Imagine you are building a house. You wouldn’t start laying bricks until you had a clear plan of where the walls, doors, and windows will be. In the world of online promotion, that plan is the semantic core. It is a complete set of words and phrases that people use to search for your products or services. If you make a mistake at this stage, you will build a “house” that no one can enter because they simply cannot find the entrance.
Today, search engines have become so intelligent that they understand not just the words, but the user’s intent. Therefore, compiling a list of queries in 2026 is no longer just about collecting popular words—it is a true study of your customer’s psychology.
1. Where to Start: Gathering the Foundation
The first step is brainstorming. Write down the main areas of your business in simple terms. How would you search for your product if you knew nothing about it? Statistics show that over 15% of Google searches are completely new and have never been seen before. This means people formulate their thoughts in very different ways. Don’t limit yourself to official names. If you sell “HVAC equipment,” be sure to add “apartment air conditioner” and “how to cool a room in the heat.”
2. Expansion and Search Suggestions
Once the foundation is ready, it’s time to look into the user’s mind using tools. But don’t forget the simplest method—the search engines themselves. Enter your main keyword into the search bar and look at what the system suggests at the bottom of the page in the “People also search for” block. These are ready-made hints from real people. Analytics show that queries consisting of four or more words (so-called “long-tail keywords”) bring in 20% more sales because they are highly specific. For example, a person searching for “buy red leather sneakers size 42” is much more ready to make a purchase than someone who just typed the word “shoes.”
3. Filtering the Excess: Quality Over Quantity
The biggest mistake beginners make is trying to cover everything at once. Your task is to remove the “trash.” This includes queries containing words like “free,” “DIY” (if you sell finished goods), names of cities where you don’t operate, and competitor names. Keep your focus on words that bring in money, rather than those that just create the illusion of traffic. Why would you want a thousand people on your site looking for “how to fix a faucet myself” if you sell expensive designer mixers?
4. Grouping or Clustering
This is the stage where a chaotic list turns into a structure. You must break all collected words into groups. Each group represents a separate page on your website. You cannot promote “children’s bicycles” and “adult scooters” on the same page. The search engine simply won’t understand the topic and won’t show your site to anyone. Each group of words must answer one specific user question.
5. Competitor Analysis: Learning from Others’ Success
Don’t be afraid to see what market leaders are doing. Use specialized services to see which keywords bring people to your successful competitors. Often, you can find real “diamonds” there—low-competition queries you hadn’t even considered. Interesting fact: sometimes one well-chosen phrase can bring in more profit than a dozen of the most popular ones that large corporations with massive budgets are fighting over.
Practical Example: The Journey from Word to Customer
Suppose you have a small shop selling natural cosmetics. If your core consists only of the word “cosmetics,” you will never break through the market giants. But if you add phrases like “natural sulfate-free shampoo price,” “snail extract face cream reviews,” and “where to buy organic soap in Kyiv,” you will hit the bullseye. You are offering exactly what the person is looking for at that very moment. This strategy allows small websites to bypass large stores for specific queries.
The ideal semantic core is not just an Excel spreadsheet. It is the foundation of your business on the internet. By spending time on its correct compilation today, you save months of wasted effort and thousands of dollars in advertising budget in the future. Remember: you write for people, but you structure for robots. Find this balance, and your site will inevitably reach the top positions.
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