Keyword research finds the words your customers type into Google when they need what you sell, then decides which page on your site should answer each one. I do it for UK businesses as a project in its own right: a researched list of searches, sorted by what each searcher wants, with one primary term assigned to every existing and planned page so no two of your pages compete for the same visitor.
What keyword research changes
Many small business sites are written from the inside out. Pages are named after how the business describes itself, such as “bespoke joinery solutions” or “client onboarding”, rather than how a buyer searches, such as “fitted wardrobes Ealing” or “accountant for landlords”. The copy may be perfectly good, but it answers questions nobody puts into a search box, so Google has little reason to show it.
Research corrects that before anything is written or rebuilt. You find out which searches come from people ready to buy, which are early questions, which are held by directories or national brands you will not displace, and which are open to a business of your size. That last judgement matters more than any single number in a keyword tool.
The practical change is a set of decisions you can act on. Each page gets one job: the search it should win, the related phrases it should cover and the reason it exists. Your writer, your developer and whoever runs your paid search work from the same list, and a new page idea can be checked against it before anyone spends a day on it. I cannot promise any ranking, because Google decides that, but I can stop you building pages for searches nobody makes or setting two of your own pages against each other.
Who it suits, and who it does not
It suits businesses at the point where decisions about pages are about to be made: a new site or a rebuild being planned, a move into a new service or a new part of London or the wider UK, a content programme about to start, or a site whose pages were never given target searches in the first place. It also suits in-house marketers who have been handed a keyword export of several thousand rows and need it turned into something a team can use.
It is not always the right first purchase. If Google cannot crawl or index parts of your site, technical SEO comes first, because targeting does nothing for a page that never appears. If you already know your target terms and the pages simply underperform, on-page SEO for those pages is the quicker route. And if you want a full plan of what to publish, with a brief for every piece, that is a content SEO strategy, which includes this research as one part.
What the research covers
The depth follows your site. A trade business with ten pages needs a different scale of work from an online shop with thousands of products, and I size the project to match.
Starting from your business, not only from tools
I begin with your services, products and customers, and the words those customers use on the phone and in enquiry emails. Those starting terms are expanded with Google Keyword Planner, a keyword tool set to UK data, autocomplete and the questions Google shows in its results. Where your site already has some history, I add the searches it appears for in Google Search Console. That is the only source showing real searches for your own site, so I give it more weight than any estimate.
Intent behind every term
Each term is labelled by its search intent: someone looking to buy or hire, someone comparing options, someone wanting an answer, or someone looking for a particular business. For the terms that matter I check the live UK results rather than guessing from the wording, because the results show what Google thinks the searcher wants. If page one is all guides, a sales page will struggle there however well it is written.
UK wording and local searches
British searchers use different words from American ones: solicitor rather than attorney, estate agent rather than realtor, boiler rather than furnace. Tool exports often mix the two, so I filter them. For businesses that serve particular places, I look at how people combine a service with a town, borough or postcode, and whether Google treats the search as local. Where it does, the map results and your local SEO matter as much as the page itself.
Which terms are realistic for you
Difficulty scores from tools are a rough guide at best, so I look at who ranks now: national brands, directories such as Checkatrade or Yell, comparison sites, or businesses like yours. A search where small specialists already appear on page one is usually a better target than a busier one held by household names. I also pick out long-tail keywords, longer and more specific phrases that each bring fewer visitors but tend to come from people closer to a decision.
Grouping terms and mapping them to pages
Terms that Google answers with largely the same results belong on the same page, so I group them by overlap in the live results rather than by shared words. Each group becomes one row of the keyword map: a primary term, its close variants, the intent, and either the existing address that should target it or a note that a new page is needed. Before a group is assigned, I check it against every other page’s title, address and target, so two pages never end up chasing the same search.
Conflicts on your current site
Where two existing pages already compete for one search, known as keyword cannibalisation, the map says which page keeps the term and what should happen to the other: a new target, a merge into the stronger page, or a redirect.
How I run the project
- A call about your business. Your services, the customers you want more of and the ones you do not, and the areas you serve. This stops me researching terms you would never want to win.
- Access and existing material. Read-only access to Google Search Console and Google Analytics if you have them, plus any keyword lists, sales notes or competitor names you already hold.
- Research and labelling. I build the long list, remove what is irrelevant or out of reach, and label what is left by intent.
- Grouping and mapping. Terms are grouped and assigned to pages, with gaps and conflicts marked.
- Review with you. We go through the map together, because you know which services you want to push and which you would rather not be found for. I adjust it before signing it off.
- Handover. You receive the files below, and the map is yours to use with any writer, developer or agency.
Keyword problems I see most often on UK sites
- Pages built around the business’s own vocabulary, so a page called “residential lettings management” gets no visits while people search for “letting agent” and the area.
- A homepage expected to rank for every service at once, with no separate service pages for searchers to land on.
- Several blog posts and a service page all aimed at the same phrase, leaving Google to choose between them, often not the page you would have chosen.
- Location pages for dozens of towns with the same text and only the place name swapped, which Google tends to treat as near-duplicates.
- Targets chosen on volume alone, chasing broad terms owned by national brands while specific searches the business could win are ignored.
- American spellings and terms carried over from tool exports, so pages target “zip code” or “vacation rental” when UK buyers type “postcode” or “holiday let”.
What you receive
- A keyword map as a spreadsheet: every target page with its primary term, secondary terms, intent and address, existing or planned.
- The researched list behind the map, with intent labels and where each term came from, so you can see how every decision was reached.
- A list of conflicts on the current site, where pages overlap, with my recommendation for each.
- A list of gaps: searches worth winning that have no page yet, in a suggested order.
- A short written summary of the main decisions, including the terms I would not target and why.
If you already have a keyword list and only need it sorted, my free keyword clustering tool groups the terms by shared words and gives each group a rough intent label. It does not check the live results or your site, which is what the full project adds.
Next step
Send me your site address and a line about what you sell and where. I will look at how your pages are targeted now and tell you whether keyword research is the right next step or whether something else should come first. The simplest way is to request a free SEO audit; if you would rather talk it through, get in touch to book a call.