27 Types of Keywords You Must Know For SEO Success

In this guide, we’re breaking down the types of keywords every SEO-focused content creator should know – plus showing you how to find them.

As if the internet’s billions of pages weren’t already enough, content creators now have to compete with forum results and AI overviews in search results. It may be harder than ever to rank in the SERPS, but with the right knowledge you can position your content for success.

One of the keys to visibility is a deep understanding of the different types of keywords. With this foundation, you can create content your audience wants (and that Google rewards).

Let’s dive in and explore the different types of keywords in more detail.

Keyword Types By Search Intent

Search intent is about understanding the underlying motivation behind a user’s query. 

Having this awareness allows you to meet them where they’re at in the buyer’s journey and craft content that meets their needs.

For example, users may be:

• Searching for information (eg., “what to look for when buying a used car”)
• Comparing products or services (“best cars to buy used”)
• Ready to make a purchase (“buy used audi q5”)

Each of the users typing these sample queries into Google has different intent.

The four main types of intent are:

• Informational: Searchers are seeking knowledge
• Commercial: Searchers want to research products or services
• Transactional: Searchers have an intent to buy or complete a given action
• Navigational: Searchers want to find a specific page or location

Let’s break each down in more detail.

Informational Keywords

These are the types of keywords used by knowledge-seekers.

Typical searches will include queries like “how to,” “what is,” “guide,” or “tutorial.”

For example:

• what is the easiest language to learn
• istanbul travel guide
• how to make gingerbread cookies

Searchers who use informational keywords are looking for information, answers, or solutions to their problems. They’re likely at the Awareness stage of the buyer’s journey, just realising they have a need or a problem.

Use your content to educate them and build trust.

Commercial Keywords

These keywords are used by researchers.

Their search queries often include terms like “best,” “top,” “review,” or “vs.”

They might look like this:

• best gdpr survey solutions
• duolingo vs rosetta stone
• cheap flights to miami

Searchers using commercial keywords are interested in products, services or brands but haven’t yet made a buying decision. They’re in the Consideration phase of the buyer’s journey, actively considering solutions that could potentially address their problems.

Ensure your content effectively showcases your solutions, educates, and differentiates your offerings. Social proof and third-party reviews can also be helpful.

Transactional Keywords

These keywords are searched by action takers or users with intent to buy.

Common transactional queries include words like “sign up,” “buy,” “order,” “download” or “sign up.”

Examples include:

• order iPhone 16
• download cleanmymac
• buy spirulina powder

Searchers using transactional keywords are ready to take the next step, and should be sent to pages that make it easy for them to do so – like a sales page or dedicated landing page.

They’re in the Decision phase of the buyer’s journey, often just looking for the best deal or most convenient option.

Navigational Keywords

Navigational keywords are search queries used by searchers looking to find a specific brand’s website or page.

They’ll usually include a brand name plus a product name or specific web page.

For example:

• X login
• keyword insights contact page
• airbnb customer service

To ensure you rank for your brand’s navigational keywords, focus on improving your site’s technical SEO. Add the specific navigational terms to your target pages, ensure they’re part of your sitemap, and use schema markup.

How to Find Intent-based Keywords

Our Keyword Discovery tool can help you find a list of initial keywords. Note that this won’t tell you the intent (yet), but we can discover and sort for intent in a later stage.

To start, enter a “seed keyword” (ie., a broad keyword related to your industry):

This will then give you a long list of keywords.

In the “All Keywords” tab, you can click “Get Search Volume” then “Cluster Keywords” in the upper right hand corner to group related keywords together:

This will send you to the Keyword Clustering tool. To find intent-based keywords, simply flick on “Get search intent” when starting this process.

It will take a moment, then your keyword clustering project will be ready to view.

The algorithm will highlight in green the keyword in the cluster that we recommend to target with informational articles.

You’ll also be able to view the dominant search intent for each cluster.

If you click the “Show intents” button at the top of a cluster card, you’ll be given more detailed information about what types of results are shown in the SERPs. You can use this information to guide your decision making.

You can also sort by intent to narrow your search to specific types of intent-based keywords.

