Alien Road Company

Marketing Keywords

Marketing Keywords

Keyword research is a vital step in any company’s digital marketing strategy. When you know what people are searching for—and you understand the intent behind those searches—you drastically increase your chances of finding and connecting with the right audience.

Effective keyword research can also help you get a better understanding of broader industry trends—and potentially even influence your wider business strategy.

The key, of course, is to identify the right keywords, which is where we come in!

How Can Marketing Keywords Shape Your Agency’s Strategy?

Before we delve into what exactly those core marketing keywords are, though, it’s worth noting how they can be used.

These keywords can give your agency a good idea of what your audience is looking for, such as:

  • The kinds of marketing problems they are looking to solve
  • The types of services they are looking for
  • The geographical areas they are based in
  • Their level of understanding of digital marketing
  • The industries they operate in

As a result, they can help you to create a far more effective content marketing strategy, build authority and expertise in a particular field or specialism, and even target potentially untapped markets.

As mentioned, they can also influence your business strategy. Instead of choosing what services your agency is going to offer and then marketing them, why not flip things around? You can see what kinds of queries and terms audiences are searching for and then tweak your services and your approach accordingly.

So, what are these key digital marketing keywords?

To find out, we did some detailed research using Semrush’s Keyword Research toolkit. However, rather than just copy and paste a jumbled list of generic marketing terms (and brand them as “the most important keywords in marketing”), we wanted to provide some actual insight into keywords that are specific—and helpful—for agencies.

To start, we looked closely at the monthly search volume of terms related to digital marketing. We also looked at the Cost per Click (CPC) and Keyword Difficulty (KD) (a Semrush indicator of how hard it is to rank in the SERP top 10) for each term. This allowed us to see which areas and specialisms are the most widely searched, regardless of intent.

Keyword U.S. vol. Total vol. KD (%) CPC (USD)
seo 110,000 1,900,000 100 6.32
affiliate marketing 110,000 549,100 100 1.53
web design 60,500 368,200 81 10.50
social media marketing 40,500 221,900 100 7.56
ppc 27,100 222,500 92 7.32
marketing strategy 22,200 183,800 84 3.82
market research 22,200 122,000 100 7.18
email marketing 14,800 120,700 100 22.19
content marketing 14,800 110,800 95 7.84
retargeting 12,100 37,500 80 46.62
direct marketing 8,100 46,100 68 4.92
link building 8,100 35,500 92 2.23
b2b marketing 6,600 34,900 73 13.38
search engine marketing 4,400 25,200 77 12.14
digital marketing strategy 3,600 22,500 77 7.62

As a result, we get a broad idea of the digital marketing specialisms that are generating the most interest, giving a useful indicator of which services might be the most in demand.

These keywords are also a good starting point for your own research, allowing you to dig deep and uncover specific niche services, queries, and seed keywords to use in your content strategy.

Keywords for Digital Marketing Companies

Of course, while handy in a market research sense, these keywords are still pretty vague. A wide range of intent is likely behind the searches for those terms.

Therefore, to give you a better idea of what people are searching for in terms of requiring an agency solution, consider the following keywords.

Keyword U.S. vol. Total vol. KD (%) CPC (USD)
seo agencies 8,100 20,000 74 19.00
social media marketing agencies 5,400 17,200 79 8.47
web design agencies 5,400 14,700 73 14.80
email marketing agencies 1,000 9,900 55 18.52
content marketing agencies 880 4,100 66 14.63
ppc agencies 880 3,300 57 28.96
full service marketing agencies 480 1,200 45 6.52
marketing strategy agencies 390 1,600 49 4.81
b2b marketing agencies 390 1,500 53 22.92
market research agencies 320 1,800 53 18.69
link building agencies 320 1,700 60 NA
affiliate marketing agencies 320 1,600 34 9.70
direct marketing agencies 260 1,100 50 7.00
white label marketing agencies 260 840 56 11.84
search engine marketing agencies 210 3,800 44 20.52
digital marketing strategy agencies 210 860 76 NA

From a strategic point of view, you should consider this list a starting point (albeit a more targeted one). When doing your own research, make sure that you take into account the various angles and associated keywords, as these can potentially contain a lot of value. Our quick guide on seed keywords is a great place to start.

Pay close attention to wording variations too, as you might overlook a potentially fruitful keyword. For example, if you’re going to target “seo agencies,” you might also consider “seo companies” (U.S. vol: 14,800), “seo services” (U.S. vol: 12,100), and “seo digital marketing agencies” (U.S. vol: 1,000).

Digital Marketing Agency Keywords

It’s also useful to see the general terms that searchers are using to find digital marketing agencies. For instance, take a look at the list below.

