Keyword Research: How to Find the Exact Words Your Customers Use (Without Buying Overpriced Software)

Keyword research sounds like one of those things that requires a subscription to something with "Pro" or "Enterprise" in its name, doesn't it? The sort of thing where you end up paying £99 a month to look at spreadsheets full of numbers you don't entirely understand.

Here's the thing: you don't need any of that. What you actually need is to understand how your customers talk about their problems, and there are perfectly good ways to figure that out without remortgaging your house.

Why Bother With Keyword Research At All?

Before we get into the how, let's talk about the why for a moment. Keyword research isn't about gaming Google or trying to trick people into clicking on your website. It's about making sure that when someone types a question into a search engine, and you happen to have written something that answers that question, the two of you can actually find each other.

The gap between what you think people are searching for and what they're actually typing into Google can be surprisingly wide. You might sell "premium artisanal coffee beans" but your customers are searching for "why does my coffee taste rubbish." If you're only writing about the former, you're missing the people who need you most.

Start With the Stupid Questions

The best keyword research begins with assuming you know nothing. What questions do people ask you over and over again? What do they email about? What comes up in every single sales call?

Write these down. All of them. Even the ones that make you think "surely everyone knows this." Especially those ones, actually, because nobody knows anything until someone tells them, and Google is where most people go to admit they don't know something.

If you're stuck, think about the last ten conversations you've had with customers or potential customers. What did they want to know? What were they confused about? What assumptions did they make that turned out to be wrong?

Use Google Like a Normal Person

Right, here's a free tool you already have: Google itself. Start typing one of your questions into the search box and watch what happens. Google will suggest completions based on what other people actually search for. This is genuinely useful information, and it costs you precisely nothing.

Try typing "how to..." or "why does my..." or "what is the best..." followed by something related to what you do. The suggestions that appear are real searches from real people. Write them down.

Then actually do the search. Scroll down to the bottom of the results page. See that section called "People also ask" and another one called "Related searches"? Those are also based on what real humans are actually looking for. More free information. Help yourself.

Answer the Public (It's Free, Mostly)

There's a website called Answer the Public that takes a keyword and shows you all the questions people ask about it, arranged in a slightly overwrought visualisation that looks like a wagon wheel designed by someone who'd had too much coffee.

You get a few free searches a day without paying for anything. Type in your main topic and it'll spit out dozens of actual questions that people type into search engines. Some will be relevant. Some will be baffling. All of them are real.

The free version is limited, yes, but unless you're doing this professionally for multiple clients, a few searches a day is probably enough for your purposes.

Reddit, Forums, and Where Your People Actually Talk

Here's something most keyword research tools can't do: tell you how people actually talk about their problems when they're not trying to sound clever. For that, you need to go where people complain, ask questions, and generally admit what they don't understand.

Find the subreddits related to your field. Look at Mumsnet if that's where your audience lives. Industry forums. Facebook groups. Anywhere people gather to ask questions and help each other out.

Search these places for common problems and pay attention to the language people use. They're not typing "search engine optimisation best practices" — they're typing "why can't anyone find my bloody website." That's your keyword right there.

Check Your Own Website Data

If you've had a website for a while, you've probably got Google Search Console set up. If you don't, set it up now. It's free and it tells you what searches are already bringing people to your site.

Look at the "Performance" section. You'll see actual search terms that led to your site appearing in results, how often you showed up, and how often people clicked. This is gold because it tells you what's already working, what's almost working, and what people hoped you'd written about but didn't find.

Pay particular attention to searches where you're appearing on page two or three of results. These are topics you're clearly relevant for, but you haven't quite given Google (or your readers) enough to work with yet. Write more about those things.

Ask Your Customers Directly (Revolutionary, I Know)

Sometimes the most effective research method is to actually ask people. Send an email to your customers. Ask them what they were looking for when they found you, or what they wish they'd known before they started looking for someone like you.

You could put a simple survey on your website. You could ask in your newsletter. You could even — and this might sound radical — talk to people on the phone and ask them how they'd describe what you do to a friend.

The words they use are the words other people like them are typing into search engines. Use those words in your content.

Watch Your Competitors (But Don't Be Weird About It)

Have a look at what your competitors are writing about. Not to copy them, but to spot gaps. What are they banging on about endlessly? What are they ignoring completely?

The stuff they're ignoring might be ignored for a good reason (nobody cares), or it might be an opportunity (everyone cares but nobody's explaining it properly). Your job is to figure out which.

Write Like a Human, Not a Robot

Once you've got your list of topics and questions, here's the important bit: write like a normal person answering a question for another normal person. Don't stuff your article full of the same phrase over and over again hoping Google will love you for it. Google's actually quite good at understanding what a page is about these days, even if you don't repeat the exact phrase twenty times.

Use the words your customers use, answer their actual questions, and be genuinely helpful. That's it. That's the secret.

Keep a Running List

Don't do all this research in one massive session and then never think about it again. Keep a document somewhere — a note on your phone, a spreadsheet, whatever works for you — and add to it whenever you spot a question you could answer or a topic you should probably write about.

Over time, you'll build up a proper understanding of what your people are looking for, and you'll never be stuck wondering what to write about next.

The Uncomfortable Truth

The real work of keyword research isn't technical. It's about paying attention to what people actually want to know, and then creating something useful that answers their questions. The fancy software can make this faster or show you some numbers, but it can't do the thinking for you.

Most of the time, the free tools and a bit of effort will get you 90% of the way there. Save your money for something more useful, like decent hosting or tea bags for the office.

Before you go...

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But moving on from the bad taste sell... if you want to learn more about SEO and Marketing then we have lots more articles like this you can read:

The Canonical Doppelgänger Dilemma: How to Tell Google Which Page is the Original

Google Search Console for Beginners: Opening the Bonnet on What It Is (And Why You Need It)