Why your words and their words differ
A business describes itself by what it is. A customer searches by what happened to them.
You sell "comprehensive residential and commercial HVAC solutions". They type "furnace making banging noise" at eleven at night, or "ac repair beaverton", or "how much to replace a furnace". Three different people at three different distances from buying, and not one of them used your sentence.
This is the third of the six causes in why your website is not converting, and it is the one that feels least like a problem, because the page reads well. It reads well to you. Google matches text to searches, and the search was never in the text.
Start with the data you already have
Three sources cost nothing and describe your actual customers rather than an average of everyone's.
Search Console is first. The queries report lists the searches that already put you in front of someone, with impressions, clicks, and average position. Sort by impressions and read a hundred rows. Every row where you appear often and rank badly is a search Google already associates with you and you are losing.
Your phone is second. For two weeks, write down the first sentence every caller says. Not what you would call the job. What they called it. "My water heater is leaking all over the garage" is a page. "Water heater installation services" is a brochure.
Your reviews are third, yours and your competitors'. Customers describe the job in the words they would have searched with, and they name the neighborhood while they are at it.
Then let Google tell you
Three more sources, all inside the search box, all free, and all showing real demand rather than a guess at it.
Autocomplete. Type your service and your city and stop. Then type it again with "how much", "near me", "best", "emergency", "cost of", and each letter of the alphabet after it. The suggestions are built from what people actually type, so the list you copy down is a list of real searches.
People Also Ask. Run one of your main searches and open the question panel. Every question you expand loads more. Twenty minutes of this gives you the questions your customers ask in the order Google thinks they ask them, which is most of a year of blog posts.
Related searches at the bottom of the results page. The same idea, wider, and it is where the phrasings you would never have guessed turn up.
- One more free source. Your competitors' page headings. Open the three businesses that outrank you and read their service page headings and their post titles. You are not copying the writing. You are reading the list of searches someone already researched.
Sort the list by what the searcher wants
A raw list is not useful until it is split by intent, because the three kinds need three different pages and only one of them rings the phone today.
| What they type | What they want | What you build |
|---|---|---|
| "plumber near me", "emergency electrician portland" | Someone to come now | A service page and an area page, with the phone number and your hours on it |
| "how much does a panel upgrade cost", "do I need a permit" | To understand before they commit | A post or a pricing page that answers plainly and then offers the call |
| "best roofer in portland", "x vs y" | To choose between options | A comparison page, proof, and reviews near the top |
Judge each one on three questions
You now have more searches than you can write pages for, which is the right problem. Three questions put them in order.
Would this person pay me? "Emergency water heater repair" and "how does a water heater work" are not the same business. The second one brings readers, which has its uses later, but it does not bring work this month.
Can I win it? Search it and look at who is already there. If the first page is three national directories and two businesses with a thousand reviews each, that search is a year of work. If it is thin pages and a forum post, it is available now.
Do I have a page for it, or is it a new one? Often you already rank at position fifteen with a page that half answers it, and adding the section it is missing is an afternoon rather than a project.
Turn the list into pages
The rule that keeps this simple: one search intent, one page. Do not put five services on one page and hope Google sorts it out, and do not write five pages that say the same thing with the city name swapped.
For each page, use the search as the heading, answer it in the first sentence, and then explain. If the search is a question, the first line is the answer. If it is a service, the first line says what it is, what it costs or the range it falls in, and how fast you can be there.
Put the words on the page in the form people use them. If callers say "AC" and you have written "air conditioning" everywhere, use both, in sentences, the way a person would.
Then check yourself in six weeks. Search Console will tell you which searches the new page started appearing for, and some of them will be ones you never listed. Those go on the list for next time. That loop is most of what ongoing SEO is.
When a paid tool earns its keep
Everything above is free and it is enough to build a year of pages. A paid keyword tool adds two things: a search volume figure next to each phrase, and a view of every search your competitors rank for that you do not.
That is worth paying for when you are choosing between forty candidate pages and want to spend the year on the right twelve, or when you serve enough cities that guessing wrong is expensive. For one location and a short list of services, the free sources and your own phone will get you most of the way, and I would rather you spent the money on the pages.
Frequently asked questions
- How do I find out what my customers search for on Google?
- Start with the queries report in Search Console, which lists the searches you already appear for. Add the first sentence every caller says, the wording in your reviews, Google's autocomplete suggestions, the People Also Ask panel, and your competitors' page headings. Those six sources cost nothing.
- Do I need a keyword research tool?
- Not to start. A paid tool adds search volume figures and a view of what competitors rank for, which matters when you are choosing between many possible pages or serving many cities. For one location, the free sources cover it.
- What is search intent?
- What the person wants from the search. Someone typing "emergency plumber near me" wants a phone number now. Someone typing "how much does a water heater cost" wants to understand first. The same page cannot serve both well, so each intent gets its own page.
- How many keywords should one page target?
- One intent per page, which in practice is one main search plus the variations that mean the same thing. Splitting one intent across five near-identical pages is what causes Google to index none of them.
- Why does my site rank for the wrong searches?
- Usually because the pages describe the business the way the owner does rather than the way customers search, so the only text Google can match confidently is your business name. Check the queries report: if it is all brand name, that is the gap.
Get the list built for you.
The consultation includes the searches your customers use, which ones you already appear for, and the order I would write the pages in. The consultation is free, and the pricing is published.