Seed keywords
Seed keywords are the short, broad words you start keyword research from, which tools then grow into longer lists of phrases.
Seed keywords are the short, broad words you start keyword research with. You put them into a keyword tool and it gives you back every longer phrase that contains them or relates to them. For a coffee roaster, the seeds might be "coffee," "espresso," "coffee beans" and "coffee subscription."
Good seeds decide how good your list is. If you only start from the words you use inside the company, you miss the words your customers use.
How to pick them
Start with what you sell, in plain words. Add the problems people have before they find you, like "bitter coffee" or "coffee for the office." Then look at how your customers talk: in reviews, support emails, sales calls and forum threads. Competitors' sites give you more, especially the words in their menus and headings.
Each seed then grows. For example, Fernhill Coffee puts in "decaf" and gets back "best decaf coffee beans," "is decaf coffee bad for you" and "decaf espresso beans," among hundreds of others. Some of those are worth a page, some a section, and some nothing at all.
Seeds for AI prompts
The same idea works for AI search, with one change. Instead of growing seeds into keywords, you grow them into questions, the kind people ask an AI platform in full sentences. "Decaf" might become "What's the best decaf coffee for someone who still wants a strong taste?" and "Is Swiss Water decaf worth the extra money?"
Keep your seeds about needs, and leave your product names out. People who haven't heard of you can't ask about you, and the questions where they decide are the ones that name no brand.
In AnswerOrbit
The Demand tab in Topics works like a seed keyword tool for the AI platforms. Type a word or phrase and click Look up to see an estimate of conversations a month, how it changed over the last 12 months, and the related questions people ask. Click Track next to a question to add it as a prompt. See Topics and prompts.