You might call it “bespoke interior joinery”. Your customer types into Google: made to measure wardrobe. If those words don’t appear anywhere on your website, the chance that Google shows you is small. Keyword research is finding out which words your customers really use, so your website matches them. It sounds technical, but with an afternoon’s work and a few free tools you’ll get a long way.

Why keyword research is the foundation

Every page on your website can only rank well for a handful of topics. Choose the wrong words and you’ll write pages nobody searches for, or compete with big websites you’ll never beat. Choose the right words and you’ll attract exactly the visitors who can become customers. That’s why good findability doesn’t start with technology, but with the question: what does my customer search for?

Step 1: start with your customers, not with a tool

The best keywords are in your own inbox. Reread the last twenty quote requests, emails and notes from phone calls and write down which words customers use. Not your jargon, but their words. Also ask yourself: which questions keep coming up? And what do people compare before they choose? That way you’ll have a list of twenty to thirty keywords and questions within an hour.

Step 2: let Google help you

Type your keywords into Google one by one and look at three things:

  • The suggestions while typing. Those are searches many people actually enter.
  • “People also ask”. This block of expandable questions shows which questions exist around the topic. Each question is a possible subheading or an article of its own.
  • Related searches at the bottom of the page. There you’ll often find variants you hadn’t thought of.

Put everything that fits your business on your list.

Step 3: see what you’re already found for

Have you connected Google Search Console? Then under Performance you can see which searches your website already appears for. Pay special attention to keywords with an average position between 8 and 20: there you’re just on page one or just outside it. With a better page there’s often quick gain to be had. How to read that report is explained in Google Search Console for beginners.

Step 4: check how much is being searched

Two free tools from Google give you an idea of demand:

  • Google Keyword Planner (in Google Ads). Using it is free, but you need a fully set up Google Ads account, with payment details. Without active ads you won’t see exact numbers, but broad ranges, such as 100 to 1,000 searches per month. That’s enough to compare words with each other.
  • Google Trends. There you can see whether a topic is growing or shrinking and whether it’s seasonal. Handy if you want to know when to publish an article about, say, holiday rentals or garden maintenance.

Don’t be tempted to aim only at the big words. For a local business, dormer installation Roosendaal with a few dozen searches a month is often more valuable than dormer with thousands. Whoever searches that specifically is almost ready to choose. Read more about getting found in your own region in Local SEO: how customers in your own region find you in Google.

Step 5: understand what someone wants

Behind every keyword there’s an intent. Roughly there are four kinds:

  • Looking for information: “how often should a boiler be serviced”.
  • Comparing: “solar panels or heat pump”.
  • Buying or requesting: “request boiler service”.
  • Searching locally: “installer Tholen”.

Look up your keyword and see what’s on the first page now. Mostly blog articles? Then Google wants to show explanation there and a sales page will rank poorly. Mostly businesses and quote forms? Then a service page works better. Make the type of page Google already rewards.

Step 6: choose one main keyword per page

Link each important keyword to exactly one page. Your service page “Dormers” gets dormer installation, your blog article gets dormer planning permission. If you let two pages compete for the same word, Google doesn’t know which one to show and both often rank worse. A simple table helps: keyword, what the searcher wants, estimated search volume, which page and whether that page already exists.

Step 7: work the keyword in naturally

Once you’ve chosen your main keyword, put it in the places where Google and visitors look first:

  • in the page title and the main heading (H1);
  • in the first paragraph;
  • in one or two subheadings, possibly as a variant;
  • in the web address (URL) of the page;
  • in the meta description, the short text under your title in Google.

Then just write for your reader. Repeating a keyword ten times doesn’t help; Google sees that as spam and visitors drop off. How to write a page that actually brings in enquiries is explained in How to write a services page that brings in enquiries.

Keywords in the age of AI

In ChatGPT and in Google’s AI answers, people ask longer, complete questions: “What does a three-metre-wide dormer cost in Zeeland?” Pages that answer such questions clearly and concretely have an edge there. So keyword research isn’t becoming less important, it’s shifting: from single words to the questions your customers ask. The list from steps 1 and 2 is exactly the right basis for that.

In summary

  1. Collect your customers’ words and questions.
  2. Add Google’s suggestions and questions.
  3. Check Search Console for where you’re already close to ranking.
  4. Compare demand with Keyword Planner and Google Trends.
  5. Work out what the searcher wants and which type of page fits.
  6. Link each keyword to one page.
  7. Work the keyword in naturally and write for your reader.

Need help with your keywords?

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