your Google Search Console with a regular expression to find all the keyword variations related to the main keyword. Use ChatGPT or another LLM to create a regex for this task.

You can also ask ChatGPT to produce a list of possible modifiers. Use a prompt like this to have it come up with a neatly organized list.

Here’s an example of results for the lawn mower category.

Take the list of modifiers you create with these three methods and check the modified keywords in an SEO tool to make sure they have search volume. This confirms that the modified keywords are actually used in searches.

7. Map Keywords to Specific Pages

After creating a keyword list and enriching it by going through the actionable steps above, map each keyword group to a specific page that corresponds to it. Investigate each keyword group and assign a URL on your eCommerce site.

The group with the most high-level keywords like “gardening shop” or “buy gardening supplies” should be mapped to the home page. Map keyword groups that include product names to category and product pages. More specific keywords should be mapped to product pages, and vague ones to the category pages.

You’ll find that not all keyword groups will have a page that corresponds to them on your site, and not every page will have a keyword group.

If you find a commercial or informational keyword group that doesn’t have a corresponding page on the site, you might consider creating one.

If you find a product page that you can’t map to a keyword group, go back to keyword research and find keywords for this specific page. This is likely to happen if your eCommerce website has thousands of products.

When you have mapped all the keywords to the pages on your site, optimize each page for its keyword group. Here’s a short guide on doing this.

• Add the main keyword, the one that best describes the page, and has the most search volume, to the title tag, meta description, and the main heading.
• Add supporting keywords to secondary headings.
• Add all of the keywords in the text of the page.

It’s best to keep the title tags similar across the site. Here are a couple of title tag templates for different types of pages.

• Home page: [Brand name] [Main Keyword]
• Category page: Buy [Main keyword] | [Brand name]
• Product page: Buy [Primary Keyword] | [Top Attribute] | [Brand name]

You can experiment with different title tag formulas to see which produces a better ranking and click-through rate.

8. Incorporate Seasonal and Trend Factors

Add seasonal and trending keywords to your list to capitalize on irregular search behaviors. Many of these keywords deal with holiday sales or with Black Friday offers. Here’s how to find eCommerce trending keywords and seasonal keyword variations:

• Browsing Google Trends.
• Investigating GSC keywords.
• Doing keyword research.
• Asking an LLM to come up with seasonal variations.

Here’s a prompt you can use to generate seasonal keywords:

You’ll find plenty of MOFU keywords like “lawn mower end-of-season sale” or TOFU keywords like “lawn mower cooling tips.” Consider creating separate pages for them.

9. Monitor and Adapt Your eCommerce Keyword Strategy

Start monitoring keyword rankings and other metrics before you implement a keyword strategy. This allows you to compare the before and after states of your SEO and see if keyword optimization helps you achieve business goals.

Keep in mind that it might take up to three months to see improvements in ranking.

Here are a few metrics you should track:

• Keyword ranking for select keywords
• Change in position over the reporting period
• Impressions
• Organic traffic
• Bounce rate
• Conversions

If your pages have low ranking and organic traffic figures, try adjusting your eCommerce keyword strategy or working on another aspect of SEO.

If a page ranks well but has low conversions and a high bounce rate, review search intent for the keywords associated with the page. It’s likely that people who use this keyword aren’t looking for the products you have on the page.

Do keyword cannibalization audits quarterly and run an annual keyword list audit.

Common Mistakes in eCommerce Keyword Research to Avoid

As you go about creating and implementing a keyword optimization strategy for eCommerce, you will inevitably make mistakes and learn from them. Here are a few most common mistakes you should avoid.

Ignoring Search Intent

Too often, eCommerce website owners focus on metrics like keyword difficulty and search volume while completely ignoring search intent. Changing keywords with good metrics that are irrelevant to your page leads to having a page that ranks well but doesn’t convert.

People who come through that irrelevant keyword don’t find what they’re looking for on your page and leave.

Make sure you analyze the search intent of the keywords you use to match it with page content. Since it can be time-consuming, do it for the main keyword for every page.

Monitor the performance of other keywords and do a search intent analysis if your page ranks for a keyword but doesn’t have good conversion figures.

Poor Keyword Mapping

The same applies to mapping keywords to the wrong pages. If a keyword doesn’t match the content of a page, it won’t convert even if the page ranks well. This will only leave users confused and frustrated.

Focusing Only on High-Volume Keywords

Keywords with high search volume estimates are beneficial for a keyword optimization strategy because they can potentially bring in much more traffic. But often, it’s hard to rank well for them due to high competition.

Low-volume keywords might not provide as much traffic, but they’re typically easier to rank for. They are often focused on a very specific search intent, and when you match it, you can enjoy pretty high conversion rates.

Optimize each page for multiple keywords. Keep the high-volume keyword the primary one, but add multiple low-volume keywords. This way, you maximize the page’s traffic potential and can generate sales even if it doesn’t rank well for the primary keyword.

Neglecting Funnel Stages

Most keywords in an eCommerce keyword list will be bottom-of-the-funnel ones like “buy electric leaf blower.” But focusing on only one stage of the sales funnel means you’re missing out on potential sales.

Create content for TOFU and MOFU keywords as well to improve brand awareness and capture users before they’re ready to make a decision on a purchase.

Failing to Update Keywords Regularly

Many keywords will remain unchanged throughout the years. Some will inevitably change with time, either in the wording or in search intent.

To catch these changes and adapt to them, run an annual keyword list audit.

Maximize eCommerce Traffic with Keyword Optimization

Keywords your pages contain tell the search engines what they are about and help show them to the right audiences. The high-level concept is pretty simple, but the details of eCommerce keyword optimization can be difficult, especially for a site with a wide catalogue of products.

The benefits of proper keyword optimization include a potential increase in traffic, conversions, and customers.

Follow the eCommerce keyword research tips from this article to create and implement a keyword strategy that can move your brand’s bottom line. Monitor the effects optimization has on organic search performance and adapt your strategy if needed.