Keyword research for small businesses: step by step, with a template
Five steps from the words you already appear for to a keyword list where every keyword has its own page.
Contents
Keyword research is a review of which words your customers type into Google when they look for what you sell, how many people search for each word and which page on your site should answer. The result is not a long list of popular words but a decision per page: this keyword, this page, this is the next step. For a small business it is rarely about hundreds of keywords. Usually 20–60 rows are enough, spread across the services that actually bring in revenue.
How do you do keyword research? Five steps
- Collect the words you already appear for in Google Search Console. It is the only tool that shows your own site's data rather than an estimate.
- Expand the list with the words customers use: Google's suggestions as you type, the «People also ask» box, and the questions you get by phone and email.
- Get search volume and difficulty for each word, and decide in advance which tool counts so the numbers can be compared.
- Sort each word by what the searcher wants to do: buy, compare or just understand something.
- Give each keyword one single page on the site, and note whether the page exists, needs rewriting or has to be created.
The order matters. Start in a paid tool and you get thousands of ideas but no idea where you stand today. Start in your own data and you first see which words Google already connects to the site, and that is usually where positions move fastest.
Step 1: the words you already appear for in Search Console
Open Search Console, choose Performance and the Queries tab, and set the period to three months. Sort by impressions, not clicks. Words with many impressions and a position between 8 and 30 are your shortcut: Google already considers the site relevant, but the page does not get all the way. Export the list to a spreadsheet and add a Page column by clicking each query and choosing the Pages tab.
Two things to know. Search Console hides rare queries for privacy reasons, so the sum of clicks in the Queries tab is lower than the site's total clicks. On our own site only about a third of the clicks were visible in the queries. And a query missing from the list can still have search volume: Search Console only shows words where you have already been shown. Those words you find in steps 2 and 3.
Search volume and difficulty: why tools show different numbers
Search volume is an estimate of how many times a month a word is searched in Sweden. Difficulty, often called KD, is the tool's assessment of how many links it takes to reach the first page. Both are models, not measurements, and they differ between tools and sometimes within the same tool.
| What we saw | Why | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| The same word gave 3,000 searches in one report and 1,800 in another, in the same tool | One report shows a twelve-month average, the other the latest month | Pick one report and stick to it when comparing words |
| Ahrefs knew of about 23 keywords our site ranked for, Search Console showed 1,908 queries in 28 days | Paid tools have thin data for low-volume Swedish words | Use paid tools for volume and competitors, Search Console for your own site |
| A word with difficulty 0 had only sites with much stronger link profiles on the first page | Difficulty counts links to the pages, not how strong the whole domain is | Always search the word yourself and see who is there before you commit |
| Keyword Planner showed 100–1,000 instead of a number | Without active ads Google only shows ranges | Use the ranges to sort, not to calculate traffic |
The conclusion is that search volume is good for ranking words against each other but bad for promising a certain number of visits. A word with 50 monthly searches from people who want to hire someone is often worth more than one with 1,000 searches from people who want to learn to do the job themselves.
Buying keywords and reading keywords: what does the searcher want?
The same topic can be searched by completely different people. Someone typing «rörmokare solna» (plumber Solna) wants someone over today. Someone typing «byta packning kran» (replace tap washer) wants to do it themselves. So sort each row of the list into one of three groups:
- Buying keywords: service plus location, «price», «quote», «hire», «agency». The answer is a service page with price and a way to get in touch.
- Comparison keywords: «best», «or», «what does it cost», «reviews». The answer is a guide or price page that helps someone choose.
- Reading keywords: «what is», «how do you», «why». The answer is an article. It rarely brings customers directly, but it builds trust and links on to the service page.
Unsure which group a word belongs to: search for it and look at the first page. If it consists of guides, a sales page will not get up there, and vice versa. We cover that technique in more detail in action 1 of SEO optimization: 12 actions.
Assign keywords to pages before you write anything
This is the step most people skip, and it is where keyword research usually breaks. When two pages on the same site try to rank for the same word, Google does not know which one to show, and both end up lower than a single page would have. When we went through our own site in September 2026 we found 453 queries where Google showed two or more of our pages for the same search.
- Group words that mean the same thing. «Hemsida företag», «företagshemsida» and «hemsida till företag» (business website) are one keyword with three spellings, not three pages.
- Give each group one single page, and write it in the Page column before any text is written.
- If a new article gets the same word as an existing service page: give the article another angle, or do not write it.
- Link from the articles to the service page with a descriptive anchor, so Google sees which page owns the buying keyword.
Long questions and AI assistants: what happens to the keyword list?
People type longer questions into ChatGPT and Google's AI answers than into the ordinary search box, and some of those questions never show up in any keyword tool. That does not make the list unimportant. The assistants still fetch pages from search indexes, so a page without a clear keyword and a clear answer is not found there either. What changes is the format: put the most common customer questions word for word into headings or FAQs, with the answer in the first sentence. How assistants choose sources and how you measure it is in GEO: how your business shows up in AI search.
Template: the keyword list in a spreadsheet
Seven columns are enough. The example below is for a made-up plumber in Solna, and the numbers only show the format.
| Keyword | Volume/mo | Difficulty | Group | Page | Position now | Next step |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| rörmokare solna | 300 | 8 | Buying | /rormokare-solna/ | 14 | New title and price on the page |
| akut rörmokare | 400 | 12 | Buying | /akut/ | does not exist | Create page |
| vad kostar en rörmokare | 250 | 3 | Comparison | /blogg/pris-rormokare/ | 38 | Add price table |
| byta packning kran | 600 | 2 | Reading | none | - | Skip, rarely buys |
Sort by the Next step column and start with the rows where the page already exists and the position is 8–30. New pages come after that. Go through the list once a quarter and move the words that have shifted.
Would you rather not build the first list yourselves? Our SEO audit for SEK 6,000 includes a keyword gap against the competitors ranking in your niche, and the 30-minute mini-analysis is free.
Further reading
What to do with the pages once the keywords are assigned is covered in SEO optimization: 12 actions. If the concepts are new, start with What is SEO?. If you sell to customers in a specific area, keywords with a location go together with the Google profile, described in the local SEO guide. And if you want someone to handle keyword work on an ongoing basis, see our SEO agency in Stockholm.
Common questions about keyword research
Can you do keyword research for free?
Yes, for a small business the free tools go a long way. Search Console shows the words you already appear for, Google's Keyword Planner gives search volume in ranges if you create a Google Ads account without starting ads, and Google's own suggestions in the search box show how people phrase things. Paid tools like Ahrefs and Semrush mainly add competitors' keywords and exact volumes, which becomes worth the money only when you need to break into a niche where others already rank.
What are long-tail keywords?
Long tail means longer and more specific searches, such as «emergency plumber Solna evening» instead of «plumber». Individually they have low volume, but together they make up a large share of all searches, and the people typing them usually know exactly what they want. For a small business they are often easier to rank for than the short words, because the big players rarely build pages for them.
How many keywords does a small business need?
Count per service instead of in total: one main keyword and three to ten variants for each service that brings in revenue, plus a handful of questions that suit an article. A business with five services then lands on 20–60 rows. You rarely have time to work with more, and a long list without a decision per page does no good.
When does keyword research need updating?
Go through the list once a quarter, and redo it completely when you add a service, change location or notice a page losing impressions in Search Console. Search volumes in most industries change slowly, but your own positions and competitors' pages move all the time, and they decide what the next step should be.
Want the keyword list done?
In a free mini-analysis we look at which words you already appear for, where competitors take the traffic and which pages would make the biggest difference.