Many SEO tools classify keywords according to their intent. But at Keyword Insights, we’ve developed a metric called “Context” which we use in place of keyword intent.
Think about it this way: The same keyword can have very different meanings depending on the context in which it’s used.
For example, for a search like “ginseng supplement”, the keyword intent and keyword context differ. The intent behind the search is transactional, but the context is informational.
Without the context of intent, you could spend hours categorising keywords and crafting content around them, only to find your article doesn’t properly address the searcher’s query. And what happens then? Google doesn’t show it.
That’s precisely why Keyword Insights uses the “Context” metric. We aim to provide a deeper understanding of the subtleties around searcher intent so that you can create content that addresses their needs.
Not only does an understanding of context help inform why a user is searching a given term, it also dictates which type of content you should create. It’s critical to match your page content to the user’s intent. This leads to a more satisfying user experience, more time spent on page, and in turn, higher rankings in Google.

Keyword Types Based on Length

We can also classify the types of keywords based on their relative length, regardless of what their intent is.

When we do this, we wind up with the following keyword types:

• Short-tail: General search terms of 1-2 words
• Long-tail: More specific search phrases of 4+ words
• Medium-tail: Search terms of 2-3 words that fall between long-tail and medium-tail keywords in terms of specificity

Let’s learn a bit more about each of them.

Short-tail Keywords

Short-tail keywords are general search terms that consist of 1-2 words.

For example:

• jackets
• kitchen table
• health insurance
• weight loss
• Panama

These queries are often so generic that they don’t hint at the searcher’s intent. 

Being so broad, short-tail keywords typically have high search volume but are also highly competitive. Only the most authoritative websites will have a chance at ranking for these keywords.

For this reason, SEO content creators generally target medium- and long-tail keywords.

Short-tail keywords are also commonly bid on for PPC campaigns, but tend to have a high cost per click (CPC).

Long-tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords are more specific keyword phrases that consist of three or more words.

They might look like this:

• best jackets for cold weather
• gluten-free recipe for caramel brownies
• cheapest sports physiotherapists in london

Though they have lower search volume compared to short-tail keywords, they are easier to rank for because there’s generally less competition. They typically also have a lower CPC in PPC campaigns.

Another upside to targeting long-tail keywords with your content is that it’s easier to deduce search intent. You can then better tailor your content to meet the needs of searchers.

Medium-tail Keywords

Medium-tail keywords are search terms that typically consist of 2-3 words. They sit in the middle between short-tail and long-tail keywords when it comes to specificity, competition, and search volume.

For instance:

• grass-fed butter
• beginner spanish classes
• tiktok marketing services

Because they’re more specific than short-tail keywords, crafting targeted content around these types of keywords tends to be more straightforward. CPC costs are usually lower in comparison, with medium-tail keywords typically having higher conversion rates.

It can be a good practice to pinpoint your core topics (typically short-tail keywords) then expand them into medium- and long-tail keywords for increased specificity.

Targeting medium-tail keywords can help you create focused content that’s not overly niched down.

How to Find Short-Tail, Medium-Tail, and Long-Tail Keywords

Identifying the various types of keywords is easy with a tool like Keyword Discovery.

Type in your seed keyword, then conduct your search.

Then, click on the All Keywords tab to view your keywords in a list. 

Enrich your list of keywords with search volume data by clicking the “Get Search Volume Data” button.

Click the Average Search Volume column to sort in ascending order. This will show you a list of low- or zero-volume long-tail keywords.

Click the Average Search Volume column again to sort in descending order. This will display the keywords starting from the highest search volume.

These will tend to be shorter-tail keywords.

You can look through the list of keywords to identify short-tail, medium-tail, and long-tail keywords to target.

Keyword Types Based on Competition and Search Volume

We can also group keywords based on their relative levels of competition and search volume. 

Doing things in this way, we get:

• Low-competition keywords: Search queries few websites are competing for
• Zero search volume keywords: Search queries that keyword research tools typically don’t show any volume for
• Fresh keywords: Newly emerging search queries
• Trending keywords: Search queries that are spiking in volume

Low-competition keywords

Low-competition keywords are search queries that relatively few websites are actively competing for.

This makes these keywords potentially easier to rank for without as many backlinks.

You can think of them as low-hanging fruit, since less effort is typically required to achieve the payoff and they can lead to quick wins.

These keywords tend to be long-tail keywords. In general, the more you focus on longer-tail keywords, the lower the competition will be. The key is striking a balance between specificity and traffic potential.

Just keep in mind that the “low competition” is relative. Certain niches will always be harder to rank in than others, and competition levels may change with time.

Zero Search Volume Keywords

Zero search volume keywords are search queries that keyword research tools register as having no search volume. But they still might play a valuable role in your overall strategy.

