AI SEO Keywords: How AI Tools Can Supercharge Your Keyword Strategy

As important as search engine optimization (SEO) is, what's even more important is doing it right. And that begins with selecting the optimal keywords for your website. But with millions of websites competing for the same keywords, how do you target just the keywords to get real estate on the search engine results pages (SERPs)? This is where AI comes into play.

SEO professionals often face challenges in identifying and optimizing the most relevant keywords for their content. AI-powered tools can revolutionize this process by addressing these challenges effectively:

• Struggling with the right keywords:
  SEOers often find themselves targeting highly competitive or irrelevant keywords, missing out on better opportunities. AI tools help by pinpointing long-tail keywords that bring more relevant traffic.
• Managing vast amounts of keyword data:
  SEO Professionals often struggle with the overwhelming amount of data involved in keyword research. AI helps sift through massive datasets quickly, revealing hidden keyword opportunities that manual research might miss.
• Adapting to algorithm changes:
  With search engines making over 4,000 algorithm changes a year, AI helps SEO professionals stay current by adjusting strategies in real-time​.

Keeping these insights in mind, it's definitely smart to complement your online strategy with AI SEO keywords. Let's discuss the role of AI in keyword research and some AI SEO tools that can take your keyword strategy to the next level.

Why Conduct Keyword Research Regularly

You can't conduct keyword research once and call it a day. It's a continuous process since user intents and behaviors are constantly changing. Plus, new keywords that relate to your business may emerge over time.

Take apparel-related keywords as an example. The term ''boots'' may be popular overall, but ''cowboy boots'' may become popular after a viral TikTok video. If you don't conduct regular keyword research and miss this opportunity, your competition may get ahead of you.

Semrush's Magic Keyword Tool doesn’t only show you Broad Match keywords. It also lets you see Related keywords, which is where you might find terms closely related to your query that you can use in your content to expand its reach. 

Semrush keyword research options

For example, when we searched for keywords related to ‘’digital marketing tactics,’’ Semrush showed us a lot of long-tail keywords that used ‘’strategies’’ in place of tactics. This means we can use both variations to reach more web users than if we only focused on ‘’tactics.’’

Semrush related keywords

Similarly, your audience may also grow over time, bringing in new demographics. You may need new keywords to target these groups specifically.

When search engines undergo algorithm updates, keyword rankings may also change. For example, with the new Google core updates, the search engine wanted to crack down on spammy and low-quality content. This could mean bad news for websites that relied on those types of keywords in the past. Regular keyword research helps avoid being penalized by these updates. 

How Does AI Enhance Keyword Research?

Like any other task, AI also improves keyword research in several ways. As long as you have good AI SEO tools at your disposal, you can expect the following benefits.

Quick and Efficient Keyword Research

Usually, you have to use a couple of keyword research tools to get a comprehensive list of keywords. It takes time since you have to then analyze these keywords, too.

However, AI tools usually do everything in a centralized platform. AI is quick to find keywords relevant to your topic and audience. All you have to do is run a search, and you get a reservoir of data that you can use to improve your SEO strategy.

Some AI SEO tools also compare the keyword reservoir they have found with your domain and suggest which keywords you can use to improve your rank. For example, when you enter your domain in the Keyword Magic Tool, it shows you AI-powered domain-specific insights, such as the Personal Keyword Difficulty% (PKD%), which is a measure of how hard it is for your site to rank for a specific keyword. 

Semrush PKD% column

Semrush lets you sort the keyword results to show low PKD% queries on top. Since these are easier to rank for, you can spend your time and effort to rank for them rather than trying to go for those with a high PKD%. 

Understanding Search Intent

Since AI SEO tools can ''read'' the underlying patterns in data, they can also infer user intent. When you know exactly what type of content your target audience is looking for, you can then tailor your content strategy accordingly.

Take Semrush's Keyword Overview tool as an example. It instantly gauges the user intent of a keyword and reveals how hard it is to rank for it. Plus, it shows you what kind of questions your audience may have related to that keyword. You can then answer those questions in your content to provide value and increase your chances of ranking higher.

For example, we searched for ''credit card score,'' to find the search intent behind it. The Keyword Overview tool revealed that the intent is informational, as people want answers to specific questions.

Keyword Overview tool results

So, we went to the Questions section and found that searchers have a range of questions about managing their credit scores. Without a tool to help us, we would have to manually search for this information and analyze the data ourselves.

Keyword Overview results

Uncovering Hidden Insights

Often, when conducting bulk keyword analysis, you might miss important information that is not readily apparent. For example, you might find that your target keyword is highly competitive and very hard to rank for. But that's not a reason to give up yet.

AI SEO tools may help you find related long-tail keywords that have lower competition and are easier to rank for. You can use these keywords to build authority and gradually improve your ranking for the main keyword.

Besides, AI tools also provide keywords for different search intent angles, which helps you create content that's more targeted and relevant to your audience. For example, Semrush's Keyword Overview tool shows two intents for the keyword ''digital marketing trends:'' informational and commercial.

