Keyword Research for Beginners: How to Find What Customers Are Searching For

Before you write any content for your website, you should know which words your customers actually type into Google. That is exactly what keyword research is about: finding out which searches people use to look for what you offer. It sounds simple, but it often goes wrong - usually because you assume your customers think the way you do. You might call your offering accessible web development, while your customer is searching for how much does it cost to make a website accessible. That difference decides whether you get found.

Why keyword research matters in the first place

Even the best page is useless if no one searches for the terms you filled it with. Keyword research delivers three things:

• Visibility: You write about topics that are genuinely in demand, rather than what you assume people want.
• The right visitors: Anyone searching for your specific term has a real need - these are the people who buy or get in touch.
• A clear structure: The terms you uncover almost automatically tell you which pages and articles you need.

We see this with our own brands every single day. We run seven of our own projects live in production, from an accessibility scanner to a cosmetics product portal with more than 177,000 products. The search terms that actually work there regularly differ from what we would have assumed at the start.

Step 1: Collect terms from your customers' perspective

Start without any tool. Write down the words a customer would use to describe their problem - not the way you label it as an expert. Useful sources for this include:

• Questions customers ask you by email or over the phone.
• The wording found in reviews, forums and Facebook groups in your industry.
• The language your competitors use on their own pages.

This gives you an initial list of topics. That list is your starting point - still rough, but close to how people really speak.

Step 2: Expand with free tools

You don't need an expensive subscription to get going. These sources are free and deliver plenty:

• Google Autosuggest: Type your term into Google search and see what is suggested automatically. These are real, frequent searches.
• People also ask / related searches: The boxes in the middle and at the bottom of the results page show you what else people are typing in.
• Google Search Console: If your site is already live, you can see for free which terms people already use to find you. That is pure gold, because it is real data.
• AnswerThePublic or Google Trends: These give you questions around a topic and show whether interest is rising or falling.

For getting started, that is more than enough. Paid tools like Ahrefs or Sistrix provide more accurate search volumes, but they only make sense once you work regularly and systematically. If you just want to optimise a handful of pages, you honestly don't need them.

Step 3: Understand search intent

This is the step most beginners skip - and the one that pays off the most. Behind every search lies an intention. Broadly, there are three types:

• Informational: Someone wants to learn something (how much does a website cost). A how-to article fits here.
• Commercial: Someone is comparing options and considering a purchase (agency website fixed price). A service or comparison page fits here.
• Transactional: Someone wants to act now (hire a web designer). Your offer or contact page fits here.

The simplest way to check intent: enter the keyword into Google and look at the top results. Are they how-to guides, online shops or provider pages? Google is showing you what users expect. Write precisely for that expectation - otherwise you won't rank, no matter how good your text is.

Step 4: Focus on long-tail terms

Short terms like website are fiercely competitive and vague. Longer searches with three to five words - so-called long-tail keywords - have lower search volume but far better chances of success and a much clearer intent. Have a website built for a trades business brings you fewer, but more relevant, visitors than website. Especially as a beginner or smaller company, the long tail is your best lever, because you are competing against fewer large players there.

Step 5: Sort and prioritise

Put your collected terms into a simple table and rate each one against three criteria: Is it actually being searched for? Does it match your offering? How strong is the competition? Start with the terms that suit you well and are realistically achievable - not the biggest ones. For each page, focus on one main keyword plus a few related terms. Two pages targeting the same keyword end up competing with each other, and that is something you want to avoid.

Common beginner mistakes

• Looking only at high search volume and ignoring intent.
• Choosing terms no one searches for because they sound like industry jargon.
• Using the same keyword across multiple pages.
• Doing the research once and never touching it again - search behaviour changes.

Keyword research is no black art, and at first it costs nothing but time. Anyone who genuinely thinks from the customer's point of view, checks intent and focuses on specific long-tail terms has already got most of it right.