How to Conduct keyword research to identify relevant terms for your content
Most small business owners I speak with have tried keyword research at some point. They open a free tool, type in a guess, get a list of numbers that mean very little, and close the tab feeling no further forward.
That is not a failure of effort. It is a failure of process. Keyword research done properly is not about finding words with big search volumes. It is about finding the exact phrases your customers in Derbyshire and the East Midlands are typing when they are ready to buy, book, or enquire.
I have been doing this for 18 years at Optimise Your Marketing, and I have watched the tools change constantly while the underlying principle has not moved an inch. Get the right words in front of the right person at the right moment and the rest of your marketing gets easier. In this post I will walk through exactly how we approach keyword research for our SMB clients, what to ignore, and what to focus on first.
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Take the BIG12 ScorecardStart with the customer, not the keyword tool
Before you open any software, write down the actual questions your customers ask you on the phone, in your shop, or over email. This sounds basic, but it is the step almost everyone skips.
A kitchen fitter in Matlock does not need to rank for "kitchen design." They need to rank for "kitchen fitter near Matlock" and "how much does a new kitchen cost in Derbyshire." Those are the phrases a real customer types when they are close to making a decision.
Build a simple customer persona before you go anywhere near a search engine optimisation tool. What do they call your product. What problem are they trying to solve. What stage of the buying journey are they at. This shapes every keyword you choose afterwards.
Use proper tools, but read them correctly
Once you know who you are talking to, tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Ubersuggest earn their place. They show you search volume, keyword difficulty, and cost-per-click, which helps you judge whether a term is realistically winnable.
The mistake is chasing volume alone. A term with 50 searches a month and low competition can bring you three solid enquiries. A term with 5,000 searches a month and fierce national competition might bring you nothing, because you are competing against budgets you cannot match.
For most Derbyshire and East Midlands SMBs we work with, the sweet spot is mid-volume, locally specific, and commercially intentioned. That is where rankings are achievable within months rather than years.
What to check for each keyword
Search volume on its own is close to useless. Look at it alongside competition level, search intent, and how closely it matches what your business actually offers. A keyword that ticks all four boxes is worth building content around. One that only ticks volume is a distraction.
Study your competitors, then find the gap they have left
Identify three to five businesses competing for the same customers as you, locally and nationally. Tools like Ahrefs let you see exactly which keywords they rank for and which pages are driving that traffic.
This is not about copying them. It is about spotting where they have nothing, or where their content is thin, outdated, or badly targeted. We did this for a glazing client near Ripley last year. Their three biggest local competitors all had strong pages for "double glazing," but none had anything for "emergency window repair Derbyshire." We built that page, it ranked within eight weeks, and it is now one of their top three lead sources.
Gaps like that exist in almost every industry we work with across our 13 sectors. You just have to look for what is missing rather than what everyone already has.
Long-tail keywords do more of the heavy lifting than people expect
Short, broad keywords are tempting because they look impressive. "Accountant" gets searched a lot. "Accountant for self-employed tradesmen in Derbyshire" gets searched far less, but the person typing it is much closer to picking up the phone.
Long-tail phrases, usually three or more words, carry less competition and far clearer intent. A handful of well-chosen long-tail terms, each built into a proper page or blog post, will consistently outperform one broad keyword you can never realistically win.
This is also where local marketing and keyword research overlap. Add a town, region, or service area to your core terms and you instantly narrow the competition while sharpening relevance.
From page two to page one in under three months
A Chesterfield-based joinery client came to us ranking nowhere for their core service terms. By rebuilding their keyword strategy around long-tail, locally specific phrases, we got three priority pages onto page one of Google within 12 weeks, with enquiries up noticeably the same quarter.
See our SEO serviceLet AI tools sharpen your strategy, not replace your judgement
AI and machine learning tools are genuinely useful for spotting emerging search trends before they peak and forecasting how a keyword might perform over the coming months. We use AI-assisted analysis with our own clients to keep their keyword strategy moving as search behaviour shifts.
What AI cannot do is understand your customer, your town, or your reputation the way you do. Use it to widen your view of the data. Use your own knowledge of the business to decide what is actually worth pursuing. This is increasingly relevant as more searches happen through AI tools rather than traditional search engines, which is something we track closely through AI marketing strategy work.
Algorithms change constantly. Your process should not panic every time
Search engine algorithms update regularly, sometimes in ways that shift rankings overnight. We have seen clients lose and regain positions multiple times over the years purely due to algorithm changes that had nothing to do with their content quality.
The fix is not to chase every update with a fresh keyword list. It is to build your strategy on solid foundations, mid-volume terms, genuine search intent, strong on-page content, so that when an algorithm shifts, you are not starting from zero.
Test, measure, and adjust. Do not set and forget
Keyword research is not a one-off exercise you do once a year. It is an ongoing loop of testing what works, measuring the result, and adjusting. This is central to our test and measure approach, one of the 12 pillars in our BIG12 framework.
Track which keywords are actually bringing enquiries, not just traffic. A page ranking for ten terms but converting on only two tells you exactly where to focus your next round of content. Review this quarterly at minimum. Search behaviour in Derbyshire shifts with the seasons, with local events, and with what your competitors are doing, so your keyword list needs to move with it.
Build the keywords into content people actually want to read
Once you have your priority terms, the job is writing content that serves the person searching, not stuffing keywords into awkward sentences. Search engines, and increasingly AI search tools, can tell the difference between genuinely useful content and content written purely to rank.
Use your primary keyword naturally in the title, early in the page, and in a couple of subheadings. Beyond that, focus on answering the question fully. If someone in Belper searches "how much does a boiler service cost," give them a real answer with real numbers, not three paragraphs of vague reassurance before you mention price.
How this fits into the bigger picture
Keyword research never works in isolation. It connects directly to your website structure, your brand positioning, and ultimately your lead generation results. This is exactly why we built the BIG12 framework, twelve pillars that cover every part of marketing a small business actually needs, rather than treating SEO as a standalone task.
If you want to see how keyword research and SEO sit alongside the other 11 pillars, our BIG12 framework training walks through the whole system in plain English.
See where keyword research fits in your wider marketing
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Get your BIG12 scoreThe challenge is never learning. It is doing.
Everything in this post is genuinely simple to understand. Define your audience, choose the right tools, study your competitors, favour long-tail terms, and measure what actually converts.
The hard part is doing it consistently, month after month, alongside running an actual business. Most SMB owners we meet know roughly what they should be doing for SEO. Very few have the time to do it properly while also serving customers, managing staff, and keeping the lights on.
That gap between knowing and doing is exactly where we step in. We have spent 18 years helping Derbyshire and East Midlands businesses turn keyword research into actual enquiries, not just charts and reports nobody looks at twice.
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