Keyword Research Basics: Finding Terms Worth Targeting

Every SEO strategy starts with the same question: what are people actually typing into the search bar when they’re looking for what you offer? Keyword research sounds simple, but most businesses either skip it entirely or stop after grabbing an obvious list of terms without checking whether those terms are realistic to rank for. Here’s how we approach it with clients.

Start with your customers’ language, not your own

Business owners tend to describe their services using industry jargon or internal terminology. Customers search using much simpler, more literal phrasing. A plumbing company might describe itself as offering “emergency mitigation services,” while a customer types “burst pipe fix now.” The first step in keyword research is setting aside how you talk about your business and researching how your customers actually talk about their problem.

Search volume is only half the picture

It’s tempting to chase the keyword with the highest monthly search volume, but volume without context is misleading. A generic, high-volume term is usually dominated by large national brands and comparison sites, and much of that traffic isn’t looking to buy anything — it’s researching broadly. We weigh search volume against two other factors: keyword difficulty (how hard the term will be to rank for based on who currently occupies page one) and commercial intent (how likely someone searching that phrase is to actually convert into an enquiry or sale).

Long-tail keywords convert better than they look

A keyword like “SEO agency” might get thousands of searches a month, but it’s broad, brutally competitive, and often unclear in intent. A phrase like “SEO agency for independent dental practices” gets a fraction of the volume but attracts searchers who already know exactly what they want. We consistently see long-tail keywords generate a much higher percentage of enquiries per visitor than their shorter, more generic counterparts, simply because the intent is so much clearer.

Group keywords by intent

Not every keyword deserves the same type of page. We sort keyword lists into roughly three buckets: informational (someone researching a topic, best served by a blog post or guide), commercial investigation (someone comparing options, best served by a comparison or “best of” style page), and transactional (someone ready to buy or enquire, best served by a service or product page). Matching the page type to the keyword’s intent is often the difference between ranking and not, even when the content itself is well written.

Mine your existing data first

Before reaching for third-party keyword tools, we look at what a business already has: internal site search logs, the actual questions customers ask in sales calls or support tickets, and existing organic search queries already driving impressions in Google Search Console. This existing data is free, specific to the business, and often surfaces phrasing that a generic keyword tool would never suggest.

Don’t ignore competitor gaps

Looking at which keywords competitors rank for — and specifically which ones they rank for that you don’t — often uncovers opportunities that pure brainstorming misses. We’re not interested in copying a competitor’s content, but their ranking keyword list is a useful starting point for topics worth covering that we might not have considered.

Good keyword research isn’t a one-time task; search behavior shifts as products, seasons, and even AI-driven search habits change. Revisiting your keyword list every few months keeps your content aligned with how people are actually searching today, not how they searched when the site was first built.