If your SEO isn’t making money, it’s broken. Traffic, impressions, and dwell time might look good on paper, but they mean nothing without results that grow your bottom line. Too often, marketers waste time chasing vanity metrics instead of targeting keywords that drive revenue.

For keyword research to be successful, it must accomplish a few things:

• Target topics that are relevant to your business
• Creates a pathway for sustainable, profitable growth
• Captures intent across all stages of the user journey
• Identify competitor gaps and opportunities you can leverage

In this guide, I’ll walk you through a step-by-step process for finding profitable keywords that generate revenue and drive organic growth for your business.

But first, I’d like to address two things.

While high-volume keywords may seem appetizing, it doesn’t always yield meaningful returns. The initial psychological response to seeing high-volume keywords in your niche may whet your appetite, but it's important to be pragmatic and avoid exercises in marketing futility. 

High-volume keywords likely fall into one of the following buckets:

• Informational queries: Stiff competition from Wikipedia, industry resources, and no-click SERP features like AI Overviews and featured snippets.
• Head category terms: Highly competitive SERPs dominated by authoritative websites in your niche make ranking difficult.
• Brand terms: Keywords centered around your competitors may be irrelevant or problematic to include in a strategy.
• Potentially profitable keywords: A small percentage of high-volume keywords might align with your business goals, but these are rare.

There’s more money in targeting long-tail keywords

Don't fall victim to the allure of high-volume keywords with inflated search metrics. Though less glamorous, long-tail keywords can yield far greater rewards. 

These phrases often signal higher intent and face less competition than head terms. They also tend to attract qualified traffic that is ready to convert.

For example, a fitness equipment business targeting "treadmills" faces immense competition from retail giants and review websites. A more thoughtful approach is to focus on narrower, less competitive terms like "best treadmills under 1000." You can bypass competitors' dominating head terms and capture relevant, high-intent traffic by honing in on specific use cases.

Pro tip: When doing keyword research in Moz Keyword Explorer, filter keywords based on low Keyword Difficulty & Search Volume metrics to identify the higher-intent long-tail keywords that will be relatively easier to rank than more competitive phrases. 

Alright, let’s get back on track to doing keyword research for profitable keywords.

Think of seed keywords as the foundation of your strategy; they consist of one—or two-word phrases that best describe your niche or industry. For example, if you run a computer parts website and want to sell products online, seed keywords might include "computer parts" or "PC parts."

How to find seed keywords:

Start with your product or service

If you sell a product or software, how would a customer describe it when searching on Google? This is usually a good place to start.

For example, if you sell office chairs, your seed keywords might include "ergonomic chair" or "comfortable office chair."

Analyze your competitors

If you don’t know your competitors, use Moz’s True Competitor to identify websites ranking for your desired keywords in Search Engine Results Pages.

While large websites like Amazon might have a larger keyword overlap, I recommend choosing niche websites like Herman Miller and Office Depot, which focus more on office furniture and supplies.

If you know your competitors, use the Moz Keyword Gap tool to understand the biggest keywords your competitors rank for, as it's a good indicator of how your audience searches.

Here’s how:

Enter your website URL and up to three competitor websites into the Keyword Gap tool. Next, click Analyze competitors.

On the results page, scroll down to keyword rankings data and review the highest volume keywords under keywords to improve and new keyword opportunities.

From the screenshot above, “office chairs” is a better seed keyword than “ergonomic chairs” as it has a higher search volume. However, volume is not the only metric to consider. Choose a seed keyword that aligns with your business offering and has the highest search volume.

Now that you have the foundation of your keyword strategy with some basic phrases expand your research to identify potentially profitable keywords that align with your business.

Here are a few tips for growing your keyword list:

Use Google Autocomplete to find related keywords

Google Autocomplete is a great way to find keyword ideas quickly. First, enter a seed keyword into the Google search bar. For better insights, I recommend adding specific modifiers like “for,” “best,” or “tool.”

Test different combinations of keywords tied to high-intent queries and see what else pops up.

Use Moz Keyword Explorer to research money keywords

Moz’s Keyword Explorer is a powerful tool for discovering high-value keywords tied to your business goals. You can use it to generate keyword suggestions, analyze search volume, and filter by metrics like search intent and modifiers.

First, enter your seed keyword in Keyword Explorer. For this example, I’ve chosen “knee brace.”

Scroll down and select View all under Keyword Suggestions.

