Keyword Research Strategy: Finding the Terms Your Customers Actually Search

Keyword research is the foundation of every successful SEO strategy. Get it wrong, and you'll spend months creating content that nobody searches for. Get it right, and you'll have a roadmap that drives qualified traffic to your website for years to come.

This isn't a tutorial on clicking buttons in SEO tools. It's a strategic framework for identifying, evaluating, and prioritizing keywords that will actually drive revenue for your business.

Why Most Keyword Research Fails

The typical approach to keyword research goes like this: plug your service into a tool, sort by search volume, and pick the most popular terms. This approach fails for three reasons:

1. Volume doesn't equal value: "Web design" gets 100,000 searches per month, but the intent is scattered (students, DIY designers, businesses looking to hire). "Custom website for law firm" gets 200 searches per month but every one of those searchers could be a $10,000 client
2. High-volume keywords are usually impossible to rank for: If you're not a major authority in your space, targeting head keywords is a waste of time and resources
3. No connection to revenue: Keywords are evaluated in isolation rather than mapped to the buyer's journey and business outcomes

The Revenue-First Keyword Framework

Instead of starting with tools, start with your business:

Step 1: List Your Revenue Streams

Write down every service or product you sell. For each one, note:

• The average revenue per sale
• Your profit margin
• How many you can realistically deliver per month

This tells you where ranking would have the biggest business impact. If your website development service generates $8,000 per client and your logo design service generates $500, you know where to focus your keyword efforts.

Step 2: Map the Buyer's Journey

For each revenue stream, think about what someone would search at each stage of their buying process:

Awareness Stage

The person knows they have a problem but hasn't identified solutions yet.

• "Why is my website not getting leads"
• "How to get more customers online"
• "Is my website too slow"
• "Why is my business not showing up on Google"

Consideration Stage

They've identified potential solutions and are evaluating options.

• "Custom website vs Squarespace for business"
• "How much does a business website cost"
• "Best web development agency for small business"
• "Should I hire a freelancer or agency for my website"

Decision Stage

They're ready to choose a provider and take action.

• "Web developer near me"
• "Custom website development services"
• "Website development agency [city]"
• "Hire web developer for small business"

Step 3: Expand With Research Tools

Now bring in the tools to expand your list and get data. The best keyword research tools:

• Google Search Console: Free. Shows what keywords you already rank for and their performance. Start here — your existing data is gold
• Google Keyword Planner: Free. Provides search volume and competition data. Best for broad keyword discovery
• Ahrefs: Premium. The most comprehensive keyword database. Excellent for competitive analysis and keyword difficulty scores
• SEMrush: Premium. Strong keyword research with competitor analysis and content gap tools
• Ubersuggest: Freemium. Good for small businesses on a budget. Provides basic volume, difficulty, and suggestion data
• AnswerThePublic: Free/freemium. Visualizes questions people ask around your topics — great for content ideas
• Google Autocomplete and Related Searches: Free. Simply start typing in Google and note the suggestions. Scroll to the bottom for "Related searches." These are real queries from real users

Evaluating Keywords: The 4-Factor Framework

For every keyword on your list, evaluate it against four criteria:

1. Search Volume

How many people search for this term monthly? For B2B services, don't dismiss low-volume keywords. A keyword with 50 monthly searches where every searcher is a potential $5,000 client is worth targeting.

• B2B services: 50-500 searches/month is valuable
• B2C/Local: 100-2,000 is a good range
• Informational content: 500+ for meaningful traffic impact

2. Business Relevance (Score 1-3)

• Score 3: Directly related to a service/product you sell. Searcher could become a client
• Score 2: Related to your industry. Builds authority. Indirect path to revenue
• Score 1: Tangentially related. Good for traffic but unlikely to generate business

Prioritize score 3 keywords. They drive revenue. Score 1-2 keywords support your content strategy but shouldn't be your primary focus.

3. Ranking Difficulty

Can you realistically rank for this keyword given your website's current authority? Check:

• Keyword difficulty score in your SEO tool (lower is easier)
• Who's currently ranking — are they massive corporations or similar-sized businesses?
• Content quality of current results — can you create something meaningfully better?
• Domain authority of ranking sites vs. yours

4. Search Intent

What does the searcher actually want when they type this query? Google the keyword and look at the results. Google is showing you the intent it's identified:

• Informational: Results are blog posts, guides, how-tos → Create educational content
• Commercial: Results are comparison pages, reviews, "best of" lists → Create comparison or evaluation content
• Transactional: Results are service/product pages, pricing pages → Optimize your service pages
• Local: Results show Map Pack and local businesses → Optimize for local SEO

Match your content format to the intent Google is already rewarding. If the top results for your keyword are all long-form guides, creating a short service page won't rank.

Building Your Keyword Priority Matrix

Once you've evaluated keywords against all four factors, prioritize using this matrix:

• Priority 1 (Do first): High relevance (3) + achievable difficulty + any volume → These are your money keywords. Create or optimize pages for these immediately
• Priority 2: High relevance (3) + higher difficulty + good volume → These are worth pursuing with a longer-term content and link-building strategy
• Priority 3: Medium relevance (2) + achievable difficulty + good volume → Good for authority building and top-of-funnel traffic
• Priority 4 (Backlog): Low relevance or very high difficulty → Track for later when your site has more authority

Keyword Mapping: From Research to Action

The final step is mapping keywords to pages. Every target keyword should be assigned to a specific page on your site:

• Service pages: Target transactional and commercial keywords
• Blog posts: Target informational and question-based keywords
• Location pages: Target "[service] + [city]" keywords
• Comparison pages: Target "vs" and "best" keywords

Critical rule: one primary keyword per page. Don't try to rank one page for five different keywords. Each keyword deserves its own optimized page. (You can and should include related secondary keywords, but each page has one primary target.)

Ongoing Keyword Research

Keyword research isn't a one-time project. Schedule quarterly reviews to:

• Identify new keyword opportunities based on ranking data and industry trends
• Discover competitor keywords you haven't targeted yet
• Find new long-tail variations from Search Console query data
• Remove or consolidate content targeting underperforming keywords
• Update keyword difficulty assessments as your authority grows

The best keyword strategy doesn't chase the highest volume — it targets the intersection of what your customers search for, what you can realistically rank for, and what drives the most revenue for your business.