GOVERNMENT JOBS · IT CAREERS · PRACTICAL GUIDES
GOVERNMENT JOBS · IT CAREERS · PRACTICAL GUIDES
JobJet Insights · SEO
Keyword research does not have to begin with a paid subscription. A small business can learn a great deal from customer conversations, its own search data and careful observation. The aim is to identify what people need and which page should help them. A spreadsheet of thousands of phrases is less useful than a short, prioritised plan tied to genuine services.
Read enquiry emails, sales notes and support questions that you are authorised to use. Remove personal details from your planning sheet. Note the problem, product wording, location and question behind each request. Customers may describe a problem differently from your internal team. Keep those differences instead of replacing every phrase with industry jargon.
Review the queries and pages associated with your own site. Look for relevant impressions, promising pages and mismatched topics. Compare sensible periods and consider seasonality. Search Console data is not a complete census of every search and should not be treated as exact market demand. It is still valuable evidence of how your site currently appears.
Search a small number of representative phrases. Record whether the results are mainly local providers, product pages, guides, videos or comparisons. That helps you decide the appropriate page format. Do not copy the competing wording. Ask what important question remains unanswered and whether your business can provide a better response.
Google Trends can help compare relative interest and seasonality; it does not provide a universal exact search count. Keyword Planner is designed for advertising and its access and detail depend on the account. Suggestions can broaden your vocabulary, but none proves that a term will generate profitable enquiries. Treat estimates as directional inputs.
Put closely related phrases together when they can be answered by one useful page. Separate genuinely different intentions, such as buying software and applying for software jobs. Avoid creating a new page for every city-name variation unless each location has substantive, accurate information. A manageable structure is easier to maintain.
Score each topic for relevance, evidence of demand, customer value, competition and your ability to answer it well. A low-volume question asked by a serious buyer may matter more than a popular broad topic. Choose a small initial set and assign each topic to an existing page or a clear new brief.
Use these columns: phrase, customer task, page type, evidence, existing URL, missing information and priority. An imaginary machinery supplier might group “food packaging machine quotation” and “packaging machine supplier” under a commercial page, while “how to choose packaging speed” belongs in a supporting guide. The distinction is the task, not just the words.
Build a list of 20 real phrases, group them into five customer tasks and choose the one page you can improve most usefully this week.
Platform guidance checked on 19 October 2026. Interface options and policies can change; use the linked official documentation for current details.
Explore the Digital Marketing Insights library, or read our guide to auditing a landing page around the visitor’s next decision.
