How to Build a Keyword List for SEO and Paid Search

Most people check keyword volume before they have written down what their business actually does. That is the wrong order. The list you build in week one shapes everything downstream: which pages get written, which ad groups get funded, which queries your site can ever appear for.

To-The-TOP! has been doing keyword research in Calgary since 2007. Seed terms, competitor gaps, volume filtering, intent sorting. This post walks through the full process so you can build a keyword list that reflects how your customers actually search, not what a tool’s autocomplete suggests.

Start with Your Business, Not a Keyword Tool

Worth doing before opening any tool.

Before Semrush. Google Keyword Planner can wait. Write down what your business does in plain language, before any competitor analysis touches the list. What do you sell? Who buys it? What would a customer type if they had never heard your brand name?

For a Calgary roofing company, the raw list might read: roof repair, roof replacement, leaking roof, flat roof, shingles, residential roofing contractor. Rough and without polish. That is the goal.

These are your seed keywords. Not because a tool generated them, but because you know the business. Tools expand and filter. They do not replace the ten minutes it takes to write down what you actually do and what problems you solve. A business with four service lines needs at least four clusters of seed keywords before anything else begins.

The instinct to open a tool first is understandable. Keyword data is tangible, and blank lists are uncomfortable. Resist that instinct. Tools work best when fed with something specific. Your actual business terms return useful expansions. Generic guesses return someone else’s strategy, not yours.

Seed Keywords: Where Every List Begins

Raw material. Nothing more.

Seed keywords are short, broad terms that describe your category. Two or three words, no qualifiers. “Keyword research.” “Dental implants.” “Dog grooming Calgary.” “Emergency plumber.”

Each seed term anchors a branch of your keyword list. From “keyword research” you expand to “how to do keyword research,” “keyword research tools,” “free keyword research,” “keyword research for small business.” From “dental implants” you branch into procedure terms, cost terms, comparison terms, and local terms. The keyword ideas multiply once you start.

Write down ten to fifteen seeds before opening any tool. Group them loosely by topic. That grouping matters later when you organise your keywords into content clusters or ad groups.

The goal at this stage is not quality control. Get everything down. You will filter and trim later. Experienced practitioners generate seventy to a hundred keywords before narrowing anything. The ones you discard still serve a purpose: negative keywords in paid campaigns, so you stop paying for searches your business cannot convert.

Keyword Research Tools Worth Using

Tools expand. You narrow.

No single tool has complete data. Different platforms pull from different sources, and volume figures vary between them. Use at least two.

Google Keyword Planner

Free, and tied directly to Google’s own search data. Keyword Planner gives monthly search volume ranges, competition levels, and keyword ideas built from your seed list. The ranges are broad, typically 100 to 1,000 rather than a specific count, but the tool is reliable for directional decisions. Access it through a Google Ads account, even if you are not running paid campaigns. If you are already managing Google Ads campaigns, the volume estimates sharpen once the account accumulates data.

The tool also surfaces related terms that experienced keyword researchers tend to overlook. Secondary and tertiary keyword ideas often arrive here first. Worth checking before moving on.

Semrush and Ahrefs

Both are paid platforms. Each offers a limited free tier. Semrush gives keyword difficulty scores, SERP snapshots, and organic traffic estimates for any domain. Ahrefs does the same with particularly strong backlink data layered in. For expanding a keyword list from scratch, both are worth the trial period.

Plug in a competitor URL and look at their organic keyword report. That view surfaces keyword ideas that generic seed-expansion consistently misses. It also shows you which pages your competitors built to earn those rankings, which is as useful as the keyword data itself.

What Your Competitors’ Keywords Tell You

Start here before spending a dollar.

Your competitors have done years of testing already. The keywords they rank for, and the pages they built to rank for them, reflect what search engines have already rewarded in your category.

Pull a competitor URL into Semrush or Ahrefs. Look at the organic keyword report. Filter for positions 1 through 20. You will see terms your competitors rank for that you have not thought to target. This is where solid SEO keyword analysis produces the fastest return on time invested.

Look for gaps. Terms with reasonable search volume and moderate keyword difficulty, where your competitors appear but your site does not. Those gaps are where focused effort and new content pay off first. Your competitors spent years building that list. It takes you a free tool and an afternoon to reverse-engineer most of it.

