Keyword Research for SEO: How to Find Keywords and Write Website Titles

How to do keyword research, step by step

The biggest mistake we see is starting in a tool. Tools give you thousands of keywords and no idea which ones matter. Start with your business instead.

1. 1List your money pages. Every service, product and location you want customers for. These are the pages that need keywords first.
2. 2Write down how customers talk. Look at your emails, call notes and reviews. A roofer might say "roof replacement". The homeowner types "roof leaking after rain what to do".
3. 3Expand with tools. Put those seeds into Google Keyword Planner, Search Console, Semrush or Ahrefs (our SEO tools guide) and collect the variations.
4. 4Check intent by searching. Google the keyword yourself. If the top results are guides, a service page won't rank there, and the other way round.
5. 5Be honest about difficulty. A new site won't beat national brands on a broad term this year. Pick fights you can win first.
6. 6Group them. Keywords that one page can answer belong together.
7. 7Map each group to one URL. Anything left over without a home is a page you still need to build.

Do this once properly and you have a content plan for the next twelve months.

How to find the keywords a website ranks for

There are four quick ways, depending on whose site it is.

• Your own site: open Google Search Console, go to Performance, then Queries. These are the real searches you already show up for, which is often more useful than any tool.
• A competitor's site: put their domain into Semrush or Ahrefs and open the organic keywords report. Look for searches where they rank and you don't.
• Search a website for a keyword: type site:example.com keyword into Google, or press Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on a Mac) once you're on the page.
• View keywords in a page's code: look at the title tag, H1 and subheadings. Skip the old meta keywords tag. Google has ignored it for years.

When we start with a new client, the Search Console list is the first thing we open. It usually shows pages ranking on page two for a keyword nobody targeted on purpose. Those are the cheapest wins on the site.

Keyword research for multiple locations

If you serve several cities, the pattern you're looking for is service + location ("plumber Tampa", "SEO company Philadelphia") plus the "near me" versions. Each city might only get a few dozen searches a month, but they add up, and the people searching are usually ready to buy.

The trap is building a page for every town on the map with the same text and a different city name. Google sees through it, and so do customers. Build a page for a location only where you genuinely work, and give it details that only make sense there: the areas you cover, local customers, local questions. More on this in our technical SEO and local SEO pages.

What is a website title?

A website title is the HTML title tag. It's the name you see in the browser tab, and usually the blue clickable headline in Google results. Hover over a tab or view the page source and you'll find it.

People mix up a few terms here, so this helps:

If your titles are vague or stuffed with keywords, Google may rewrite them for you (Google's title link guidance). It's better to write a good one yourself.

How to write titles for websites

A title has one job: make the right person click. Here's what works for us:

• Put the main keyword near the start, where people's eyes land
• Be specific: the service plus a location or a clear benefit
• Keep it to roughly 50–60 characters so Google doesn't cut it off
• Give every page its own title. Duplicates confuse Google and customers
• Don't cram in five keywords or repeat your brand twice

Compare "Home | Services | Plumbing" with "Emergency Plumber in Tampa | 24/7 Callouts, Brand". Same business. One of them gets clicked.

Are keywords dead?

We hear this a lot, usually from someone selling something else. Keywords aren't dead. Keyword stuffing is.

Google and AI assistants now understand topics and intent, so a page that fully answers the question beats one that repeats a phrase twenty times. But you still need keyword research to know what people want, how they phrase it and which pages to build. Without it, you're guessing.

Want a second pair of eyes? Book a free consultation: keyword research is the first thing we look at, and you keep the list either way.

Frequently asked questions