What does keyword research mean? Keyword research is how you find out which terms your customers type into Google when they’re looking for a business like yours. It isn’t a list of words — it’s a map of what your customers are thinking and where they are in their buying journey. Done well, it tells you which topics to write about and in what order, so you show up exactly when your customer is ready to get in touch.
Keyword research isn’t a list of words — it’s a map of how your customers think
Keyword research is often treated as a technical exercise: open a tool, look up search volumes, pick the words with high volume and low competition, and hope for the best. That approach rarely works, because it skips the question that matters most — what is your customer actually trying to solve at the moment they type that search into Google?
At its best, keyword research is a systematic way to understand how your customers think. It reveals the problems they’re trying to solve, how they talk about those problems in their own words, where they are in the buying journey, and how ready they are to make a decision.
On this page we’ll walk through how to do keyword research yourself, step by step — even with free tools alone. You’ll get a clear process you can repeat every time you plan new content. We’ll use the same example throughout so you can see exactly what each step looks like.
Search intent matters more than search volume
Traditional keyword research stares at two numbers: how often a term is searched per month and how tough the competition is. Useful numbers, but they only tell part of the story.
The more important question is search intent — what the searcher actually wants to find. Google groups search intent into four main types, and each one calls for a different kind of content.
- Informational. The searcher wants to learn something: “what is search engine optimization”, “how to start an online store”. They’re usually early in the journey. This is how you build awareness and trust.
- Navigational. The searcher is looking for a specific site or brand. They already know what they want. Hard to capture unless the brand being searched is yours.
- Commercial. The searcher is weighing options: “best ecommerce platform for small business”, “accounting service price”. They’re close to a decision, which makes these valuable.
- Transactional. The searcher is ready to act: “order a website for my business”, “book an SEO audit”. Volume is often small, but each visitor is clearly more valuable.
In practice, a keyword with 50 searches a month and clear buying intent can be worth more to you than one with 5,000 searches and pure curiosity behind it. Volume doesn’t tell you the value — intent does.
How to do keyword research — five steps
Keyword research moves in stages, and each stage builds on the last. It starts with understanding your own business and ends in a concrete plan.
We’ll keep one example running: imagine you run a plumbing and HVAC business in a capital-region city. Let’s see what each step looks like for you.
Step 1: Decide first what you want to achieve
Before you open a single tool, ask yourself: which business goal does this work serve? Do you want more enquiries for a specific service? More bookings from a certain area? To be known as the expert on a topic? The goal decides which keywords you look for and in what order you invest in them.
In the plumbing example the goal is clear: you want more enquiries about housing-company pipe renovations, because they’re your biggest and most profitable jobs. That one decision already narrows things hugely — you’re not chasing “tap”, you’re chasing the terms a housing-company decision-maker types.
Step 2: Collect seed keywords
Seed keywords are the broad terms that describe your services and your customers’ problems. Collect them from several sources:
- Your own expertise — how you’d describe your services.
- Your customers’ words — how they talk on the phone, in emails, and in enquiries. This is gold: customers don’t use industry jargon, they use their own phrasing.
- Competitors’ pages — which words keep appearing in their headings.
- Google autocomplete — as you start typing a search, Google suggests the most common continuations. They’re based on real search data, so they tell you directly what people actually search for.
In the plumbing example your seed list might be: pipe renovation, drain relining, water damage, water pipe replacement, housing-company pipe renovation. Five terms is plenty to start — the list grows in the next step.
Step 3: Expand the list — even with free tools
Feed your seed keywords into a tool that returns a wider list with volumes and competition data. You don’t need a paid tool to begin:
- Google Keyword Planner (free) gives search volumes and suggests more keywords.
- Google Search Console (free) is especially valuable if your site has been up for a while. It shows you which keywords already bring you visibility — and you’ll often find terms where you’re ranking at position 8 or 15. These are low-hanging opportunities: a small content improvement lifts you easily and brings noticeably more visitors.
- The “People also ask” box on the results page surfaces related questions your content can answer.
Paid tools like Ahrefs and Semrush speed this up and show more accurate volumes plus competitors’ keywords. Bring them in once you’re doing keyword research regularly — they aren’t required on the first pass.
In the plumbing example the list grows fast: pipe renovation cost, housing-company pipe renovation price, drain relining cost, how long does a pipe renovation take, relining vs traditional pipe renovation, pipe renovation Espoo. One five-word list became dozens.
Step 4: Judge intent and competition
You’re not choosing yet — you’re assessing. Go through the list and mark two things for each keyword: the intent behind it (informational, commercial, or transactional) and how tough the competition is. We’ll come back to competition in detail below, but the rule of thumb is: look at who’s already on top. If it’s all big brands and thorough guides, the term is hard. If it’s thin pages or forums, you have room.
In the plumbing example “pipe renovation” is hard and its intent is unclear — anyone looking for information could be behind it. By contrast “housing-company pipe renovation cost” is a commercial search, often a board member working out a budget. Lower volume, but exactly the person you want to reach.
