What do your customers actually search for?
Start with real customer questions and collect the words people use to find your service.
Keywords are the words or short phrases people enter in a search box. Keyword research means understanding how customers look for services, rather than filling a page with a list of terms.
The basics to remember
- Collect customers’ own words. Calls, emails and enquiry records show how they describe problems.
- If you already have a website, check queries in Search Console, Google’s website search monitoring tool. Queries are the search terms that produce search impressions, meaning appearances in results.
- Customers may not use industry terminology. Explain services naturally in familiar language; you do not need to repeat every synonym.
See Google: SEO Starter Guide and Google: Search performance report .
Find related needs behind one question
Alongside your enquiry records, review public feedback, recurring community questions and complaints about existing services. Record what people want to accomplish before recording their wording. “Can you come after work?” suggests a need for convenient booking, not necessarily cheaper repair.
Combine an action, subject and region into candidate phrases, such as “book + air-conditioning repair + local city.” Add ordinary customer expressions, related searches and autocomplete questions. Autocomplete means the suggestions shown as you type; location, history and filtering rules affect it. It is not a search-volume leaderboard. See Google: Trends data and autocomplete .
New service pages on related websites, public user requests and advertisements can also provide clues. Open each page, check whom it serves and what it solves, then verify with your own customers. Do not attribute a whole site’s estimated visits to one feature or keyword. Studying an advertisement does not mean you need to buy ads yourself.
When inviting testing or feedback, ask: “How did you find us? What did you search for? What did you use before?” Add actual expressions to the list and check whether your service page answers them. Test feedback, platform reviews and search clicks are different information. Do not encourage invented answers to make the keyword list look better.
If a question suddenly becomes common, investigate the shared situation: a seasonal change, a new local rule or an operation people have started discussing. Check whether you can actually help before deciding what to add.
Listen separately to people who used the service, have not bought and have bought. Ask why they need it, where they got stuck and why they chose or abandoned it. Their answers help you explain real needs without repeatedly adding unrelated features for an imaginary ideal customer.
Use trends to observe change
Google Trends shows relative search interest, not search counts. Select your actual service region, period, category and search type. Compare terms in the same chart under the same conditions. A value of 100 in two separate charts does not mean equal numbers of people, and zero does not mean nobody searched. See Google: Understanding Trends data .
A search term tracks the expression entered; a topic groups expressions for the same concept, potentially across languages. Compare the same type on both sides so you do not confuse one phrase with an entire topic. See Google: Comparing Trends terms .
Start with a longer period, then focus on recent changes to distinguish seasonal demand from a brief spike. “Top” related queries show established searches; “Rising” helps identify large increases. Fast growth is not the same as the highest search count. Keep candidate questions in one list and verify them against actual services and results. Save query links, filters and exports for future comparisons.
| New clue (hypothetical) | Initial assumption | Plan after checking |
|---|---|---|
| Cleaning searches rise as the season changes | A completely new service need | Compare the same period in past years and update guidance early |
| Repeated requests for evening visits | Just another keyword | Check scheduling before describing booking times |
| Tool estimates disagree with trends | Choose the larger number | Check region, month and whether similar phrases were combined |
Suppose cleaning questions rise each spring. The owner keeps the same region and comparison conditions, updates actual booking arrangements, then compares again next spring. This is demand research, not a ranking guarantee for chasing trends.
Walk through an example
| Check | Before (hypothetical) | After or appropriate action |
|---|---|---|
| Caller says | “My air conditioner is not cooling” | Group under repair problems |
| Service wording | Only “equipment servicing” | Add familiar customer wording |
| Actual region | Not explained | State the real coverage |
Suppose customers keep asking what to do about leaking air conditioners. Record the question and check whether the repair page explains which faults you handle and how to book. Add the missing information.
Common misunderstandings
This list provides writing clues, not guaranteed visits. A missing query does not prove nobody searches for it; tools have reporting limits.
Read next
- What is someone trying to do when they search?
- Search and discovery: all modules
- SiteMonk technical SEO standards
Official sources checked on October 2, 2026. Tables and scenarios are illustrative, not real business results.