Keyword Research
Keyword research that ends in a short, ranked list of pages to build or fix, each tied to a service you sell, instead of a spreadsheet of search volumes.
Most of the volume dies here: big terms for jobs you do not take
Keyword research is finished when every term has a page to live on.
Most keyword research arrives as a spreadsheet. Four thousand rows sorted by search volume, a difficulty column nobody can explain, and a cover email promising a huge opportunity. Then it sits in a shared drive. The data is rarely the problem. The problem is that a list of words does not tell anyone what to build on Monday, and nobody ever hired a spreadsheet to fix a roof.
Real keyword research ends somewhere else: a short, ranked list where every term is assigned to a page, every page is tied to a service you actually sell, and the order reflects money rather than volume. A roofer who gets a wave of calls after every hailstorm does not need to rank for “roof.” They need the eight phrases people type the week after the storm, and a page that answers each one.
The raw material is closer than most owners think. Search Console shows the queries a site already earns impressions for, and as of October 2026 Google keeps 16 months of that history. The call log and the inbox show how customers describe a problem before they learn the trade term. Competitor pages show what the market has already decided is worth writing, which is where competitor keyword analysis and a keyword gap analysis earn their keep. Keyword Planner adds volume estimates, and People Also Ask adds the follow-up questions.
Every one of those sources bends the truth a little, which is why they get read together. Keyword Planner averages volume over twelve months by default and rounds it, and its Competition column counts advertisers, not the pages you would have to outrank. Third-party keyword difficulty scores rate the current results without knowing anything about your site. Some of the best phrases show zero in every tool and still ring the phone, which is the subject of our page on zero-volume keywords. Others are low-competition keywords only because nobody local has bothered yet.
Then the list gets shaped. Each term is read for search intent, because a query answered by how-to guides will not rank a sales page however well it is written. Terms whose results overlap are grouped through keyword clustering, so one strong page covers what used to be six thin ones. The groups are assigned to URLs in a keyword map, filled out with the semantic keywords a complete answer needs, and checked for keyword cannibalization wherever two of your own pages are already fighting.
None of this is a one-time deliverable. Search behavior shifts, new questions appear, and the pages you publish start earning queries nobody planned for. So keyword research runs inside our monthly SEO programs: they start at $625 a month, most local businesses spend between $625 and $2,250, and there is no long contract. If you would rather look before you talk to anyone, the free site audit shows what your pages are missing today.
What you get
Research that ends in a build list
Start with what already ranks
Search Console shows the queries your pages already appear for, including the ones stuck on page two. Those are the cheapest wins on the list, because Google has already connected you to them.
Mine the phone and the inbox
Customers describe problems in plain words long before they learn the trade term. Those plain words are what a stranger types into Google at ten at night.
Score by revenue, not volume
Every term is weighed by what the job is worth, how close the searcher is to hiring, and whether you can realistically win it. Thirty searches for a $9,000 job can beat three thousand for nothing you sell.
Group before anyone writes
Related terms are grouped by the results they share. One page then covers a topic, instead of six pages splitting it.
Give every term an address
Each keyword leaves the project attached to an existing page, a page to fix, or a page to build. Nothing is left floating in a tab nobody opens.
Reread it every month
New queries surface in Search Console as pages start to rank. The list is updated from them, so the research sharpens over time instead of going stale.
Want to see the terms you are already close on?
We will pull your Search Console queries, flag the ones sitting just off page one, and show you which page each one belongs to.
Why it matters
What good research changes on every front
Effort goes where it can win
Research decides which pages get written and in what order. Done well, it keeps months of work from going into terms the site never had a chance at.
Questions are the new keywords
People ask AI assistants full questions in ordinary language. Research built from real customer phrasing produces pages that answer those questions directly, which is the material assistants have to work with.
Their words, not yours
Businesses name services the way their invoices do. Buyers name them by the symptom, the price or the deadline, and good research closes that gap.
How keyword research runs here
1. Gather the raw terms
Search Console, your call notes, competitor pages, Keyword Planner and People Also Ask go into one list. It is usually a few thousand rows, and most of them will not survive.
2. Cut to what you sell
Terms for services you do not offer, places you do not serve and intent you cannot satisfy come out first. What remains is scored by job value, intent and how winnable it looks.
3. Shape it into pages
The survivors are clustered, assigned to URLs and checked against your existing pages for overlap. You get a ranked build list, not a data dump.
4. Feed it back monthly
As pages publish and earn impressions, the new queries go back into the list. The order changes when the data says it should, and not before.
Find out what your customers are actually typing
Tell us where things stand and we will tell you where the research should start.
Which of these sounds like you? (pick any)
Questions
Frequently asked
Start with the queries you already appear for in Search Console, add the phrases customers use on calls and in emails, then look at what competitors rank for. Cut anything you do not sell or cannot serve, read the intent of what is left, and rank it by what the job is worth. Our SEO basics guide covers the groundwork if you are starting from zero.
A ranked list where every term has a target URL, a page type and a reason for being on the list. If you receive volumes and difficulty scores with no pages attached, you have received data, not research. How each of those pages should then be built is covered in our guide to service page SEO.
It is a useful source, and it lives inside Google Ads. Its volumes are twelve-month averages by default and they are rounded, and its Competition column reflects how many advertisers showed ads on a term, not how hard it is to rank organically. Use it for direction, then check the actual results page before committing a page to a term.
We do not sell it as a standalone report. It runs inside our monthly SEO programs, which start at $625 a month, and most local businesses land between $625 and $2,250, as laid out in our SEO pricing. There is no long contract, and SEO financing is available if you would rather spread the cost.
Usually the specific ones first. Broad terms are crowded and slow; specific phrases are winnable sooner and sit closer to a purchase, which is the whole case for long-tail SEO. The broad terms become more realistic later, once a section of specific pages is organized into topic clusters around them.
Location changes the results. Many service searches show a map pack above the organic listings, so the research has to cover your Google Business Profile as well as your pages. The free map pack audit shows where you stand there, and service area pages are how city-level terms usually get covered.
Yes, though the unit shifts from a phrase to a question. The customer language that wins a Google query is the same language an assistant needs to find a clear answer on your site. The free AI visibility check shows whether assistants mention you today, and our page on GEO versus SEO explains where the two overlap.
Read monthly, reshuffle quarterly. Search Console surfaces new queries every month, and those should feed the list as they appear. If traffic has suddenly fallen, though, new research is not the first step: work out why traffic dropped before planning anything new.
Still have a question about Keyword Research? Ask us directly — we answer straight.
Start the conversationStart now. Pay monthly. Add nothing for interest.
Put 25% down at signing and spread the rest in equal monthly payments. The total you pay is the price on the proposal.
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