Firstly, keyword research tools are not without flaws. Many fail to pick up newly emerging keywords, can’t detect traffic below a certain threshold, or have a lag in data.

It’s not uncommon for SEO content creators to report ranking for search queries that these tools deem have zero monthly search volume.

For this reason, it’s important to create content with the user’s intent top of mind. No matter how each individual user phrases the question (even if one particular search has zero search volume), your content can still show up in the search results. Combined, you can still gain considerable traffic from a combination of zero search volume keywords.

Targeting zero search volume keywords could help you tap into future trends or new niches.

Fresh Keywords

Fresh keywords are newly emerging keywords that are just starting to gain popularity.

When AI tools were still in their infancy, for example, fresh keywords might have looked like:

• ethical concerns of using AI for writing
• creating realistic images from text

If you can stumble upon fresh keywords before others, you can potentially win lots of traffic.

Many times these keywords reflect current events or trends, and have high potential to send your website traffic from Google Discover.

Because of their nature, the users searching them are typically looking for the most up-to-date info. They also tend to be transient, only being relevant for a short period of time.

Stay on top of the current news in your industry and pay attention to what users are talking about in niche forums to uncover them.

Just be sure to act fast when you find them.

Trending Keywords

Trending keywords are search queries that are spiking in popularity over a short period of time.

They may be related to trends, current events, or even viral news or content.

Trending keywords have high overlap with fresh keywords in this way, but take off much more rapidly and are more short-lived.

When the Will Smith Oscar slap incident happened, it was a worldwide trend. So were Barbie memes when the movie came out. Donald Trump mentioned immigrants eating pets, and that was trending, too.

Focus on producing high quality content quickly to give yourself a chance at ranking for these types of keywords. You’ll need to be first on top of the trend and have a unique and insightful perspective.

You can use our Keyword Discovery tool to simplify the process of finding trending keywords in any niche.

Instead of using outdated databases like other popular SEO tools, Keyword Insights pulls keywords directly from live search results –  including Google Autocomplete, Quora, TikTok, and People Also Ask.

You’re also given the Google Trends data at a glance:

During the recent cucumber shortage in Iceland (caused by a viral TikTok trend), the tool was able to identify thousands of fresh, trending keywords related to the shortage that traditional tools missed because they weren’t yet in their databases.

How to Find Keywords Based on Competition and Search Volume

You can find low-competition keywords by adding a filter to your keyword search in Keyword Discovery.

Just click the Filters button at the top.

You’ll then be able to sort by competition and monthly searches.

You can also use a filter to find zero search volume keywords by setting the slider to 0 monthly searches.

To find fresh and trending keywords, use tools like:

• Google Trends
• Social media platforms (especially X)
• News aggregators like Feedly

You can also set up Google Alerts to get notified about new developments in your industry.

Keyword Types Related to Strategy and Targeting

Certain types of keywords are used in research or play into strategy for page targeting.

These include:

• Seed keywords: Core search queries that act as starting points for keyword research
• Primary keywords: The core search query a page is trying to rank for
• Secondary keywords: Supporting search queries that relate to primary keywords

Let’s cover each of these keyword types in more detail.

Seed Keywords

Seed keywords are broad, core search queries that act as starting points for keyword research. 

Typically these keywords represent the main topics your business or website covers.

For Keyword Insights, for example, these are terms like “keyword research”, “clustering”, and “content marketing”.

You can use seed keywords to expand your list of keywords and group them together to create topical keyword clusters.

In this way, seed keywords can play a large role in your overall content strategy and help guide you in terms of overall direction.

Primary Keywords

A primary keyword is the main keyword a page is targeting. It represents the page’s core topic.

For example, the primary keyword of this article is “types of keywords.”

You can use primary keywords to guide the overall structure of your content.

For instance, you’ll use the keyword in your article’s:

• Title
• Meta description
• Body content
• Subheading(s)
• Image title and alt text
• Permalink

Just be sure you don’t over-optimize – the key is to use them naturally in your content.

When selecting a primary keyword, take into consideration its relevance to your business along with its search volume and difficulty.

Secondary Keywords

Secondary keywords are supporting search queries that relate to primary keywords.

This article’s secondary keywords, for example, include “search intent keywords”, “long-tail keywords”, and “google ads keywords”.

In general, secondary keywords cover more specific or niche aspects of the main topic.

By adding them into your content, you cover the topic in more detail and send positive signals to search engines.

Like primary keywords, it’s just important to ensure you don’t over-optimise. You want your primary keyword to be the main focus of your article.

