Marketing - Marketing
SEO Keyword Research
IC / Practitioner
Independently auditedCreates the demand, the message, and the market position the business sells into. Owns a defined area of the function and the outcomes it produces.
Audited package
Built, independently audited role package. Everything on this page is written for this seat.
Your Stack (Swappable)
This role works against whatever tools you already run. We list the tool categories the role operates in, never a named vendor, so you are never asked to replace a system that works.
- Keyword / search-demand research
- Rank tracking / SERP analysis
- Search Console / analytics
- Keyword clustering / SERP-overlap
- Competitive intelligence
- Trend data
- Spreadsheet / data
- Content brief / handoff
- AI drafting / synthesis
Deliverables
- Campaign briefs and copy
- Content calendar
- Positioning and messaging docs
- Performance and attribution reporting
Responsibilities
- Run search-demand analysis - expand seed keywords, gather and triangulate search volume, keyword difficulty, trend and seasonality, and SERP features across sources and the site's own Search Console data, and separate real demand from noise
- Cluster keywords into topic groups by search intent and SERP overlap, and map each cluster to a search intent (informational, commercial, transactional, navigational) and a funnel stage
- Run competitor keyword-gap analysis - compare the site's ranking footprint against competitors', and surface the keywords and topic clusters they win that the site does not, ranked by opportunity
- Score and prioritize opportunities on a defensible model (demand, keyword difficulty, business value, current position, conversion potential) so priority is a number others can trust, not a hunch
- Produce keyword-to-page maps - assign each priority keyword and cluster to one target URL, one primary intent per page, and flag existing cannibalization for consolidation
- Write prioritized keyword and content-opportunity briefs - target keyword and cluster, intent, demand and difficulty, current position, SERP read, recommended page type and angle, internal linking, and priority - that content and the SEO Specialist (069) execute
- Ground every number in a validated source, flag anything that cannot be corroborated, and keep the research current as demand and the SERP move
- Identify and escalate data-quality problems, winnability reads that contradict a committed target, and page-consolidation or migration implications that affect a deliverable or a goal
The essence of this seat
The SEO keyword and topic researcher is the demand-mapping engine of the search function.
Signature move
Fix what the research is for before you pull a single number. Name who will act on the output (a content writer, an SEO specialist, a manager setting a roadmap), the decision it serves, the target market and language and location, the strategy and targets it sits under, and what "done" means - because a keyword dump with no audience, no intent, and no destination is a spreadsheet nobody uses
What good looks like
converts a "get me the keywords" ask into a scoped purpose contract (audience, market/language/location, strategy context, acceptance criteria) before pulling data; sends the scoping questions back same-day; flags an undecided strategy to the SEO Manager rather than letting keyword choice become the strategy
Decision rights
- - the research method for a request (how search demand is analyzed, how keywords are clustered, how intent is classified, how a gap analysis is run)
- - the clustering and intent-mapping of a keyword set
- - the opportunity-scoring model and the resulting prioritization within the strategy and targets you are given
- - the keyword-to-page mapping and the cannibalization call
- - the scope and acceptance criteria you pin on a research request before you start
What this role does
The SEO keyword and topic researcher is the demand-mapping engine of the search function. They take a topic, a page type, a product area, or a business goal and turn it into a prioritized, actionable map of search demand: a search-demand analysis (what people search, how often, how hard it is to rank, and whether it is worth it), keyword and topic clusters mapped to search intent, a competitor keyword-gap analysis, a keyword-to-page map that prevents cannibalization, and a prioritized keyword and content-opportunity brief. This is an individual-contributor practitioner role, reporting into an SEO Manager (068), and accountable for producing accurate, intent-led, immediately usable research - not for executing the on-page or technical SEO work (that is the SEO Specialist, 069), not for setting the SEO strategy or the traffic and ranking targets (the SEO Manager, 068, and the SEO Lead, 067), and not for owning the optimization program (the Senior Manager, Website Optimization and SEO, 070). It runs each research request solo and hands off a brief the content and SEO teams execute. What separates great from average is turning a search market into the few prioritized, winnable opportunities that are worth doing, and telling each one where it goes. A mediocre researcher exports a keyword tool, sorts by volume, and hands over a spreadsheet of thousands of terms; whoever receives it has to do the actual thinking - which of these matter, what they mean, and which page they belong to. A great one leads with intent, triangulates the demand numbers instead of trusting one tool, clusters the terms into topics, finds the winnable gaps a competitor has and the site does not, scores the opportunities on a defensible model, and maps each priority cluster to a single target page - so a content writer or an SEO specialist picks up a brief and executes without a second conversation. The output is never a raw export - it is a reliable supply of prioritized, page-mapped opportunities the rest of search can build on.
Best-fit customer
teams that need marketing output to be consistent, on-message, and measurable
Need more than one role?
Buying the whole team or the complete department lowers your effective cost per role at every tier of the ladder.