Your Essential Guide to Keyword Research for UK SEO

1. Start with your customers

List the questions customers ask, the words they use on the phone and the problems they describe. Customers often use different language from the industry, for example 'boiler repair' rather than 'heating system maintenance'.

2. Expand the list with tools

• Google Search Console shows the queries you already appear for.
• Google Keyword Planner and paid tools estimate search volume. Set the location to the United Kingdom.
• Google's autocomplete and 'People also ask' boxes reveal related questions.
• Google Trends shows seasonality.

See our recommended SEO tools for more options.

3. Understand search intent

Look at what currently ranks for a search. If the results are all guides, a sales page is unlikely to rank.

4. Judge value, not just volume

A phrase searched a few dozen times a month by people ready to buy can be worth more than a popular informational phrase. Consider relevance to what you sell, likely conversion and how hard it will be to compete.

5. Map keywords to pages

Group closely related keywords into topics and assign each topic to one page. This avoids several pages competing for the same search. Then optimise each page using our on-page SEO techniques.

Want this done for you? See content optimisation services.