This is also where you decide which keywords to deprioritise. If a competitor is ranking in position one on a term with high keyword difficulty and you are a newer site, that term goes in the backlog, not the active campaign. The gap analysis informs the timing as much as the targeting.

Search Volume, Keyword Difficulty, and Long-Tail Keywords

Two numbers. One decision.

Search volume tells you how many times per month a query gets entered. Keyword difficulty estimates how hard it will be to rank. A term with 10,000 monthly searches and a keyword difficulty of 85 is not a realistic starting point for a new site. Something with 400 monthly searches and a difficulty of 22 might be achievable within three months.

Long-tail keywords are where most conversion lives. Three to five words, specific intent, lower competition than the broad head terms. “Emergency roof repair Calgary in winter” converts differently than “roof repair.” The person typing the longer phrase knows exactly what they need. They are not browsing.

Target seed terms for brand awareness and long-term authority. Long-tail keywords earn early organic traffic and actual conversions. Most content plans should weight toward the latter, particularly in the first twelve months of any SEO effort. Chasing high-volume head terms with a new site costs time and budget before returning anything useful.

Search Intent: The Filter Most People Skip

Four types. Different pages for each.

Every search query carries an intent. Someone typing “what is keyword research” wants an explanation. “Keyword research tool” searchers are shopping for software. Someone typing “hire Calgary SEO company” is ready to spend money. Those three searches need three different pages.

Informational searchers want answers. Navigational searchers are heading somewhere specific. Commercial searchers are comparing options before deciding. Transactional searchers are ready to act.

Matching your page type to search intent is what separates a page that ranks from one Google keeps on page three. A transactional query matched to a blog post will not convert. An informational query matched to a product page will not rank. Check the SERP before deciding what content type to build. The pages already ranking tell you what search engines think the searcher wants.

Build an intent column into your keyword list before any page creation begins. It saves months of work later.

Organise Your Keyword List Into a Working Spreadsheet

The spreadsheet decides the strategy.

A keyword list that lives inside a tool is not a strategy. Export your keywords. Columns worth tracking: keyword, monthly search volume, keyword difficulty, intent type, target URL, content status (exists, needs update, not yet built).

Sort by intent first, then by keyword difficulty. Transactional keywords with manageable difficulty go on the short list for paid campaigns or priority content creation. Informational terms with low difficulty become blog targets. High-difficulty terms go in the backlog.

This organised keyword list is what a thorough SEO website audit references when deciding what to fix and what to build next. It is also what you hand to an SEO specialist when bringing in outside help.

The process looks like research, but it feeds everything that follows: content calendars, Google Ads PPC management, page refreshes, and priority technical fixes. Businesses that skip this step and create content based on guesswork spend months optimising the wrong pages for the wrong keywords.

Frequently Asked Questions

How to create a keyword list?

Seed terms first, then expand. Write down what your business does in plain language. Add variations your customers actually use. Pull those seeds into Google Keyword Planner or Semrush for volume data. Filter by search intent and keyword difficulty. Export to a spreadsheet, sort by priority, and revisit every few months as search trends shift.

What are the 4 types of keywords?

Short-tail (one to two words, high volume, high competition), long-tail (three or more words, lower volume, specific intent), geo-targeted (location plus service term), and branded (company or product name). Most SEO strategies use all four, weighting them differently by campaign stage and available budget.

What are the 3 C’s of SEO?

Content, code, and credibility. Three pillars, each one measurable. Content covers what your pages say and whether it matches what searchers need. Code covers site architecture, speed, and mobile performance. Credibility covers authority signals, primarily backlinks from other established sites. All three shape how well a site performs in organic search, and they are the first things an SEO agency Calgary businesses trust will look at.

Can I do SEO myself for free?

Partially. Google Search Console, Google Keyword Planner, and Google Trends are all free. Solid keyword research and basic on-page optimisation are achievable without paying for any tools. The work takes significant time, however. At a certain point, most businesses find that the hours spent managing their own SEO cost more than a monthly retainer with an SEO services specialist who focuses on this full-time.