How to Run a Paid Keyword Research Workshop

Choosing Your Workshop Focus

Not all keyword research workshops are the same. The more specific your topic, the more it will sell.

Broad (harder to sell):

• "Keyword Research for Beginners"
• "How to Do Keyword Research"

Specific (easier to sell):

• "Keyword Research for B2B SaaS: Finding Bottom-of-Funnel Terms That Convert"
• "Local SEO Keyword Research: How to Dominate Your City and Service Area"
• "Ecommerce Keyword Research: Category Pages, Product Pages, and Blog Content"
• "Competitor Keyword Analysis: Steal What's Already Working"

The more clearly your topic maps to a specific type of business or a specific problem, the faster people say yes when they see the announcement.

When choosing your focus, think about:

• Your existing client base. What vertical do you serve most? Run a workshop for that audience.
• What questions keep coming up. If three clients this month asked about the same thing, that is a workshop topic.
• What you can demo live. You want to be able to pull up real data during the session, not just talk about concepts.

Pricing Your Keyword Research Workshop

For a live, interactive keyword research workshop with an SEO professional, these are reasonable price ranges in 2026.

For a public workshop where you are building your reputation and collecting testimonials, starting at $49 to $79 is appropriate. Once you have social proof and a track record, moving to $99 to $149 per seat is realistic.

Avoid underpricing. A $10 workshop signals that the content is generic. Attendees who pay $99 show up prepared. They ask better questions. They get more out of it. You get more testimonials.

Consider capping attendance. Smaller groups (20 to 50 attendees) let you call on people, answer questions mid-session, and pull up their actual sites as examples. That interactivity is worth more than a larger audience at a lower price.

Workshop Structure: A 90-Minute Template

Here is a structure that works well for a 90-minute keyword research workshop. Adjust timing based on your format.

Opening (10 minutes)

• Welcome and quick self-introduction (1-2 minutes, not your life story)
• Set expectations clearly: what they will walk away with
• Quick poll: "What is your primary use case? Blogging / Ecommerce / B2B SaaS / Local business / Agency work"
• Preview the agenda so people know what is coming

Use the poll results to calibrate your examples. If 60 percent of the room is ecommerce, pull ecommerce examples when possible.

Section 1: Keyword Research Fundamentals (15 minutes)

Do not skip this even if the audience claims to be advanced. Five minutes on search intent, keyword difficulty, and search volume sets the foundation for everything else and gives you a shared vocabulary.

Key concepts to cover:

• Search intent (informational, navigational, commercial, transactional)
• The relationship between volume, difficulty, and business value
• Why head terms are often less valuable than long-tail clusters
• How to think about "opportunity" vs. "vanity" keywords

Keep this tight. Your job in this section is to make sure everyone is thinking about keywords the same way you are before you start screen-sharing tools.

Section 2: Live Tool Demonstration (35 minutes)

This is the core of the workshop. You are screen-sharing and walking through your actual research process using real tools on a real example.

Choose an example domain before the session. Either use a client (with permission) or pick a well-known public example in the relevant niche. Alternatively, ask attendees to submit their site before the session and use one or two as live examples.

The tools you demo matter. Pick tools your audience is likely to have access to or can realistically get. Avoid demoing a $500/month enterprise tool to a room full of solopreneurs.

Recommended tool coverage by session type:

For a general or beginner-focused workshop:

• Google Search Console (free, everyone should have it)
• Google Keyword Planner (free, underutilized)
• Semrush or Ahrefs Keyword Magic Tool (show both if possible)
• Screaming Frog for crawl-based keyword analysis

For an intermediate or practitioner workshop:

• Ahrefs Keywords Explorer (volume, difficulty, clicks, SERP analysis)
• Semrush Organic Research and Keyword Gap
• Google Search Console for CTR optimization and "striking distance" keywords
• People Also Ask and related searches as ideation sources

For a competitive analysis focus:

• Ahrefs Site Explorer on competitor domains
• Semrush Domain Overview and Keyword Gap
• SpyFu for historical ranking data
• SimilarWeb for traffic context

As you demo each tool, narrate your thinking. The most valuable thing you can share is not how to click through a tool but how you decide what matters. Say things like:

• "I am ignoring this keyword because the intent is informational but the business is transactional."
• "This cluster is attractive because the difficulty is low but the pages ranking for it are thin."
• "Here is how I prioritize when a client has limited content budget."

That thinking is what people are paying for. Tools are available to anyone. Your framework for using them is not.

Section 3: Building a Keyword Map (20 minutes)

Walk attendees through how you organize findings into something actionable.

Cover:

• How to cluster keywords by topic and intent
• Mapping keywords to site architecture (which keyword belongs on which page type)
• Prioritizing: what to tackle first, what to defer
• The difference between pillar pages, supporting content, and product/category page targets

If you use a spreadsheet or Notion template for this, share your screen and walk through it. Offer to share a stripped-down version of the template as a resource after the workshop. This is something attendees remember and share.

Section 4: Q&A and Application (10 minutes)

Leave at least 10 minutes at the end for questions. Structured Q&A is more productive than open-ended "any questions?"

Prompt it: "Tell me your site type and your biggest keyword research challenge, and I will give you a quick direction." Answer 3 to 5 questions with real specificity.

If someone asks a great question that generates a long answer, consider: "That is a full session on its own. Let me give you a quick answer now and then share a resource afterward."