Since the goal is to find profitable keywords, we can quickly filter by commercial and transactional search intent as these are high-intent keywords.

However, there are profitable keywords that may not have obvious purchase intent. Use keyword modifiers like “for” to discover use cases related to the keyword.

For example, the filtered result shows many informational keywords related to customers' pain points when searching for knee braces. Add these to your keyword list.

If you want more modifiers to find money keywords, Chima Mmeje, Senior Content Marketing Manager at Moz, shared some excellent examples in this Whiteboard Friday episode.

Mine online forums and social media

Scan platforms like Reddit, Quora, or niche-specific Facebook groups where your audience hangs out. Look for threads or discussions related to your industry and identify recurring keywords or phrases that pop up. 

These insights often reveal customer pain points and search terms that traditional tools might miss.

Find competitor keywords with Keyword Gap analysis

While keyword research is a good starting point for building out your keyword list, I would advise doing competitor research to see the keywords they’re targeting that you’ve not already captured in your list. 

In a previous example, we used Moz’s Keyword Gap to find a seed keyword. We can build on that example to expand our keyword list.

Limit your search results to keywords to improve and new keyword opportunities. Then, populate your keyword list using the filtering options we discussed in the previous step.

Use Google Search Console

Your website’s existing traffic holds clues about how users are finding you. Use Google Search Console to identify keywords already bringing visitors to your site.

• Go to the "Performance" tab in GSC and filter results to show queries
• Look for queries with high impressions but low clicks, as these may signal untapped opportunities for optimization
• Identify keywords relevant to your core offerings and use them to build out your list

If you're working with a bulk list, you can assign a score from 1-10 (or any scale), where 10 is the most relevant and one is the least. Eliminate irrelevant keywords to streamline your efforts.

At this stage, you've likely built a healthy foundation of keywords; however, you want to validate your list against revenue potential by analyzing the search intent. If a significant chunk of your keywords tends to be informational, you may have veered off the path from building a profitable keyword list.

Here's a quick refresher on the four types of search intent:

• Informational intent:  The user is searching for specific information on a topic. Example: "How to clean leather shoes."
• Commercial intent: The searcher wants to investigate or compare brands, products, or services. Example: "Leather shoe conditioner"
• Transactional intent: The user is looking for a product or service to buy. Example: "Buy leather shoe cleaning kit"
• Navigational intent: The user is searching for a specific website or location. Example: "Venetian shoe cream.”

Depending on your SEO strategy, you'll want to incorporate a healthy balance of informational, commercial, and transactional keywords for non-branded search terms. 

For informational keywords, I recommend prioritizing middle-of-the-funnel keywords rather than top-of-the-funnel keywords since the goal is to find profitable keywords. 

Now that you have a comprehensive keyword list, you can prioritize execution based on the following attributes:

• Product/service relevance: Choose keywords based on your product offerings and solutions. Avoid broader terms that are not directly related to your key offerings.
• Healthy search volume: Look for keywords that are not so broad that they're impossible to rank for, but they are enough to make the effort worthwhile.
• Moderate Keyword Difficulty: Aim for attainable SERPs while focusing on long-term growth.
• High organic CTR: Keywords that bypass no-click SERP features and lead to actual traffic.
• Relevant search intent: Focus on commercial and transactional queries with clear conversion potential.
• Impact on revenue: Use a simple "high-medium-low" scoring system to assess keywords individually. If you are unsure about a keyword's relevance to your business, Joe Barron from Cognism shared a process he uses to evaluate the business potential of a topic. I encourage you to read the full article to learn more about money keywords.

Keyword research is an ongoing process. A few ways to measure and optimize your money pages include:

• Blend metrics and intent: Optimize for new long-tail and high-intent keyword opportunities, ensuring low competition and high revenue potential.
• Measure ROI: Regularly analyze the performance of your keywords to identify those that generate consistent returns.
• Analyze revenue by landing page: Evaluate which pages drive the most revenue and refine your keyword strategy to amplify their impact.
• Revisit competitor insights: At least once a year, revisit data from Moz Competitor Analysis to uncover new keyword opportunities that align with your business goals.

Money keywords don’t need massive search volume to deliver results—they need intent. Use tools like Moz Keyword Explorer and Keyword Gap to find high-value keywords quickly. Don’t forget to filter with modifiers and search intent to find money keywords. Focus on these high-intent opportunities to drive more revenue and organic growth with SEO.