Keyword Research for Non-Experts: Find What Customers Search

Keyword research is finding the exact words your customers type or say when they need what you sell. You can do a useful version of it for free in an afternoon: collect the questions customers ask you, read the search data Google already gives you, and watch what Google suggests as you type. You do not need special software to start.

When a potential customer needs you, they do not think in the technical name of your service. They think in their problem, in their own words. Say you call yourself a "corporate legal advisory firm", while your customer types "lawyer for my business near me". If your site only uses your own language, it will never match what people actually search.

Why does the wording matter so much?

Search engines and AI assistants both match what a person asks with what a page says. The closer your page is to the way a person puts the question, the easier the match. Assistants make this even more visible, because people type full sentences to them, as covered in the questions customers ask AI.

In the Valley there is one more layer. Many people search in Spanish, in English or in a mix of both, sometimes in the same week. Your list of real phrases should include all of them.

Where can you find what customers search, for free?

• Your phone and your inbox. The last twenty questions customers asked before booking are your best keyword list. Write them down in their words, including the Spanish ones.
• Google's own suggestions. Type your service and your city into Google and stop before pressing enter. The suggestions that drop down are searches real people make. Also scroll to the bottom of the results for related searches and look at the "People also ask" box.
• Google Search Console, which is free. Its Performance report lists the queries that already bring people to your site. Google hides some queries to protect privacy, so it will not show everything.
• Your Google Business Profile. Its Performance section lists the search terms people used to find your business, and it updates once a month.
• Your reviews. Customers describe your service in their own words: "same-day", "took my insurance", "explained everything". Those phrases belong on your pages.
• Your competitors' service pages. Read their headings. You are not copying them. You are checking what they think buyers want to know.

What should you look at when you research a phrase?

• Volume: roughly how many times a month people search that phrase. Paid research platforms estimate it, and the numbers are approximations. For a local business, a low-volume phrase is fine if the people searching it are ready to book.
• Difficulty: how hard it is to compete for. A phrase with a city name in it usually has far fewer serious competitors than the same phrase without one.
• Intent: does the person want to buy, or are they just researching? Searches that include "near me", a city, "cost" or "open now" usually come from someone close to deciding. There is more on this in commercial intent searches.
• Your current position: do you already show up on Google for that search? A phrase where you sit at the bottom of page one or the top of page two is often the quickest win.

How do you turn a list of phrases into a plan?

Group the phrases by service first. Then pick one main phrase for each service page, usually the service plus the city, such as "AC repair Pharr TX". Put that phrase naturally in the page title, the first paragraph and one or two headings. Do not repeat it in every sentence, because a page written for a search box reads badly for the person who lands on it.

The questions on your list are the second layer. Each real question deserves a short, honest article or a section on a service page. Finding the right phrase is step one. Step two is content built around it, and that is what AI content that ranks explains. To choose which subject to go deep on, read own a topic, not a keyword.

How do you know the research paid off?

Check the same set of searches every month and write down where you appear. Doing it by hand works, though your own phone shows results tuned to you, so ask a friend or use a private window. The Growrank dashboard automates the tracking: it shows which of your rankings bring buyers and which bring nobody, and the searches you are one push away from winning, checked weekly. The pricing page has the details.

Frequently asked questions