Keyword research for small businesses: a simple method that works

Keyword research for small businesses is simpler than the tools make it look. You are not hunting for the biggest searches in your sector. You are looking for the words your future clients type into Google when they need exactly what you sell, and deciding which page of your site answers each of them.

This guide sets out my method in six steps, from a first list of words to a plan of your pages, and every step works with free tools or free accounts. It is part of my guide to small business SEO. If you are looking for the words people type in the App Store or Google Play instead, my guide to ASO keyword research covers the app stores.

One lesson shapes the whole method. Of the five websites I have built for one client, an air conditioning installer near Paris, one did not work at all: it offered too many services and was too broad. The one that ranks first or second on Google sells a very specific service. Broad words put a small business up against everyone, while specific searches are the ones it can win.

What keyword research means for a small business

A keyword is the phrase someone types or says into a search engine. Keyword research means finding the phrases your future clients use, judging which ones deserve a page, and deciding which page answers each of them. For every phrase, you want to know four things:

• The exact words. “Kitchen fitter” and “kitchen installer” describe much the same job, but people do not type them equally often.
• The intent, meaning what the person wants to do: learn something, compare options, hire someone now, or find a business they already know.
• The competition. Who already holds page one: national brands and directories, or businesses your size.
• The demand. Roughly how many searches a month, and whether they come in a season.

Most guides start with demand, because demand is what keyword tools sell. For a small business, I start with the words and the intent. The client I mentioned is Pilotech, and the site that ranks sells its air conditioning with no outdoor unit, for Paris buildings where a unit on the façade is not allowed. A site built around “air conditioning” would compete with manufacturers, retailers and every installer in the country. The people who need this kind of air conditioning search for something narrower, in French of course: air conditioning without an outdoor unit, or invisible air conditioning. Searches this precise are often called long-tail keywords: fewer people type them, but those who do know what they want.

The method uses these tools, nearly all of them free:

Step 1: write down the words your clients already use

Start with what you already have, before you open any tool. These sources cost nothing and sit closer to your buyers than any database:

1. Your inbox and your phone. Reread your last twenty enquiries and quote requests, and note, word for word, how people describe what they need. Clients rarely use the technical name of a service.
2. The questions prospects ask. On my first calls, people ask what SEO is, how it will help their business and how long it takes to rank. If prospects ask you something on the phone, other people are typing it into Google.
3. Google’s suggestions. Type your service into Google and note what it suggests as you type. Google says these predictions reflect real searches made on Google, and that they also depend on language, location and past searches.
4. The results page. Note the questions and related searches Google shows around the results. Each one is a phrasing somebody uses.
5. Search Console, if your site is live. In Performance > Search results, the Queries tab lists the searches for which your pages already appear. My Google Search Console tutorial shows how to read it.

Put everything in a spreadsheet, one phrase per row, exactly as people say it. Do not tidy the words into your trade’s vocabulary: the untidy version is the one people type.

Step 2: find the problems behind the searches

People often search for their problem, not for your solution. When I built a ventilation site for the same client, the starting point was that people with damp at home rarely search for the name of the system that fixes it. They describe what they see: condensation, black stains on the walls, a damp cellar. The ventilation site now has 21 articles, each built around a concrete problem and linked to the unit suited to it.

To find these problems across a whole market, I use deep research with an AI assistant. I ask it two things: what customers complain about most, and which words and questions keep coming back, niche by niche. I work with Research in Claude; ChatGPT has its own deep research mode. The prompts and the checks are in my tutorial on how to use Deep Research for copywriting and SEO.

Treat the report as a list of phrases to test, nothing more. Check that each phrase comes from a source the report cites, such as a review or a forum thread. An AI assistant reads web pages: it does not have Google’s search data, so it cannot tell you how many people type a phrase. Every phrase it finds goes through the next two steps.

Step 3: choose the phrasing in Google Trends

When you have several ways of saying the same thing, Google Trends shows which one people use most. Open Explore, set the location to the United Kingdom and the time range to the past five years, and put the phrasings on the same chart: “kitchen fitter” against “kitchen installer”, for example. The highest line is the wording to use on your page.