Keyword U.S. vol. Total vol. KD (%) CPC (USD)
digital marketing agency 18,100 85,600 89 10.62
digital marketing company 5,400 29,400 87 9.07
digital marketing services 5,400 28,500 67 10.22
digital marketing consultant 2,400 8,600 54 7.68
top digital marketing agencies 1,300 3,600 78 10.22
best digital marketing agencies 880 4,500 79 11.48
digital marketing firms 880 3,600 76 12.48
digital marketing agency for small businesses 590 2,500 57 14.88
digital marketing agency for startups 260 5,400 38 10.51
creative digital marketing agency 170 3,000 58 6.87
boutique digital marketing agency 170 810 40 6.69

These short- and long-tail keywords can help you target user intent more effectively and focus on specific terms and phrases in line with your paid and organic strategies. For example, if your agency’s expertise is in helping startups scale their online presence across multiple channels, then “digital marketing agency for startups” is a great keyphrase to build around.

It’s also important to focus on local search in your marketing plan, as you can see from the queries below.

Keyword U.S. vol. Total vol. KD (%) CPC (USD)
digital marketing agency near me 2,900 8,800 70 11.21
digital marketing near me 1,900 5,600 66 12.20
digital marketing company near me 1,000 3,000 73 12.48
digital marketing agency in <location> NA NA NA NA
local digital marketing agency 320 900 69 11.37

Location-specific searches can be particularly fruitful, especially if your agency is looking to acquire local clients. For example, the term “digital marketing agency miami” attracts 1,300 monthly searches in the U.S., which is a potentially lucrative keyword if you’re based in that region.

To fully optimize your agency for local search, ensure that you are always following best practices. Dedicated tools such as the Semrush Local SEO toolkit can also help you improve your local search presence.

Question Keywords

Question keywords can also reveal a lot about the general concerns, pain points, and knowledge gaps of your potential market. Several of these can be identified from the long-tail keywords below.

Keyword U.S. vol. Total vol. KD (%) CPC (USD)
what is a digital marketing agency 320 1,300 44 5.80
how to choose digital marketing agency 90 2,400 32 NA
how to promote business through digital marketing 90 1,400 52 NA
which industry needs digital marketing 90 900 30 NA
what do digital marketing companies do 90 810 41 NA
how much do digital marketers charge 90 540 49 4.78
why do you need a digital marketing agency 90 180 32 12.23

As well as giving you an idea of what people’s biggest concerns are, these keywords can potentially serve as a great foundation for your content marketing and outreach plan all while providing helpful and informative content for users.

Keywords by Industry

Looking at some industry-specific keywords can also help identify those sectors where digital marketing agencies are in high demand right now.

Keyword U.S. vol. Total vol. KD (%) CPC (USD)
real estate digital marketing 480 3,500 51 8.21
digital healthcare marketing 480 1,900 46 16.41
ecommerce digital marketing 320 1,900 60 21.00
automotive digital marketing 210 750 42 12.26
attorney digital marketing 140 560 47 26.71

These keywords can give you a good idea of the kinds of potential clients you could perhaps reach out to; it may even be worth putting together a presentation or pitch that focuses on the marketing challenges and opportunities that are unique to those sectors.

You can also narrow your search, allowing you to target users who are specifically looking for an agency solution.

Keyword U.S. vol. Total vol. KD (%) CPC (USD)
healthcare digital marketing agency 260 1,100 45 22.80
ecommerce digital marketing agency 170 3,500 52 19.55
real estate digital marketing agency 140 1,100 50 8.62
automotive digital marketing agency 140 530 39 16.23
digital marketing agency for nonprofits 90 1,700 20 11.44
fintech digital marketing agency 90 1,700 20 NA
digital marketing agency for attorneys 90 1,200 50 NA

This can be quite helpful if you are looking to position your agency within a particular industry or niche.

How Can Semrush Help?

These keywords reveal a lot for agencies, but in many cases, they are just the tip of the iceberg. To fully understand the big picture and formulate an effective keyword strategy, you need to dive a lot deeper (as well as take into account individual factors, such as your agency’s geographic location, niche, and resources).

With this in mind, the Keyword Magic Tool, which we used to create these lists, is a great place to start. It allows you to uncover and gather low-competition keywords upon which you can build your SEO and PPC strategies. Use it with other Semrush tools to hone your organic and paid content. To learn more about doing this, check out our full Semrush keyword research workflow guide.

In the meantime, we hope that you find some genuine value in this list—and that we’ve maybe even given your agency some ideas to build on in 2022!

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