Step 5: Group and prioritise
A bare list won’t help. Gather related keywords into clusters and put the clusters in order of importance.
A cluster means terms on the same subject go together. “Housing-company pipe renovation”, “housing-company pipe renovation cost”, and “housing-company pipe renovation duration” belong to the same cluster even though they’re different searches. One thorough page can answer the whole cluster — you don’t need a separate page for every term.
To prioritise, weigh three things per cluster: business value (how close to a decision the searcher is), volume (how many searches in total), and competition (how hard the top is to reach). The best case is a cluster where all three line up: high value, reasonable volume, manageable competition. In the example the “housing-company pipe renovation” cluster wins: it hits your goal directly, it’s searched enough, and the competition is tough but not impossible.
Long tail: small volumes, big results
One of the most important insights in keyword research is the value of long-tail keywords. These are longer, more specific searches whose individual volume is small but which together make up a big share of all searches.
“Websites” is a short, generic term: high volume, tough competition, unclear intent. “Websites for a small business price” is long-tail: lower volume, but clear buying intent and less competition. The searcher knows what they want and they’re ready to decide.
When you produce content for tens or hundreds of specific keywords, you can capture more valuable traffic in total than by chasing one generic term — and the competition is easier to win, because fewer people bother optimising for those exact phrases.
How to judge whether you can reach the top
Volume is tempting, but if you can’t reach Google’s first page, a keyword brings you no visitors at all. That’s why judging competition realistically matters more than people think. You can do it for free by reading the results yourself:
- Who’s on top? If the top ten is all major brands and in-depth guides, the term is hard. If you see forums, thin pages, or results that don’t quite match, you have a genuine chance to overtake them with better content.
- How strong are those sites? A long-established site that publishes a lot is harder to overtake than a new one. Paid tools put a number on this (domain rating, for example), but you get a sense just by asking whether you recognise the brands on top.
- What does the result page look like? If Google shows a ready answer, maps, or nothing but ads, the actual clicks thin out even if you reach the top.
Rule of thumb for a small business: leave the hardest generic terms to the big players and focus on specific long-tail searches where you have a realistic chance to win. One top spot on a specific, ready-to-buy keyword brings more than position 30 on a generic one.
If this starts to feel like a big job, that’s fair enough — this is where we help. With our SEO service we do the keyword research for you and tell you honestly which keywords are worth your effort and which aren’t. No sales pitch, no commitment.
How much does keyword research cost?
The honest answer: done yourself, keyword research costs nothing but your time, because Google’s own tools are free. A first proper pass usually takes a few evenings while you learn the tools along the way.
Bought as a service, the price depends on scope: how many services or product categories the research covers, how big your site is, and whether a competitor analysis is included. Market prices typically start from a few hundred euros and rise as the work grows. The real difference isn’t just the price — it’s whether you’re left with a bare list of words or a concrete plan for what content to make and in what order.
We’ll look at your situation and tell you honestly whether to do the research yourself or buy it — and if you buy it, what that would actually mean for you. No commitment.
How AI is changing keyword research
AI tools have changed how keyword research gets done. They identify terms and concepts related to a topic that pure volume lookups don’t reveal. Instead of a list of individual words, you get a map of interconnected topics you can use to build content that covers a subject completely.
At the same time, the kinds of keywords worth investing in have shifted. Because AI search engines answer more and more basic questions directly on the results page, old “what is X” searches bring fewer clicks than before. The emphasis moves toward searches where the visitor genuinely wants to come to your site: comparisons, price searches, location-specific searches, and others where an AI summary alone isn’t enough.
From keyword research to an action plan
The value of keyword research only shows up when you turn it into a concrete plan. A report without execution is wasted work.
A good plan answers three questions: what new content you make, what existing content you improve, and on what timeline. Improving existing content is often the fastest path to results — the terms in Search Console where you already rank at position 5 or below are ready-made improvement targets. Sharpening a headline, expanding the content, or adding a missing section can lift your ranking meaningfully.
Timing matters, because SEO is cumulative. One article a month is twelve pieces of content a year, all bringing visitors from Google — and each one strengthens how credible your whole site looks to Google.
Checklist: keyword research step by step
- Decide the goal — which enquiry or booking this work serves.
- Collect seed keywords from your expertise, your customers’ words, competitors, and Google autocomplete.
- Expand the list with Keyword Planner and Search Console — both free.
- Mark intent and competition for each term — look at who already ranks.
- Group into clusters and put same-topic terms on one page.
- Prioritise by value, volume, and competition.
- Make a plan: what new content you’ll make, what existing content you’ll improve, on what timeline.
Keyword research is the foundation of SEO. If you want your site to rank on Google for the exact terms your customers use, our SEO service builds durable visibility for you. Good keywords also need fast websites that guide visitors to get in touch. Book a free consultation — let’s look at your situation together.