Of all the ranking work there is, this is the part that decides the most and costs the least. How to choose keywords is not about expensive tools: it is about listening to how the person calling you says it, and keeping four rather than forty.
What a keyword is and what it is not
A keyword is what somebody types into Google when they have a problem you solve. It is almost never the technical name of the service and almost never a single word: "replace the blind on a large window" is a keyword and "solutions" is not.
What it is not: a list of terms to sprinkle repeatedly through the text. That was 2010 and today it works against you. Google sets out the current thinking in its SEO starter guide, and the summary is that the page has to answer the search, not repeat it.
Where good keywords come from
The three sources we use are free and you already have them:
The phone and the counter: the keywords people already say
Easily the best one. For a week, write down how people ask for things, in their words and without correcting them. "A sign for the van", "somebody to handle my paperwork", "someone to look at why it is smoking". That is your real vocabulary, and no tool has it.
Google's own search box
Type your service and do not press Enter: the suggestions that appear are real searches. Then scroll to the bottom of the results page, where the related searches are, and look at the questions block Google expands. Ten minutes gets you twenty candidates without paying anything. To compare two terms, Google Trends tells you which is searched more, and when.
What is already bringing you people
If your site is connected to Search Console, the performance report shows which searches you appear for, how often and how many clicks you get. Google documents it in its help page on the performance report. There are almost always two or three surprises: terms you show up for without having tried, which only need a little work.
The four filters for keeping only a few
Of twenty candidates, four or five survive. They go through this:
- Intent. Does whoever types that want to buy or to learn? "How to change a tap" is somebody doing it themselves. "Emergency plumber" is a customer.
- Whether you can win. Look at who ranks for it today. If it is five national portals and three chains, that is not your fight yet.
- Whether you have material. Ranking for a term takes a page with substance. If you cannot write six hundred honest words about it, it is not your keyword.
- Whether it ends in a customer. Some high-volume terms leave nothing behind. Prefer the one bringing five calls a month over the one bringing five hundred visits.
When torn between two, keep the one that sounds most like what people say on the phone.
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Long-tail keywords: fewer searches, more calls
A long keyword carries three or four words and a detail: the town, the material, the urgency, the price. "Aluminium blind repair in Palamós" gets a thousand times fewer searches than "blinds", and is infinitely better for you.
Three reasons: less competition, unmistakable intent, and whoever types it is one step from calling. A small business carves out its place with twenty of these before it does with one generic term, and along the way the generic one tends to arrive by itself.
One keyword per page, not twenty on one
This is the mistake we most often have to fix. The list gets made, the choice is good, and then all five words end up on the same "Services" page. Google ranks pages, not websites: a page covering five things answers none of them well. We go into it in one page per service.
The practical rule: one main keyword per page, a couple of natural variants inside, and nothing else. If two words mean the same thing, they go together; if they mean different things, they go apart.
Where they go, once chosen
- In the page title, the one read in Google. It is the spot that carries most weight.
- In the address: /blind-repair/, not /service-3/.
- In the first paragraph, naturally, because that is where the visitor decides to stay.
- In one heading of the text, not all of them.
- In the alt text of the photos, describing what is genuinely in them.
And that is it. Repeating it fourteen times does not help: it shows, it reads worse, and pages that read worse perform worse.
Mistakes we see
- Using trade vocabulary. Nobody searches for "integrated climate control solutions".
- Going for the biggest term in month one. It is the most expensive and the slowest.
- Choosing by volume without looking at intent or at who already ranks.
- Changing them every couple of months. Ranking takes time, as we cover in how long SEO takes to work.
- Forgetting the questions. Half of what people ask you on the phone is an article, which is what the business blog is about.
How to check whether it is working
After two or three months, three things:
- Whether you appear for those searches, even on page two. Appearing is the first step.
- Whether you get clicked. If you show up a lot and nobody clicks, the problem is the title, not the keyword.
- Whether those clicks get in touch. The only number that really counts.
If you are not even on page three after three months, check the basics first: the page may not be indexed at all, and that is a different conversation, covered in why your website does not appear on Google.
What it costs for us to do it
Choosing keywords is part of the SEO work and the website articles, and those sit inside the published plans: €100 a month for the one-page landing, €200 for the site with up to ten subpages and a monthly article, and €400, €750 and €1,500 for the plans adding articles on the site and the Google profile, answered reviews, GEO positioning and campaigns. Excluding VAT, no lock-in, migration included.
We do not charge separately for "a keyword study". It is the first hour of the work, not a product.
The twenty-minute list
Take a sheet of paper and write down the last ten things people asked you for on the phone, exactly as they said them. Cross out the ones you do not sell. Of what is left, mark the three that make you the most money. There are your first three keywords and the order to work on them.
If you would rather we looked, send us your website address and what you do on WhatsApp. We will tell you which terms you are showing up for today, which ones are missing and which we would start with. No strings, same day.
Tell us what you need and we'll give you a price
We reply the same day. No commitment, no sales pitch.