ultrabyrich performance marketing
Keyword research is where SEO campaigns are won or lost — and most businesses are doing it wrong.
They brainstorm a few terms, plug them into a keyword tool, sort by volume, and start writing. The result? Generic content that ranks for nothing, competes against entrenched players, and drives traffic that never converts.
The smarter approach is to use AI as a research engine before you create anything. Not to generate content — to map the terrain, find the gaps, and understand exactly what your buyers are searching for at every stage of their journey.
Here's a 7-prompt stack you can run every week to build a keyword strategy that actually drives revenue.
Prompt 1: Seed Keyword Generation
The prompt:
"You are an SEO strategist working with a [business type] targeting [ICP]. Generate 30 seed keywords they should be ranking for. Focus on terms their ideal buyer is actively searching."
Why it works
Before you can do anything useful in SEO, you need a clear picture of the core keyword universe your business should own. Seed keywords are the foundation — broad, high-relevance terms that define your topic space.
The critical variable here is your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile). The more specific you are — industry, role, problem, stage of business — the more useful the output. "E-commerce store owner" gives you better seeds than "business owner." "Shopify DTC brand doing $500K/year" gives you better seeds still.
What to look for in the output
Good seed keywords describe problems and goals, not just products. If you sell Facebook ad management, you want terms like "how to lower cost per acquisition" and "Meta ads not converting" — not just "Facebook advertising agency." Your buyers are searching for outcomes, not vendors.
Run this prompt once per quarter, or whenever you enter a new market or launch a new service line.
Prompt 2: Long-Tail Expansion
The prompt:
"Take this seed keyword: [keyword]. Generate 20 long-tail variations with estimated search intent, difficulty level, and which stage of the funnel each one fits: TOFU, MOFU, or BOFU."
Why long-tail keywords win
Long-tail keywords (3–5+ word phrases) make up the majority of all search queries. They're more specific, less competitive, and — critically — they convert at a far higher rate than broad terms because they signal stronger intent.
Someone searching "advertising agency" is browsing. Someone searching "best Meta ads agency for Shopify stores under $1M revenue" is ready to buy.
Understanding the funnel labels
- TOFU (Top of Funnel): Awareness-stage content. These searchers are learning, not deciding. Think "how to run Facebook ads" or "what is ROAS."
- MOFU (Middle of Funnel): Consideration stage. Buyers know they have a problem and are exploring solutions. Think "Meta ads vs. Google ads for e-commerce" or "how to choose an ad agency."
- BOFU (Bottom of Funnel): Decision stage. These searchers are ready to act. Think "best Meta ads agency for Shopify" or "UltraByRich pricing."
Map your content calendar to all three stages, but prioritize BOFU when resources are limited. Those pages drive revenue fastest.
Prompt 3: Competitor Keyword Gaps
The prompt:
"Here are the top 5 blog posts from my competitor [URL]. What keywords are they clearly targeting? What related keywords are they missing that I could target to outrank them?"
Steal smart, not just fast
Competitor analysis isn't about copying — it's about finding the white space. Every competitor has keywords they're targeting well and gaps in their coverage. Your job is to identify both.
When you feed competitor URLs into this prompt, you get two types of intelligence:
- What's working for them — terms they've clearly invested in, which validates the opportunity
- What they've missed — adjacent topics, long-tail variations, or emerging questions their content doesn't address
The gaps are your opening. If your competitor dominates "Meta ads for e-commerce" but has nothing on "Meta ads for health supplement brands," that's a cluster you can own.
How to use this in practice
Pull the top 5–10 URLs from your top 2–3 competitors. Run them through this prompt. You'll quickly see patterns — topics they avoid, angles they haven't taken, audiences they're not speaking to directly. Build your content calendar around those gaps.
Prompt 4: BOFU Keyword Mining
The prompt:
"You are an SEO expert focused on revenue-driving content. Give me 15 bottom-of-funnel keywords for a [business type] that signal high purchase intent. Explain why each one converts."
Traffic that buys vs. traffic that reads
This is the prompt that separates SEO strategies that generate revenue from ones that just inflate analytics dashboards. BOFU keywords are where the money lives.
High purchase-intent keywords share a few signals:
- Comparison language: "vs.," "alternatives to," "best [X] for [Y]"
- Action verbs: "hire," "pricing," "cost," "sign up," "get started"
- Specificity: Named competitors, specific platforms, specific industries
- Problem urgency: "not working," "failing," "how to fix," "help with"
Asking the model to explain why each keyword converts is what makes this prompt valuable. It forces specificity — you're not just collecting terms, you're building a mental model of what your buyer is thinking at the moment they type that query.
Prioritize these pages above all others
If you're resource-constrained, BOFU pages should be your first investment. A well-optimized pricing page, comparison post, or "best [category] for [audience]" article can drive revenue for years. Start here.