Trends scores interest from 0 to 100, relative to the highest point on the chart. It gives no search volumes, so it cannot tell you whether that line stands for fifty searches a month or five thousand. It is, however, the best free way to see seasons: a climb that comes back in the same months every year tells you to publish or refresh the page well before the climb starts. My Google Trends tutorial walks through each panel.

Step 4: check volumes in Keyword Planner and ad costs in Semrush

Two tools give you the numbers that Trends leaves out.

Google Keyword Planner is free inside a Google Ads account. The account must be in Expert Mode with billing details, and Google may ask you to create a campaign, which you can leave paused. Without ad spend, it shows monthly searches as ranges rather than exact figures (Google Ads Help). Ranges are enough to compare phrases with each other. Look at the two top-of-page bid columns as well: they give a rough range of the bids that put ads at the top of the first page over the last 30 days, a fair sign of what a search is worth to a business. My Google Keyword Planner tutorial shows how to open it without running ads.

I use Semrush mainly for keyword research, and for the keywords advertisers buy and what they pay for them. That cost shows which keywords work best: a high cost per click (CPC) suggests stronger buying intent. I then double down on those keywords with SEO, instead of paying for every click in ads. Its Keyword Overview report shows, for each phrase, the monthly volume, the intent, the CPC and a Keyword Difficulty score. At the time of writing (October 2026), a free account allows 10 requests a day and shows the first 10 results of each report: enough for a shortlist. My Semrush review says when a paid plan is worth it.

Step 5: sort by intent and keep the searches you can win

You now have a list of phrases with rough volumes. Sort each one by what the searcher wants, because the intent decides which kind of page can rank. Here is how it looks for a heating engineer in Leeds:

Then type each shortlisted phrase into Google yourself and read page one. It tells you three things that volumes and scores do not:

• What Google thinks the search wants. If page one is all articles, a service page will struggle, and the other way round.
• Whether the search is local. A map of businesses at the top means distance counts, and your Google Business Profile matters as much as your website.
• Who you are up against. National brands, marketplaces and directories on every line: keep the phrase for later. Businesses your size: you have a chance.

Keep a phrase when the person typing it could become your client, when its intent matches a page you can write, and when page one shows sites you can compete with. Volume comes last.

Step 6: give each page one primary keyword

The last step turns your list into a plan of your pages, usually called a keyword map: a table with one row per page, its primary keyword, and the close variants and questions it also answers. For the heating engineer:

Three rules keep the map useful:

1. One primary keyword per page, and one page per primary keyword. Two pages aimed at the same search compete with each other: merge them, or give each its own angle.
2. One niche, one page. A service with its own buyers and its own words deserves its own page, not a line in a list of everything you do.
3. Put the keyword where it counts, then write for people. Use it in the title tag, the H1, the first paragraph, one subheading and the URL. Repeating it beyond that does not help: Google’s spam policies treat keyword stuffing as spam.

That is how I built the Toshiba air conditioning site for the same client: each of the ten ranges has its own page, and each page title is built around a local search, such as “Toshiba Haori : 15 coloris, prix et pose en IDF” (15 colours, prices and installation in the Paris region). My on-page SEO checklist covers everything else that goes on each page.

Keyword research for small business: a checklist

1. List the words from your enquiries, your calls, Google’s suggestions and, if your site is live, Search Console.
2. Add the problems and recurring phrases from a deep research report, and drop any phrase it cannot source.
3. Compare the phrasings of each service in Google Trends, in your country, over five years.
4. Check volume ranges and ad bids in Keyword Planner, then CPC and difficulty in Semrush.
5. Type each shortlisted phrase into Google and read page one: intent, local results, competitors.
6. Give each page one primary keyword, and each primary keyword one page.
7. Redo the list when you add a service or an area, and look at your Search Console queries every month or two.

You do not need me, or any agency, for this. The tools are free or nearly free, and nobody knows your clients’ words better than you do. Hand it over when you would rather spend the time on your clients, or when the pages still need writing: choosing the searches worth winning and building a page for each is the core of my SEO service.