Hire a leading keyword research expert
If your rankings bring traffic but no revenue, volume got mistaken for value somewhere. I wrote the book on this - literally: Keywords for SEO. My keyword research services find the terms your buyers actually type, classify the intent behind each one, and map every keyword to the page that should own it. You get a prioritised roadmap, not a spreadsheet dump.
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Uncovering Buyer Keywords 🔎
Most keyword research is a volume-sorted export with the client’s name on the cover. It fails in predictable ways: chasing big numbers over buying intent, ignoring what the SERP actually shows (a keyword “owned” by videos and tools is not an opportunity for your service page), never mapping keywords to specific URLs or funnel stages, and pretending AI Overviews haven’t changed which queries still deliver clicks.
The result is content that ranks for something and converts no one - the exact trap I’ve written about in SEO metrics and vanity numbers. Research done properly starts from your revenue, not from a tool’s suggestion list.
“Amazing detail on how to create a more organised and more effective keyword campaign. This really helped gain a better understanding of what is the most core fundamental of SEO as a discipline.”
My Keyword Research Process
Before any tool is opened: what do you sell, what's a lead worth, and which products actually make you money? Keywords get judged against that, not against volume.
Tool databases, autosuggest fan-out, People Also Ask, your own Search Console queries - plus keyword pioneering, spotting terms worth owning before tools report volume.
Every keyword tagged informational, commercial, transactional or navigational - based on what Google rewards for it right now, not what the phrasing implies.
KD scores are a starting point, not a verdict. I look at who actually ranks, their page types, and whether AI Overviews absorb the clicks before anyone scrolls.
Keywords grouped by shared intent, every cluster assigned to one URL. One page per intent - so no keyword cannibalisation.
Each cluster scored by commercial value, difficulty and current position, then sequenced - so you know exactly what to build or optimise first, and why.
The fastest way to find proven demand is to look at who’s already capturing it. Competitor keyword analysis means taking your real search competitors (rarely the same as your business competitors), finding the keywords where they rank and you don’t, and separating the gaps worth closing from the ones that only look impressive.
I run gap analysis across your top competitors, measure share of voice on the terms that matter commercially, and fold the winners straight into your keyword map - each one assigned to a page, with the evidence of what it will take to compete.
Countable deliverables:
If you need the content written too, my SEO content writing service picks up exactly where the map leaves off.
Almost no competing service covers this: how research changes when ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews answer the query before anyone clicks. I research at the prompt level as well as the keyword level - which questions trigger AI answers, which sources those answers cite, and where a brand can realistically get included.
It’s the same thinking behind my generative engine optimisation and AI SEO services, and I’ve published a full guide on optimising for Google’s AI Overviews.
Keyword Research by Business Type
Category, product and buying-guide terms, mapped so categories target the money keywords and the blog supports them.
Feature, alternative, integration and jobs-to-be-done queries - where buying intent hides in odd phrasing.
Service-plus-area terms, “near me” behaviour and what the map pack means for your keyword targets.
Multilingual keyword research is not translation - buyers in different markets use different words for the same thing.
Fewer keywords, chosen harder - so a limited content budget goes exactly where it pays back.
The same research powers paid search - with different filters. For PPC keyword research the intent bar is higher (you’re paying per click), negative keywords matter as much as targets, and organic-vs-paid overlap decides where it’s worth bidding on terms you already rank for. If you run both channels, one shared keyword map keeps them reinforcing each other instead of double-paying for the same click.
Keywords for SEO is my practical book on exactly this discipline - finding, evaluating and mapping keywords that make money, not just traffic. Readers have called it more useful than months of scattered online resources (their words, on the book page).
Why it matters here: the person doing your keyword research also wrote the reference text on it. The method in the book is the method applied to your business - kept current with what AI search has changed since.
Standalone keyword research projects typically land between £1,000 and £3,000, depending on the size of your site and how many markets or languages are involved. It’s also included within my broader retainers and audits. Timelines run one to three weeks from kick-off, and I’ve published a full breakdown of UK SEO pricing in how much does SEO cost, so you can benchmark any quote - including mine.
Start from the business, not the tools: define what a valuable visitor looks like, expand seed terms into the full topic territory, classify each keyword’s intent, check what the SERP actually rewards, then cluster and map every keyword to one page. The seven-step process above is exactly how I run it for clients.
Research finds and evaluates the keywords; mapping assigns them to URLs. Research without mapping is where most projects stall - a list of good keywords with no decision about which page should target each one.
One primary keyword (plus its close variations) per page - and only as many pages as you can genuinely make the best result for. A focused map of 30 well-chosen keywords beats a 3,000-row export every time.
For most sites, one to three weeks from kick-off to a finished map and roadmap. Larger sites, multiple markets or heavy competitor analysis sit at the longer end.
All three, plus Search Console and autosuggest data. But tools only supply the raw material - they all disagree with each other on volume, and none of them can tell you whether a keyword fits your business. The value is in the evaluation and mapping, which is the part I do by hand.
More than ever - it just extends further. Keywords still reveal demand, but research now also has to cover which queries trigger AI answers, which sources get cited, and where the clicks still exist. Ignoring AI search is how you end up ranking #1 for queries nobody clicks any more.
Tell me what you sell and where you want to grow, and I’ll scope the research honestly - including whether you actually need it, or whether your existing keywords just need better mapping. Use the form below or the contact page.
Send me a message and I’ll reply within 24 hours
