What keyword research does an SEO company provide?
A document you can read and act on: a list of the searches relevant to your business, each with an estimate of demand and difficulty, grouped by what the searcher wants, assigned to a specific page on your site, and ranked by priority. The value is in the last three columns. A long list of terms with volumes and scores tells you what exists; a list grouped, assigned, and prioritized tells you what to do. Ask to see a sample before you buy, and check that it has all of these parts.
What each row should contain
Each row in the research should show the search term, its estimated monthly volume, an estimate of how hard it is to rank for, the intent behind it, the topic group it belongs to, the page it is assigned to, and its priority. For an existing site, the row should also show whether you already appear for that search and where, taken from Search Console.
How to read the volume figures
Volumes come from tools, and Google’s Keyword Planner is one source of them. Google’s guide to Keyword Planner metrics defines average monthly searches as “The average number of times people have searched for a keyword and its close variants” for the period and location selected. It also notes: “Your search volume statistics are rounded.” Two practical points follow. Similar phrases can share the same underlying searches, so adding up the volumes of every term in a list can overstate the total demand. And small differences between volumes mean little once rounding is taken into account. A research document that headlines a combined search volume for all its terms is presenting a number the tools do not support.
Difficulty scores from SEO tools are each tool’s own estimate. They help sort a list, but they are not a measure from Google.
Intent, groups, and pages
The intent column records what a person typing the search wants: to learn, to compare, to buy, or to find a particular business. Grouping puts together searches that ask the same thing, so one page can answer them all rather than several pages competing for the same searches. The page column assigns each group to an existing page to improve or a new page to create. Without that assignment, the research has not yet become a plan.
Priorities
No site can pursue every search at once. The priority column should reflect demand, difficulty, intent, and value to your business together, and say which groups to act on first. Ask the company to explain its top priorities in a sentence each; the reasoning tells you whether the list was built around your business.
Keeping it current
Searches change with seasons, products, and markets. Ask whether the research will be revisited during the engagement, how often the company plans to do it, and whether the agreement says so. A document dated at the start and never updated slowly stops describing your market.