How to Do Keyword Research for Your Small Business (Free Tools Only)

Here’s a mistake almost every small business makes: they write website content about what they want to say, instead of what customers are actually searching for. Keyword research for small business websites fixes that — it’s the process of finding the exact words your customers type into Google, so your pages show up when they’re ready to buy. And you don’t need expensive software to do it well.

This guide walks you through doing proper keyword research using only free tools. By the end, you’ll have a list of keywords worth targeting and a clear idea of which pages to build around them.

Keyword Research for Small Business: Why It Matters More Than You Think

Imagine you run a bakery in Leeds. You might call your product an “artisan sourdough loaf,” but your customers are searching for “fresh bread near me” or “best sourdough Leeds.” If your website only uses your words, Google never connects you with their searches — and those customers go to a competitor.

Keyword research bridges that gap. It tells you:

What your customers actually type into Google (often surprisingly different from industry jargon)
How many people search for it each month
How hard it will be to rank for it
What the searcher wants — information, or to buy something right now

Step 1: Brainstorm Your Seed Keywords (15 Minutes)

Start with what you know. Write down:

Every service or product you offer (“boiler repair,” “wedding photography,” “vegan meal prep”)
The locations you serve (“Birmingham,” “Dallas,” “Amsterdam”)
The problems you solve (“leaking tap,” “slow website,” “back pain”)

Combine them: “boiler repair Birmingham,” “wedding photographer Dallas prices,” “vegan meal prep delivery Amsterdam.” These combinations are your seed keywords — aim for 20–30. Don’t filter yet; quantity first.

Step 2: Expand with Google’s Own Free Data

Google literally tells you what people search for. Use these three free sources:

Google Autocomplete

Type a seed keyword into Google (use an incognito window) and watch the suggestions. “Plumber Manchester” might suggest “plumber Manchester emergency,” “plumber Manchester 24 hour,” “plumber Manchester reviews.” Each suggestion is a real search people make. Write them all down.

“People Also Ask” and “Related Searches”

Scroll down any search results page and you’ll find question boxes and related searches. These are gold for blog topics. If “People Also Ask” shows “How much does a plumber charge per hour in the UK?”, that’s a blog post your customers want to read.

Google Search Console (Once Your Site Has Traffic)

Search Console shows the actual queries bringing people to your site — including ones you rank on page 2 or 3 for. Those are quick wins: a little optimization can push them onto page 1.

Step 3: Check Search Volume and Difficulty — Free

For numbers without paying for Ahrefs or Semrush:

Google Keyword Planner (free with a Google Ads account — you never have to run ads) gives search volume ranges.
Google Trends (trends.google.com) shows whether interest in a keyword is growing or dying, and compares regions — useful if you serve both the UK and US, where terms differ (“estate agent” vs “realtor,” “holiday” vs “vacation”).
Ubersuggest’s free tier gives a few free searches per day with difficulty scores.

As a small business, ignore anything with brutal competition. You’re looking for the sweet spot: decent monthly searches (100–1,000+ for local terms) with weak current results — forums, outdated articles, or thin pages you can outdo.

Step 4: Understand Search Intent (This Is Where Most People Fail)

Every keyword has an intent behind it. Match the wrong intent and you won’t rank — or worse, you’ll rank and get zero customers:

“how to fix a leaking tap” — informational. The searcher wants a DIY guide, not a plumber. Write a helpful guide; earn trust, not a direct sale.
“emergency plumber near me” — transactional. They want to hire someone now. This needs a service page with your phone number prominent, not a blog post.
“best CRM for small business UK” — commercial investigation. They’ll buy soon but are comparing. A comparison article with honest pros and cons wins here.

Quick test: Google the keyword and look at what ranks. If the top results are guides, write a guide. If they’re service pages, build a service page. Google is showing you exactly what it thinks the intent is.

Step 5: Organize Keywords into a Simple Content Plan

Group your keywords by topic and intent:

Service pages (one per main service + location): “boiler repair Leeds,” “boiler installation Leeds”
Blog posts (informational keywords): “how much does boiler repair cost,” “signs your boiler needs replacing”
FAQ content (question keywords): perfect for FAQ sections and schema markup

One page per keyword group — never target the same keyword with two pages, or they’ll compete with each other (keyword cannibalization).

Keyword Research for Small Business: Common Mistakes to Avoid

Convex lens (magnifying glass) and upside-down image

Targeting only high-volume keywords. “Plumber” gets huge searches and impossible competition. “Emergency plumber in Didsbury” gets fewer searches but converts 10x better.
Ignoring location modifiers. If you’re a local business, “[service] + [city]” keywords are your bread and butter.
Forgetting the customer’s language. You say “HVAC solutions”; they search “air con repair.” Always use their words.
Never revisiting research. Search trends shift — “AI” prefixed queries barely existed two years ago. Revisit your keyword list every 6 months.

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Ready to Fix This the Easy Way?

Keyword research sounds simple, but doing it thoroughly takes hours — and targeting the wrong keywords wastes months. Silver Crown Star Marketing does full keyword research as part of every SEO campaign, mapped to pages that actually convert. Get a free SEO audit and we’ll show you which keywords your competitors are winning — and how to take them.