Closing (5 minutes)

• Recap the 3 to 5 most important takeaways in plain language
• Share what to do first when they leave the session
• Mention any resources you are sharing (template, checklist, recording)
• Let them know how to work with you (1:1 sessions, follow-up workshops, consulting)

Do not hard sell. Just make it clear that working with you is an option. A line like "If you want me to go deep on your specific site, I offer keyword strategy sessions you can book at [your link]" is enough.

What to Prepare Before the Workshop

Your preparation is what separates a workshop attendees recommend from one they forget.

Pick your example domains in advance. Do not try to find a good example live in front of 50 people. Pre-select 2 to 3 domains that illustrate the points you want to make.

Set up your tools ahead of time. Have tabs open, accounts logged in, and any relevant reports pre-pulled. Nothing kills momentum like watching someone search for a login.

Prepare intake questions for attendees. Send a pre-workshop form (or collect answers at registration) asking: What is your site? What is your niche? What is your biggest keyword research question? Use this to tailor examples and get to the most relevant content faster.

Prepare a resource handout. A one-page PDF or Notion doc with your recommended tools, the keyword mapping framework you cover, and links to further reading. This gives people something to hold onto and increases the perceived value of the session.

Test your screen share setup. Run a dry run at least 30 minutes before the session. Check that your browser tabs are visible, fonts are readable at 1080p, and your microphone is clear.

How to Handle a Live Demo When Things Go Wrong

Tools are unpredictable. Search results change. Sometimes Ahrefs goes down during a live demo.

A few contingencies worth having:

• Screenshots of key views in case a tool is unavailable
• A backup example domain ready if your primary example yields unusable data
• An honest acknowledgment when something is different than expected ("Interestingly, this changed since I last pulled it. Let me show you how I would adjust my approach.")

Attendees do not expect perfection. They expect honesty and expertise. Handling a live problem gracefully often builds more credibility than a flawless run-through.

Promoting a Keyword Research Workshop

The most focused distribution strategy for an SEO workshop:

LinkedIn (primary). Your target audience, business owners, in-house marketers, and consultants, is on LinkedIn. Post 2 to 3 times per week in the two weeks before the workshop. Share a useful SEO tip related to the workshop topic with a line at the bottom pointing to registration.

Email list (highest conversion). If you have a list from past clients or a lead magnet, email them 2 to 3 times: announcement, content preview, and a last-chance reminder 48 hours before. Even a small list of 500 people at 3 to 5 percent conversion gets you 15 to 25 attendees.

Twitter/X. Share the same ideas from LinkedIn in a shorter format. Thread about the workshop topic to demonstrate credibility, then drop the registration link.

SEO communities. Slack groups, Discord servers, and forums (Reddit's r/SEO, Indie Hackers, specific niche communities) are underused for workshop promotion. Post genuinely helpful content, not just a link.

Past clients. Email them directly. "I am running a keyword research workshop next week. Thought you might find it useful, or know someone who would." Personal emails convert better than any broadcast.

For a workshop in the $49 to $99 range, you do not need a large audience. 30 to 50 attendees is a meaningful session with good revenue and high engagement.

Delivering Value with Talkspresso

The logistics of running a paid workshop should not get in the way of delivering a great session. You need registration, payment, video with screen sharing, and follow-up, all working reliably.

Talkspresso handles all of it in one place. You create your workshop, set the price and capacity, and share one link. Attendees book and pay in a single flow. When it is time for the session, the video call with screen sharing is built in. No managing a separate Zoom account, no invoicing through a separate Stripe dashboard, no manually sending the join link.

After the session, Talkspresso records it automatically and generates an AI summary with key takeaways. You can share the recording directly with attendees or package it as a digital product to sell to people who missed the live session. That recording can continue generating revenue long after the workshop is over.

For a workshop on keyword research specifically, the intake question feature is worth using. Set up 2 to 3 questions at registration ("What is your primary website?" "What is your biggest keyword research challenge?") and you will show up to the session with the information you need to make it genuinely useful.

After the Workshop: Follow-Up and Scaling

What you do in the 48 hours after the workshop determines whether you get testimonials, referrals, and repeat bookings.

Send the recording within 24 hours. Attendees expect it. Include a short note recapping the 3 to 5 top takeaways and any resources you mentioned.

Ask for a testimonial. Send a simple follow-up: "What was one thing you found most useful?" A one-line reply is enough to use as social proof. Most people are happy to give feedback if you ask directly.

Announce the next one. If attendees enjoyed the session, many will come back for a different topic or refer someone who missed it. Send a brief note: "I am planning another workshop on [topic]. Want to hear about it first?" This builds a list of warm leads for your next session.

Turn the recording into a product. On Talkspresso, you can sell recordings directly from your profile. A recorded keyword research workshop priced at $29 to $49 can generate ongoing passive revenue with no additional work.

Run it again. A workshop that worked once will work again. Refine your examples, update your tool coverage for any changes since the last session, and run it quarterly. Your second session will be better than your first, and your third better than your second.

A Note on What Attendees Actually Want

Every person who registers for a keyword research workshop comes with a specific problem they are trying to solve. Some want to stop guessing and start using data. Some want to understand what their SEO agency is actually doing for them. Some are launching a new site and have no idea where to begin.

The best workshops acknowledge this directly. In your opening poll, ask what they are working on. In your Q&A, make space for the specific, messy questions that do not fit neatly into a presentation. The part of the session where you answer real questions from real attendees about their real situations is almost always the part people remember most.

Keyword research is a skill. The methodology has been written about endlessly. What has not been written is how someone with your specific experience and perspective approaches it. That is what people are paying for when they register for your workshop. Give them that, and the rest takes care of itself.

See how creators use Talkspresso to sell paid video calls and workshops, or explore the Talkspresso for Creators page.

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