Keyword Overview results

You're not selling anything and only want to target people looking for information about digital marketing trends. Go to the Keyword Variations section and view all keywords. From there, you can filter the results by intent to only see queries your target audience is searching for.

Keyword Overview results

Similarly, the tool also conducts AI analysis to evaluate the Personal Keyword Difficulty score for your domain to help you understand how difficult it will be to rank for a specific keyword. This information further facilitates keyword selection for you.

Data-Powered Decision-Making 

With AI, there's no guesswork involved. AI tools collect data from your website, competitor websites, and search engine results pages. The insights you get are from real users. So, you can employ them to make data-driven decisions about your website's content.

Trend and Predictive Analysis 

You're not a machine that can process ten thousand keywords per second, so your predictions will be mere assumptions. On the contrary, AI can analyze historical data and compare it with current trends to make more accurate predictions about future trends.

Exploding Topics is worth mentioning here. While it can't exactly show you keywords with their variations, it can forecast trends 12 months into the future. According to the website, the tool uses machine learning to analyze millions of data points with 87% backtested accuracy. You can find future trends from Exploding Topics and then determine relevant keywords through the Keyword Overview Tool.

Competitor Keyword Analysis 

Simply looking at keywords or how they fit into your content isn't enough. You also have to see how your competitors are using these terms. AI SEO tools offer competitor keyword analysis to show you where you may be lacking or which keywords you may have missed that others are using to rank higher.

The Semrush Keyword Overview Tool shows you the competitive density of your keywords to reveal regional competition. The competitive density indicates the competition between advertisers bidding on a certain keyword. It's on a scale from 0 to 1, with 1 indicating the highest competition.

For example, ''credit card score'' has a competitive density of 0.22, which means that it's moderately competitive in the US.

Keyword competitive density

Meanwhile, the competitive density for ''digital marketing trends'' is 0.13, indicating that most content around this keyword caters to the informational intent since it's not highly competitive among advertisers.

Keyword competitive density

However, the competitive density for a keyword with commercial intent, such as ''buy running shoes,'' is 0.97, almost at the highest level of competition. In simple words, this keyword is ultra-hard to rank for.

Keyword competitive density

If you're a small business, you may want to focus on more specific, long-tail keywords with lower competitive density to increase your chances of ranking higher. Without an AI tool, you may have wasted time (and money) trying to rank for highly competitive keywords and not seeing results.

Featured Snippet Targeting

AI SEO tools, such as Keyword Overview, show you question-based keywords. You can either use them as headers in your content or provide answers for them to increase your chances of being featured in a snippet.

Similarly, you can use these tools to leverage readily available data about featured snippets. For example, an SEO Round Table study found that over 96% of Google AI Overviews have informational intent. So, you can use SEO tools to particularly find keywords with informational intent and use them in your content to improve your chances of appearing in AI Overview. 

Keyword Research Scalability

With AI SEO tools, you can scale your keyword research process and expand your list of potential keywords quickly. You can analyze the trends and data behind thousands of keywords in a matter of seconds, and that too in multiple content categories and niches. 

Even better, you get instant insights into the competition for each keyword to make data-driven decisions on which keywords to target.

AI SEO Keyword Tools to Amp Up Your SEO Game 

AI SEO tools have a range of functionalities, from trend forecasting to keyword strategy building. Here are a few AI SEO keyword tools to try.

Semrush

Semrush's Magic Keyword Tool is one of the handiest AI tools to streamline the process of creating an effective SEO strategy. It shows you the following for your keywords:

• Keyword Difficulty
• User Intent
• Search Volume
• Trend (in the past 12 months)
• Cost Per Click (for PPC campaigns)
• Keyword Competitiveness

Semrush has also introduced a ton of AI features for its keyword tool, such as the Personal Keyword Difficulty (PKD), which shows the competitiveness of your domain ranking for specific keywords. Basically, you can see keyword difficulty scores in relation to your site's authority. This allows you to pick domain-specific keywords that you can realistically rank for.

Source: semrush.com

The Topical Authority feature measures your domain's expertise and relevance for a topic. You can also see the potential SERP position your keywords can achieve with a little bit of optimization compared to their current rank. You can use this insight to set realistic keyword performance expectations and create a strategy to improve your ranking.

Semrush also has a Keyword Strategy Builder, which builds a website content plan based on your keyword research. It organizes your content into Topics and Pages.

Keyword Overview tool

Topics are keyword clusters based on their importance and theme. Pages have a list of Pillars and Subpages. You can see keywords specific to each page, making it easy for you to optimize your content and internal linking structure.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT isn't merely for getting answers to questions you're too lazy to scour the internet for. You can also use ChatGPT to boost your SEO strategy.

It can conduct keyword research, provide user intent, offer content suggestions, create content outlines, and even write content for you. Let's go with the same ''credit card scores'' example.

Here's a simple prompt you can use for keyword research: List the top 10 most popular keywords for the term ''credit card scores.''

