How to Choose Great Seed Keywords

All epic journeys start with a single step. In SEO, your first step is your seed keyword. Today, I’ll show you how to choose great seed keywords that generate plenty of keyword ideas.

Let’s dive in! 👇

What Is a Seed Keyword?

🎯 Seed keywords are the baseline search terms explaining your topic. They allow you to generate detailed keywords you’ll target with your content. 🎯

Example: if your seed keyword is “sofa” and you run a keyword report with LowFruits:

💡 (LowFruits uses your seed keyword to get long-tail keywords using 180+ modifiers. Your simple search generates over 54 pages of long-tail keyword ideas.)

How to Get Great Seed Keywords

👉 Brainstorm your main topics and sub-topics

👉 Make a list of broad keywords

👉 Analyze your broad keywords with LowFruits to get long-tail keyword ideas

👉 Think about keyword intent: what do the searchers want to achieve?

💡 (Example: run a wildcard search for a keyword like ‘best * sofa.’ This modifier signifies purchase intent, so you can target the long-tail keywords with pages and other commercial content.)

👉 Import your keyword list (if you made a list without LowFruits) and analyze it

Warning: Detailed Seed Keywords

Don’t make your seed keyword so detailed that you can’t generate ideas:

❌ Bad seed keyword: “mauve leather sofa for senior dogs” (too broad)

✔️ Good seed keyword: “leather sofa for dogs”

(Your seed keyword doesn’t generate additional results? People aren’t searching for it. Use a broader seed keyword.)

What Are the Different Types of Seed Keywords?

Broad Seed Keywords: Pros & Cons

🎯 Broad seed keywords: 🎯

• Show you all the modified and detailed queries people search for
• Generate thousands of keyword ideas 💡
• Offer many keywords with high search volume (but have fiercer competition)
• Generate long-tail keywords with higher intent

(Use broad seed keywords to generate more long-tail keyword ideas. for example, a search for “sofa” generates ideas such as: “2-seater chesterfield sofa,” “pet-friendly sofa,” and “outdoors sofa.”)

Narrow Seed Keywords: Pros & Cons

🎯 Narrow seed keywords: 🎯

• Are more detailed and specific
• Don’t have as many competitors
• Typically generate better traffic conversions (high intent)
• The search volume is lower
• You can’t generate as many keyword ideas as with broad seed keywords

(Example: I’ll analyze “leather sofa.” I still get hundreds of keyword ideas, and LowFruits shows me CPC, search volume, intent, and more SERP information for each.)

Highly-Targeted Seed Keywords: Pros & Cons

Highly-targeted seed keywords:

• Very specific (e.g. ‘mauve leather sofas’)
• Often high purchasing intent (leads look for specific things to buy)
• They don’t generate many additional keyword ideas
• Fewer competitors
• Low search volume

How to Find Seed Keyword Ideas

People Also Ask and Related Searches

👉 The People Also Ask section will show you what your audience wants to know.

👉 The Related Searches section will show you other keywords your audience is looking for:

Find Great Seed Keywords with Google Autocomplete

👉 Google autocomplete generates thousands of additional keyword ideas depending on your cursor position, modifiers, and more.

Google Search Console

👉 (If you already get traffic.) Check the keywords your pages appear for in the Google Search Console “Queries” tab.

Wildcard Search

👉 Wildcard searches replace 1 item in your query with an asterisk (*). You can generate 100s of high-intent keywords:

Get Seed Keyword Ideas From Your Competitors

👉 Extract seed keywords from your competitors.

Do it manually or use LowFruits.

👉 Analyze the competitor’s domain for keywords

👉 Select the KWs you want to analyze:

👉 Is your Domain Authority low? Extract keywords from competitors with similar DA.

Recap: Seed Keywords Are the Foundation of Your SEO

• Brainstorm your main topics and sub-topics to get seed keywords
• Choose broad seed keywords for further analysis (don’t target them directly with content because they’re very competitive)
• Choose narrow seed keywords to write content
• Choose highly-targeted seed keywords for landing pages
• Analyze your seed keywords with LowFruits to get long-tail ideas for your content