"Keyword research is one of my favorite aspects of being an SEO Specialist. I love brainstorming. I use a visual approach, sometimes drawing on a whiteboard. My first step is breaking down everything I know about the company and its services and projects into chunks and topics. Then, I break those topics down even further until I have an extremely detailed and well-fleshed-out picture. Next, I make a list of keywords for each topic, no matter how small. I do two rounds of this, one "in the moment" round and another "thinking like the audience" round. The first time around, I depend on my knowledge of the company, and the second time, I approach it with my "consumer hat" on. This helps me develop a broad spectrum of potential keywords, which I then use to find related keywords I might have missed. After that, I select the top keywords that have emerged in terms of relevance to the company's current goals and user intent, and I check their monthly search volume and see how competitors are ranking for those keywords."
