Key takeaways
- Search Console is the most reliable keyword source you have, and the most commonly ignored.
- Your customers use different words than you do. Sales calls are a better source than any tool.
- Check the live results before targeting a term — they tell you what Google expects the page to be.
- Zero-volume local searches are frequently real. Tools under-report hyper-local demand.
Keyword research usually produces a spreadsheet of five thousand terms sorted by volume, which is almost useless. The task is not to find searches — it is to find the forty searches worth your effort this year, and to know which forty.
Start where the real data is: Search Console
If your site has been live for a few months, Google has already told you which searches it associates you with. This is first-party data about your actual site, and it is more reliable than anything a tool will estimate.
- 01
Open Performance → Search results
Set the date range to the last three or six months for a stable picture.
- 02
Sort queries by impressions
These are searches you are already appearing for. Some will surprise you — those are the interesting ones.
- 03
Find queries at positions 8 to 20
Filter by position. These are your fastest opportunities anywhere: proven relevance, just outside the first page.
- 04
Look for high impressions with low clicks
Either your position is too low, or your title and description are not earning the click. Both are fixable quickly.
- 05
Note the queries you never targeted
Searches you appear for by accident often reveal demand you did not know existed.
Then listen to how customers actually talk
Businesses consistently use different vocabulary from their customers. A manufacturer says "precision turned components"; the buyer searches "CNC turning job work". A clinic says "endodontic treatment"; the patient searches "root canal".
- Read the last fifty enquiry emails and WhatsApp messages. The words customers use to describe their problem are your keywords
- Ask your sales or reception team what people say on the phone
- Read your reviews — customers describe what they valued in their own language
- Check competitor reviews for the same reason
- Look at questions in relevant forums, Reddit threads and Facebook groups
Expand with free, honest sources
- Google autocomplete — type your service and go through the alphabet. Every suggestion is a real search pattern
- "People also ask" — expand a few and they keep generating. These are genuine follow-up questions
- "Related searches" at the bottom of the results page
- Google Trends for seasonality and for comparing two phrasings
- Your own site search, if you have one — visitors telling you what they could not find
Classify by intent before anything else
Intent matters more than volume, because it determines both whether the traffic converts and what kind of page you need to build.
| Intent | Signals in the query | Converts? |
|---|---|---|
| Transactional | "near me", "book", "hire", "quote", "buy", "price" | Immediately |
| Commercial | "best", "top", "vs", "alternative", "for [segment]" | Soon — comparison stage |
| Local | City, suburb, landmark, "near me" | Very often, and quickly |
| Informational | "how", "what", "why", "guide", "checklist" | Later, if at all |
| Navigational | A brand or product name | Already decided |
A term with forty monthly searches and transactional intent is usually worth more than one with four thousand and informational intent. Sort your list by intent before you look at volume.
Check the live results before committing
This step takes two minutes per term and it prevents most wasted effort. Search the term and look at what is actually there.
- 1What page type ranks? Guides, comparisons, service pages, listings? That is Google telling you what the page must be
- 2Who ranks? Local businesses are beatable. Directories and national brands need a different approach
- 3How much of the page is organic? If ads, a map pack and an AI answer fill the screen, the organic click volume is far lower than the reported search volume
- 4Does a business your size appear anywhere in the top twenty? If not, the term is probably out of reach for now
- 5How deep is the ranking content? That is the bar you would have to clear
On volume estimates and zero-volume terms
The practical rule: if the phrasing matches how a customer would describe their problem, it belongs on the list regardless of reported volume. Search Console will confirm or deny it within a couple of months, and that data is real.
Group terms and map them to pages
The output of keyword research is not a list — it is a map. One row per URL, one primary intent per row.
- Group terms that share an intent into a single cluster. "SEO audit", "website SEO analysis" and "SEO check" are one page, not three
- Assign each cluster to exactly one URL — new or existing
- If two existing pages target the same cluster, consolidate them and redirect one
- Note the sub-questions each page must answer
- Record where internal links should come from
That map is what makes the research usable. Without it, you have a spreadsheet; with it, you have instructions. More on turning it into pages: content SEO.