How To Find Keywords Related to Strategy and Targeting

Start by coming up with a list of seed keywords.

You may identify these by:

• Brainstorming
• Searching competitor websites
• Analysing your Google Search console data
• Using your knowledge of your target customers and industry

You can then add your seed keyword into the Keyword Discovery tool and conduct a search.

Enrich your keywords with search volume data, then cluster your keywords using the Keyword Clustering tool.

This will group them into relevant clusters of topics.

The tool will automatically highlight the recommended primary keyword. The other keywords in the cluster you can treat as secondary keywords.

You can consider the Cluster difficulty score and volume when deciding which keyword clusters to target.

Google Ads Keyword Types

Google Ads keywords are used on Google’s advertising platform as part of PPC campaigns.

There are four key types to know:

• Exact match keywords
• Phrase match keywords
• Broad match keywords
• Negative keywords

Let’s get a deeper understanding of each one.

Exact Match Keywords

Exact match keywords are one of the keyword matching options in Google Ads.

When you select this keyword type, it only shows your ad to someone whose search query perfectly matches your indicated keyword (with exceptions for plurals or misspellings).

For example:

• [buy HDMI cable]
• [hardwood flooring installation near me]
• [best gdpr survey tool]

The brackets indicate an exact match.

By using exact match keywords in PPC campaigns, you can target users searching for highly precise terms with clear intent.

This cuts down on wasted ad dollars and irrelevant clicks.

It also makes your life easier when it comes to tracking analytics and performance.

But it’s also important to keep in mind that exact match keywords tend to have a higher CPC due to their specificity. 

Phrase Match Keywords

Phrase match keywords are a keyword matching option in Google ads that show your ads to users who search for your exact keyword or a close variation of it.

The variations are versions of the keyword with additional words before or after.

For instance:

• “organic spirulina” could also match for “best organic spirulina” or “organic spirulina for women”
• “keyword tool” could also match for “keyword tool for clustering” or “best keyword tool for bloggers”

Phrase match keywords help you allow for more variation in searches and capture long-tail queries that you might not have thought of.

Selecting this keyword type for your ads gives you balance between the precision of exact match keywords and the flexibility of broad match keywords.

Broad Match Keywords

Broad match keywords are the most flexible keyword matching option in Google ads. 

They allow the platform to show your ads for a wide range of queries related to your indicated keyword, including:

• Synonyms
• Misspellings
• Related searches
• Variations

This can help you find new search queries that you may not have considered.

But it can also result in ads being less relevant to the search query they’re shown for.

The ideal strategy is to use a mix of keyword types in Google Ads, and ensure you add a list of negative keywords to cut down on irrelevant clicks.

Negative Keywords

In Google Ads, you can specify negative keywords – terms that prevent your ads from being shown for certain search queries.

This helps you cut down on irrelevant searches and use your budget more effectively.

You might consider adding negative keywords like these to exclude searches whose intent doesn’t line up with your offering:

• -free
• -cheap
• -diy

The hyphen before each keyword indicates a negative keyword in Google Ads. 

Note that you can add more negative keywords anytime during your campaign. 

It’s important to continually monitor to ensure your PPC campaign becomes more highly targeted with time.

How to Find Google Ads Keyword Types

To find Google Ads keywords, use Google’s Keyword Planner – a specific tool they’ve created for users of their advertising platform.

You can also conduct manual keyword research using any of the methods we’ve already covered, being sure to select keywords that are most relevant to your offering.

If you want to speed up the process, start with a seed keyword then use Keyword Clustering to cluster your keywords.

In this case, you might sort by Commercial intent to focus on the keyword ideas most likely to convert into sales.

You can then look through the keywords and select potential keywords that might be relevant for your campaigns.

You can also compile a list of negative keywords throughout your keyword research process, noting down any keywords that you don’t want to rank for.

Other Keyword Types You Should Be Aware of

Let’s now cover a list of other types of keywords.

These keyword types don’t neatly fit into one of the other categories, but are important to be aware of.

Branded Keywords

Branded keywords are search queries that include a brand, product or company name.

They might look like this:

• keyword insights pricing
• prime ice pop flavour
• xbox game pass membership

They’re important for attracting searchers who are already familiar with your brand – both in paid campaigns and organic search.

Because they’re so specific, users searching these terms often have high purchase intent and higher conversion rates.

Generic Keywords

Generic keywords are broader terms related to your niche that don’t mention a specific brand.

