How to Do Ecommerce Keyword Research to Find Revenue-Driving Keywords

Did you know 44% of people start their online shopping journey with a Google search? 

With this in mind, businesses not tailoring their site to perform well within the search engine result pages (SERPs) are missing out on key revenue. This will lead to competitors increasing their revenue and product market share, even when your business may have better offers for consumers. 

Increasing organic ecommerce revenue all starts in one place: Search engine optimization (SEO).

Specifically, ecommerce keyword research. 

Keyword research can make or break your online marketing strategy, so creating a custom keyword strategy tailored to your ecommerce store is not only beneficial but necessary in 2025. 

Below we will run through our top keyword research strategies that you can directly implement into your Internet marketing campaigns to increase organic revenue, improve market share, and beat the competition.

Keep Reading: 9 Best Keyword Research Tools in 2025

What is ecommerce keyword research?

Ecommerce keyword research involves selecting target queries that consumers search for around your products or services. By creating a list of search terms around your core offerings, you can optimize your website to attract new customers who may be unaware of your brand or products.

Did you know that 80% of users start their product research online? Users turn to Google and look up specific products or problems they are running into. Ecommerce SEO allows you to get in front of these searchers, and above your competition, to direct them to your website.

Keyword research will not launch your website to the top of the search results, but it will guide your strategy in getting there. It will also give you the necessary data to tailor your SEO strategy to what matters the most — organic revenue.

Why ecommerce SEO keyword research matters for your store

The first organic search result is ten times more likely to earn a click than the #10 organic search result. If your competitor is able to capture this first position, you are missing a massive market for your business.

Here’s why keyword research for ecommerce matters:

• It leads to higher rankings and more sales: Eommerce businesses are in a unique scenario where getting to the top of the SERPs can directly result in an increase in revenue. Since ecommerce shoppers convert faster, higher rankings in the SERPs can have immediate revenue impacts.
• It allows you to build a full-funnel strategy: Keyword research will allow you to build a full-funnel keyword strategy, targeting terms that will either result in qualified purchasers coming to the site or reach new users unaware of your products and direct them to a product that will fulfill their needs.
• It helps you target the right people: If you want to sell products, you need to put yourself in front of the right searchers. Ecommerce keyword research helps you find the right terms to target, so you can reach the right people.

Ranking high in the search results will be your end goal, but first, you need to identify which terms will be profitable for your business and worth ranking at the top of the results.

How to do ecommerce keyword research: 3 ways to find keywords

We’ve established the importance of keyword research, but how can you start developing your keyword list? Here are three ways you can find ecommerce keywords for your business:

1. 1. Conduct a competitor analysis
   2. Use Google autocomplete for ideas
   3. Analyze your frequently asked product questions

1. Conduct a competitor analysis

Utilizing marketing tools, you can spy on the competition and find out exactly what keywords they target to level up your organic strategy. This will give you qualified data to identify what is working well within your niche and expand on what competitors are doing.

These tools also will give you insight into all of the pages on your competitor’s site and which page is ranking for a specific term. 

When developing your ecommerce keyword strategy, you will want to take this into consideration and map your target keyword to a similar page that your competitor is ranking for.

2. Use Google autocomplete for ideas

A great way to identify long-tail keywords (terms over 3 words) is to utilize Google’s autocomplete feature. 

For example, if your website sells couches, you can type this term into Google and the search engine will autosuggest relevant terms based on other user data. You will see terms like the following: 

• Couches for living rooms
• Couches for small apartments
• Couches for studio apartments
• Couches that turn into beds

With this tool and new information, you can then analyze the search results for these terms, to see if targeting these new terms will benefit your business. If the search results have websites that have similar offerings to your store, you can add them to your keyword research list and work to build out new content around the core terms.

3. Analyze your frequently asked product questions

Utilizing your own company data will be instrumental in developing a keyword list for your website. 

