How To Do Keyword Research Properly!

When speaking to new and prospective customers about their websites, it doesn’t take long before the discussion moves towards Google rankings. Any business owner who is committing to a new website understandingly wants some assurances about the site’s performance and particularly, where they’ll “come up on Google”.

It’s usually at this point I hear the phrase “this is what I would type into Google to find my products and services, so this is what I want to rank for”.

Although this may seem logical, it is one of the biggest mistakes you can make when building a website for your business.

Any half-decent web design company should take your keyword suggestions into consideration, using them as “jumping-off point” to conduct some keyword research and competitor analysis.

With access to tools and online resources such as the Google Ads Keyword Planner, there doesn’t need to be any “guess work” whatsoever. Your Web Designer should be able to provide specific numbers regarding the demand for your products and services (especially within your geographical location), showing you how many times, each keyword is typed in to Google by your target audience.

Whilst doing this, additional keyword ideas and suggestions should also be identified and grouped to further justify the proposed website structure, subsequent page topics and the text content.

Keyword research is such an important factor in the success of your website, one of the many reasons why you should use a web design company to build your website, rather than a cheap online site builder.

Case Study: “JH Plumbing & Heating”

To better explain the above, the following hypothetical case study offers an example of keyword research done properly. The company in question is a local plumbing company called “JH Plumbing & Heating”, operating across Nottingham and Nottinghamshire.

JH Plumbing & Heating undertakes all aspects of domestic plumbing work. They welcome all enquiries but want more boiler work and underfloor heating installations as they feel there’s more profit in these types of jobs. The initial keywords they suggested for the website are as follows:

• Plumbers Nottingham
• GasSafe Plumbers
• Underfloor Heating
• Boilers Repairs
• Boiler Installs
• Radiator fitting
• Bathroom fitting
• Shower Installations

These are the typical kinds of phrases and keywords that most customers suggest at the point of sale or when starting the build of their website. As mentioned above, these will be used for inspiration and act as a “jumping-off” point to conduct some more in-depth keyword research before commencing with the site build.

Using Google Keyword Planner

The screenshot below was taken from the Google Ads Keywords Planner. It is a tool that anyone can access for free, assuming they have an active Google Ads campaign. Though typically used by web design agencies to plan and structure pay-per-click campaigns, this tool can also prove extremely useful when planning the build of a new website. 

 Each of the initial keywords listed above were entered into the tool to find out how many times these keywords / phrases are typed into Google on an average monthly basis.

The first red box at the top of the screenshot highlights the geographical area selected. We don’t want to know about any searches that are happening outside of the Nottingham / Nottinghamshire area, as our customer only wants to work locally.

The second red box confirms the keywords that were entered into the tool, and the third red box displays the number of searches taking place for each keyword over a 12-month moving average.

For example, we can now see that the keyword “Plumbers Nottingham” is searched for 880 times on average each month, by people located in Nottingham / Nottinghamshire.

Interestingly, the term “GasSafe Plumbers” doesn’t have enough searches on average to provide a consistent and reliable figure. Therefore, our efforts should be minimal when targeting this keyword.

You will also note the yellow box on the screenshot above. This highlights that Google has found a total of 3,117 “keyword ideas” it believes are related to the initial 8 keywords entered to begin with.

All of these “keyword ideas” can now be downloaded and organised into a spreadsheet to conduct some in-depth research and to establish the amount of demand within the Nottingham / Nottinghamshire area for a whole heap of valuable keywords. Time for a deep dive!

Advanced Keyword Research

All of these keywords have now been added to the spreadsheet. After a bit of “tidying-up” there are now three columns to focus on: 

• Keyword (used by people located in Nottingham / Nottinghamshire)
• Average Monthly Searches
• Top of Page Bid

This third column (Top of Page Bid) refers to the amount of money you could expect to pay on a “per-click” basis if you ran a sponsored advert at the top of Google via the Google Ads platform. It’s not important at this stage but could prove useful later.

For the time being, we’re just concentrating on the first two columns. All keywords have now been ordered by search volume (starting with the most popular and frequently used search terms at the top).

In addition to this, all those keywords with less than 20 average searches per month have been removed from the list. There are now 75 different keyword ideas that we know have a good number of search volume behind them to sort through.

Grouping Keywords Together

The next step is to group the keywords together, placing them into separate categories, ordered by service type, product type, company type etc.

For example, all the keywords about “bathroom fitting” will be grouped together, as well as the keywords relating to “boilers” and “underfloor heating” placed into their own separate groups and so on.

The total search volumes of all the keywords in a defined group can then be combined, giving a precise indication about how much demand there is for the specified topics in general.

The spreadsheet will then be updated with 2 additional columns, “Group” and “Group Total”. 

• Keyword (used by people located in Nottingham / Nottinghamshire)
• Average Monthly Searches
• Top of Page Bid
• Group
• Group Total

Bathroom Fitting Keywords

The “Bathroom Fitters” group of keywords consists of 7 different keywords, achieving a total of 590 average searches per month when all added together.

Boiler Installation Keywords

The “Boiler Installations” group of keywords consists of 13 different keywords, achieving a total of 490 average searches per month when all added together.

Boiler Repair Keywords

The “Boiler Repairs” group of keywords consists of 7 different keywords, achieving a total of 350 average searches per month when all added together.

Boiler Servicing Keywords

The “Boiler Servicing” group of keywords consists of 12 different keywords, achieving a total of 930 average searches per month when all added together.

Plumbers Keywords

The “Plumbers” group of keywords consists of 4 different keywords, achieving a total of 1,070 average searches per month when all added together.

Shower Installation Keywords

The “Showers” group of keywords consists of 2 different keywords, achieving a total of 50 average searches per month when all added together.

Underfloor Heating Keywords

The “Underfloor Heating” group of keywords consists of 15 different keywords, achieving a total of 1,160 average searches per month when all added together.

Justifying The Website Structure

Having completed the advanced keyword research, it is clear to see that there are 7 different groups of keywords or “topics”, with varying numbers of searches (and subsequently demand) that are being searched for by members of the public within the Nottingham / Nottinghamshire region.

With an understanding about which keyword groups (topics) are more popular than others, we can suggest a justified site structure to our customer, JH Plumbing & Heating.

• Home Page (Targeting the 590 searches for “plumbers” keywords)
• Boiler Installations Page
• Boiler Repairs Page
• Boiler Servicing Page
• Bathroom Fitting Page
• Underfloor Heating Page
• Recent Projects / Blog Page (Enabling the customer to add fresh content to the site)
• Contact Page

In Summary…

Undertaking keyword research correctly helps to ensure your website is reverse engineered around the local demand for your products and services, and can help determine the size of the website, how many pages you should have and the general text and imagery you should use to populate the site.

The more your website can be tailored to the search habits and patterns of your audience, the more targeted your traffic will be and the more enquiries your website will generate.