For example: 

• keyword clustering tool
• energy drinks
• video game pass

Though they have the potential for wide reach, they’re much more highly competitive and have lower conversion rates.

You may consider targeting them with major landing pages.

But often they’re best used as starting points for more detailed keyword research. For instance, you can add modifiers like “best” or append with “for [group]” to make them more specific.

Niche Keywords

Niche keywords are highly specific search queries that appeal to a more narrow and defined segment of a market.

Searchers using these terms are typically looking for something specific with high buyer intent.

These are examples of niche keywords:

• high performance ski jacket with removable hood
• pea protein powder for vegan bodybuilders
• cybersecurity solutions for growing web3 companies

Due to their specific nature, they’re typically less competitive but at the same time have limited search volume.

They’re best used as part of a larger comprehensive strategy targeting both niche keywords and more generic queries.

Product Keywords

Product keywords are search queries that relate to your brand’s products, features or services.

They may or may not include your brand name.

For example, users looking for the energy drink Prime might not remember the brand name but could search:

“KSI energy drink brand”

Product keywords are typically high intent keywords used by searchers who want to buy or are looking for more information because they’re close to making a buying decision.

For this reason, they should be used on product pages and in the meta description. If you’re an ecommerce company, you should also use them within the product description.

Competitor Keywords

Competitor keywords are search queries that your competitors are targeting. 

You can analyse them to find new potential opportunities for keywords to target.

Let’s say you see your biggest competitor is ranking one page one of Google for a term you haven’t created content around. You can target that keyword to fill the gap.

Not only does this give you direct insight into the organic marketing strategy of your competitors, it can help you take back some of the traffic they’re winning from Google.

Geo-targeted Keywords

Geo-targeted keywords are keywords that include a specific location.

They’re highly important for local businesses that want to reach potential customers in their area.

Searches for these types of keywords might look like:

• best pizza in san francisco
• roofing contractors near peterborough
• coffee shops in downtown london 

They can capture traffic with a high intent to visit a physical location and make a purchase.

It’s important for businesses looking to rank for geo-targeted keywords to optimise their Google My Business listings, add location-relevant terms to website pages, and add local schema markup on their sites.

LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) Keywords

LSI keywords are search queries semantically related to your primary keyword.

Some believe that Google uses a process called LSI to analyse your pages and look for interconnected words to read into the context and relevance.

Though Google’s own Search Analyst John Mueller has claimed this isn’t true and the direct impact of their usage is hard to measure, there’s no doubt that adding supporting keywords to your content sends positive signals to Google.

For example, if your article is about “SEO blogging”, you’d expect to see mention of related terms like “optimisation”, “keyword research” and “Wordpress”.

By recognizing and understanding the related terms on a given page, search engines can better determine the relevance of the content to a particular search query.

You can find LSI keywords using a tool like Writer Assistant.

Click to view the topic score, which is calculated by looking at the most common LSI keywords that appear in the top 20 search results for the given query.

You can then add them naturally as subtopics or supporting points in your article.

Seasonal Keywords

Seasonal keywords that search queries that become relevant during specific holidays or times of the year.

They’re a critical part of the strategy for businesses with cyclical offerings.

For example:

• valentine’s day gift ideas for girlfriend
• summer weight loss regimens
• black friday deals for computers

Each of these searches will spike at a given time of the year.

To capitalise on seasonal keywords, optimise your pages well in advance and create specific landing pages or articles targeting them.

Question Keywords

Question keywords are search queries worded in the form of questions.

They’ll typically start with one of the 5 Ws (who, what, why, when, where) or “how”.

These are prime examples:

• How can I buy bitcoin?
• When is the best time of year to visit korea?
• Why is it good to wear glasses?

Searchers using these keywords usually have informational intent. Create articles that provide helpful, accurate information and address the user’s query.

To find question keywords, you can go to “People also ask” in Google:

Alternatively, you can use a tool like Keyword Discovery to get question keywords from multiple sources all in one place.

Click the Quora or People Also Asked tabs for lists of questions:

A Final Word

As you’ve seen, SEO success requires understanding the different types of keywords and the intent behind them.

It’s important to note that a given keyword can fall into multiple categories at once – these types are not mutually exclusive.

Having the right tool at your disposal is like a cheat sheet for deciphering keywords, helping you create a game plan for which queries to tackle and with which types of content.

By focusing on the right keywords, you’ll be well-positioned to create impactful content that Google rewards with more traffic and increased authority.