ChatGPT results

You can then ask ChatGPT to tell you the user intent or search intent for each keyword or the list in general. A simple prompt for this would be: What is the user intent for ''credit card scores'' keywords?

ChatGPT results

If you want to take it a step further, you can ask ChatGPT for content ideas for these keywords. Here's a prompt: Suggest 5 blog posts to create for the keyword ''credit card score range.''

ChatGPT results

You can also check out our guide to find more ChatGPT SEO strategies.

Ahrefs

Ahrefs is a well-known keyword research tool, and it has gotten even better with the introduction of new AI features. Here are some of them:

• AI Keyword Suggestions: Ahrefs' Ask AI feature allows you to kickstart keyword research based on available presets if you don't already have a seed keyword. For example, your topic may be ''credit score.'' You can go with an existing preset like ''challenges and pain points'' to specifically find keywords related to challenges associated with credit scores.

Source: ahrefs.com

• AI Search Intent: Ahrefs' keyword tool also identifies search intent/s for a keyword. Even better, it shows you the percentage of traffic going to each keyword, which helps you determine which angle to take in your content creation.
• AI Content Grading: If you want to update a content piece based on new keyword research, you can first use Ahrefs' AI to grade your existing content. It extracts all subtopics from top-ranking pages and compares them with your content. You can then fill in gaps or update existing information to make the content more comprehensive based on the Content Grader’s suggestions. 
• AI Translations: For marketers doing international SEO, Ahrefs has an AI-powered translation feature with smart functionality. Unlike a regular translating tool that simply changes words from one language to another, this AI feature detects the most popular alternate word variation of a keyword in another region (and language).

Moz

Moz is another AI SEO tool that offers various features to enhance keyword research. You can use it to get search intent data for keywords so that you know how to use them in content workflows.

The keyword tool has two new AI features that help you make sense of big data:

• Domain Search Theme: This feature gives you a sense of how Google sees a site. It could be yours or a competitor's.
• Domain Keyword Topics: You can simply give a domain to Moz, and it would organize that website's keyword data into 5 Domain Keyword Topics. Do this with competitors' sites to see what content angles they're taking, or use it on your own site to uncover content opportunities you may have missed. 

Best Practices for Finding AI SEO Keywords

Now that you know about the AI SEO keyword tools to use, here are some best practices to complement their functionality for the best results.

Select the Right Tool

First things first, choose the right tool(s) for your specific needs. Ideally, it should have all major features, be easy to use, be in your budget range, and, most importantly, provide accurate results.

Use free trials to test out different tools and determine which ones work best for you. Some tools, such as Semrush, also have a few free features that can give you a taste of their capabilities. You can use these features for a while to get a feel for the tool before deciding to upgrade.

Keep Up With Trends 

We've already explained that consumer preferences and industry trends are always changing. That's one of the reasons regular keyword research is so important.

You should keep up with these trends and search for keywords accordingly. For example, Pinterest is an excellent resource to find trends in the beauty, lifestyle, fashion, and home decor industries. Similarly, you can use other trend analysis tools like Google Trends, Trend Hunter, and Exploding Topics to identify current and upcoming trends in other industries.

Combine Keyword Research With Performance Analytics 

You can't keep using the keywords that aren't giving you results. That's why you must keep a close eye on your website's performance and conduct subsequent keyword research based on this data.

Instead of going back and forth between tools, simply connect your Google Search Console to the SEO keyword tool you're using. For instance, you can connect Google Analytics and Google Search Console with Semrush to get personalized insights and create a keyword strategy based on your website's analytics.

Make the Most Out of AI Tools

After you've selected a tool, make sure you use it to its full potential. For one, don't let the tool do all the work. Human intuition and analysis should still be a part of the process. In fact, it's when you couple the human touch with AI's efficiency that you get the best results.

Also, don't stick to one kind of keyword. Instead, use a mix of long-tail, short-tail, and trending keywords to diversify your content.

Most AI tools are accompanied by blogs or YouTube channels where you can find guides and tutorials on how to maximize their usage. Take advantage of these resources. More importantly, educate yourself on the latest features and updates of your chosen tool.

Take the AI-Driven Road to Keyword Mastery

With its roots spanning across industries and use cases, the global AI scene is not slowing down any time soon. In SEO, and particularly keyword research, AI tools can do wonders in helping you find and target the right keywords for your content.

They also have specialized features like competitor analysis and content optimization, which can streamline your SEO strategy.

But remember, AI assists you and doesn't replace you entirely. Keep track of your data, and don't rely solely on the tool's suggestions. The human-AI hybrid can provide better outcomes than any of the two can alone.

About the Author

Djanan Kasumovic

Writer

Djanan Kasumovic, Head of Growth at Influencer Marketing Hub, drives innovation in digital marketing with expertise in AI marketing and AI influencer strategies. He is directly involved in shaping content strategies for top clients like Viral Nation, NeoReach, Brandwatch, and more, blending creative flair with data-driven insights to ensure people not only enjoy the content but leave a little smarter.