You can do the following tasks to help you identify new keyword opportunities:

• Analyze product reviews: Are there common questions that users have across review sites? If you see people asking questions about similar topics, you could create a piece of content and target that keyword to address it!
• Interview your sales team: What problems are users encountering during the sales process? You can use this insight to provide helpful information on your website that targets these key topics.
• Review website contact forms: What is preventing users from making a purchase directly on the site and pushes them to submit a form instead? Use this feedback and inquiry to help you provide the information up front for your audience through keyword targeting.

Looking at what questions your audience asks about your products is a great way to find opportunities to target keywords through helpful content.

Developing an ecommerce keyword list: 4 aspects to look at

Once you finish your ecommerce SEO keyword research, start refining your list.

When refining your keyword targeting strategy, you will want to take into account some core keyword traits: 

• Relevance
• Search Intent
• Search Volume
• Keyword Difficulty

Let’s dive more into these aspects below:

Relevance

Not all keywords will be a good fit for your business. Some terms may have all of the above traits which leads them to look valuable on paper, but when it comes to your offerings, the keyword may not be a good fit. 

You will want to ensure that for every keyword you are targeting and have mapped within your keyword strategy, there is a relevant product offering. If there is no relevant product offering that matches your keyword, you will direct unqualified traffic to your website.

Search Intent

Three types of search intent show what part of the funnel a user will be in when looking for relevant products and offerings:

• Informational: A user is in the awareness stage and is looking for high-level information about a product or service. They are not looking to purchase at the moment but may down the line. These keywords offer a great opportunity for businesses to get in front of users early, which could lead to increased brand awareness and market share. 
• Navigational: The user knows exactly where they want to go to buy and search directly for your business.
• Transactional: A user is in the buying stage. These keywords will be a priority for your organization to rank at the top of the search results. Users are done evaluating products and have the answers to their questions — they now want to purchase a product.

Search Volume

Search volume will show you how many times a keyword is typed into Google and is ‘searched’ for online. 

This data point will be invaluable as the higher the search volume, the more users there are to capture from a specific term. If search volume is low for a specific term, don’t fret as the keyword may still be valuable, but you should spend time optimizing and prioritizing keywords with good search volume.

Keep in mind that, when the search volume is higher for a keyword, it often means increased competition for ranking in that query. So, you’ll want to have a balance of high and low-volume keywords to help you reach different kinds of traffic.

Keyword Difficulty

Keyword difficulty measures the websites that appear in the search results for a specific term. Based on the ranking pages, keyword difficulty tells you the feasibility of how hard it would be for your site to rank on a 1-100 scale. 

If your site is brand new, target keywords that are lower on the difficulty scale, as your site will be less likely to rank for high volume, competitive keywords, and your SEO strategy will not provide tangible returns. 

For an ecommerce site that has a high domain rating, higher-difficulty keywords can provide immense returns, as they usually come with an increased search volume.

Finalizing your ecommerce SEO keyword research strategy: Map out your keywords

You now have a list of target keywords that were gathered from competitors and other data sources, refined to drive revenue for your business. What comes next? Keyword mapping.

Keyword research is the first step in the SEO process. Keyword mapping allows you to refine the list further, choosing what keywords go on which pages on your site. This could include existing pages that are already live or creating new pages that target these terms.

Both your keyword research and keyword mapping strategies will never be set in stone. As you move forward with your SEO strategy, refining and continuing to build out your keyword research & map will allow you to continue to drive tangible results for your ecommerce business.

WebFX can help with ecommerce SEO keyword research (and more!)

Struggling to find the time to implement SEO best practices that will drive tangible results for your business?

WebFX can help your ecommerce store rank higher in search results, attract more customers, and earn more revenue. From keyword research for ecommerce to creating content, we can help you optimize your search strategy to turn your website into a revenue driver.

Ready to drive more revenue? Contact us online or call us today at 888-601-5359 to speak with a strategist about our ecommerce SEO services!