Prompt 5: Keyword Clustering
The prompt:
"Here is a list of 50 keywords: [paste list]. Group them into topic clusters with a recommended pillar page and 4–6 supporting blog posts for each cluster."
Why ungrouped keywords waste your time
Running prompts 1 through 4 will give you a rich list of keyword opportunities. But a flat list is nearly useless for execution. Keywords need to be organized into clusters before you can build a content strategy around them.
The pillar-and-cluster model works like this: one comprehensive "pillar" page targets a broad topic, and a set of "cluster" pages cover specific subtopics in depth — all internally linking back to the pillar. This structure signals topical authority to search engines and helps users navigate your content.
What good clustering looks like
A cluster for a paid advertising agency might look like:
- Pillar: The Complete Guide to Meta Ads for E-Commerce Brands
- Cluster posts: How to Set Up a Facebook Pixel on Shopify / How to Lower Your CPM on Meta / Meta Ads vs. Google Ads for Product Brands / How to Read Your Meta Ads Dashboard / Why Your Facebook Ads Aren't Converting (and How to Fix Them)
Every cluster post supports the pillar, and every pillar links out to its clusters. This creates an interconnected web of content that ranks better collectively than each page would individually.
Use this prompt to go from a raw keyword list to a structured editorial roadmap in minutes.
Prompt 6: Search Intent Classification
The prompt:
"Classify each of these keywords by search intent: informational, navigational, commercial, or transactional. Then recommend the best content format for each one."
Intent mismatch is a silent ranking killer
This is one of the most overlooked concepts in SEO. You can write an excellent piece of content optimized for the right keyword and still fail to rank — because the format doesn't match what Google believes searchers want.
Here's what each intent type signals:
- Informational: "How does [X] work?" — Answer with a blog post or explainer guide
- Navigational: "[Brand name] login" or "[Company] pricing" — Answer with a landing page or your website's native page
- Commercial: "Best [X] for [Y]" — Answer with a comparison post or roundup
- Transactional: "Buy [X]" or "Hire [X]" — Answer with a product/service page, demo CTA, or contact form
Getting intent wrong means Google will simply rank the content type that matches the intent — and yours won't be it. If someone searches "best Meta ads agency" expecting a comparison article, your homepage won't rank there no matter how good your on-page SEO is.
The format recommendations matter
Part of what makes this prompt valuable is the format guidance. Knowing a keyword is informational isn't enough — you also need to know whether to write a 400-word FAQ, a 2,000-word how-to guide, a video transcript, or a quick definition post. The model can give you a starting point for all of these, calibrated to what already ranks.
Prompt 7: Quarterly Keyword Refresh
The prompt:
"Here is my current keyword list from last quarter: [paste list]. Identify which keywords I should retire, which I should double down on, and suggest 20 new opportunities based on gaps in my current strategy."
Keyword strategy is a living document
Most teams treat keyword research as a one-time event. They do the work, build a content calendar, and move on. Six months later, they're still operating off a strategy that's out of date — missing new opportunities, clinging to keywords that have gone cold, and ignoring emerging search trends.
Search behavior changes constantly. New competitors enter the space. Platforms shift. Audiences evolve. Your keyword strategy needs to reflect that.
What to look for in the refresh output
The model will flag three types of keywords for you:
- Retire: Low-traffic, no-intent, or keywords you've already captured so thoroughly that more investment there yields diminishing returns
- Double down: High-potential keywords where you've gotten early traction but haven't fully built out the cluster
- New opportunities: Emerging questions, adjacent audiences, and gaps in your current coverage that represent untapped upside
Run this prompt at the start of each quarter. It takes 20 minutes and keeps your entire content strategy sharp and current.
The System Behind the Stack
These seven prompts aren't random — they follow a deliberate sequence:
- Map the space (Seed Keywords)
- Go deep on each opportunity (Long-Tail Expansion)
- Find the gaps competitors left open (Competitor Gaps)
- Identify the highest-value targets (BOFU Mining)
- Organize for execution (Clustering)
- Match format to intent (Intent Classification)
- Refresh and adapt (Quarterly Review)
Each step builds on the one before it. By the time you reach step five, you're not guessing at your content calendar — you're working from a researched, structured, intent-mapped strategy that targets real buyers at every stage of their journey.
Start This Week
You don't need to run all seven prompts in one sitting. Start with Prompt 1. Fill in your business type and ICP. Read through the output carefully and push back on anything that feels generic. Add constraints. Get specific.
Then move to Prompt 2 and expand three or four of the most promising seeds.
By the end of an hour, you'll have more usable keyword intelligence than most businesses gather in a quarter — and you haven't written a single word of content yet.
That's the edge. The content comes later. The research comes first.
