Most small business owners know they should be doing keyword research. Very few actually do it in a way that leads to real results.
The common mistake is jumping straight into a keyword tool, typing in a few obvious phrases, picking the ones with the biggest numbers, and then wondering why the website never moves. Big search volumes are not the same as realistic opportunities. And realistic opportunities are not the same as the ones that will actually bring in customers.
This article walks you through the keyword research process we use at Ape-X when we start working with a new client. It is six steps, it works for any service-based Australian small business, and it is designed to produce a practical working keyword list rather than a theoretical one.
We will use a real example throughout: a residential electrician based in Brisbane. The same process applies whether you are an accountant in Melbourne, a physio in Perth, or a builder on the Gold Coast.
Before diving in, if you have not already read the earlier articles in this series, it is worth covering the foundations first:
- What Are Keywords and Why Do They Matter covers the basics
- How to Choose the Right Keywords explains the four evaluation criteria
- The Best Free Keyword Research Tools and Paid Keyword Research Tools cover the tools you will need for steps 5 and 6
Step 1: Define Your Goal Before You Research a Single Keyword
This sounds obvious. Most people skip it anyway.
Keyword research without a clear goal produces a long list of keywords with no clear priority. You end up trying to rank for everything and gaining traction on nothing.
Before you open any tool, answer this question honestly: what do you want your website to do?
The answer shapes everything that follows. Here are the four most common goals for Australian small businesses and what they mean for keyword research:
| Goal | What it means for keyword research |
| Generate more local enquiries | Prioritise geo-targeted commercial keywords like “electrician Brisbane” and suburb-specific variations |
| Build authority in a niche | Mix of informational and commercial keywords across a focused topic area |
| Drive traffic to a specific service | Focus keyword research tightly on that service and its related problems and questions |
| Grow existing rankings | Find keywords you already rank for on page two and optimise to push them to page one |
For our Brisbane electrician example, the goal is simple: generate more local service enquiries. That tells us immediately to prioritise commercial and transactional keywords with local modifiers over broad informational content.
This distinction matters more in 2026 than it ever has. As we covered in our article on what keywords are and why they matter, informational keywords are increasingly answered directly by Google’s AI Overviews without driving clicks to websites. Commercial and local keywords remain largely unaffected. For a small business trying to generate leads, starting with commercial intent is not just smart, it is essential.
Step 2: List Every Topic Your Business Covers
With your goal defined, sit down and map out every topic your business is relevant to. Do not think about keywords yet. Think about topics.
For our Brisbane electrician, the topic list might look like this:
- Switchboard upgrades
- Safety switch installation
- Smoke alarm compliance
- Powerpoint and lighting installation
- Fault finding and repairs
- Commercial electrical work
- Outdoor and garden lighting
- EV charger installation
- Emergency electrical services
- Electrical inspections and certificates
Write down every service you offer, every problem your customers come to you with, and every question you get asked regularly. Do not filter at this stage. The goal is completeness.
Once you have your list, group related items into topic clusters. For the electrician:
- Safety and compliance: safety switches, smoke alarms, electrical certificates
- Upgrades and installations: switchboards, powerpoints, lighting, EV chargers
- Repairs and emergency work: fault finding, emergency callouts, repairs
- Commercial work: commercial fit-outs, body corporate electrical
Each cluster will generate its own set of keywords in the next step. The clusters also help you identify gaps on your website. If you have a cluster with no corresponding service page, that is a content opportunity worth addressing before anything else.
Step 3: Give Each Topic Cluster a Seed Keyword
Now you translate your topic clusters into seed keywords. A seed keyword is a short, 1 to 3 word phrase that captures the core of each topic. These are your starting points for keyword research, not your final targets.
For the Brisbane electrician:
| Topic cluster | Seed keyword |
| Safety and compliance | electrical safety Brisbane |
| Upgrades and installations | electrician Brisbane |
| Repairs and emergency work | emergency electrician Brisbane |
| Commercial work | commercial electrician Brisbane |
Keep seed keywords simple and descriptive. You are not trying to rank for these terms directly in most cases. They are the inputs you will use in keyword research tools to generate your actual target keywords.
One important tip specific to Australian businesses: always check whether your seed keywords use Australian spelling and phrasing. Australians search for “powerpoints” not “power outlets.” They search for “switchboard” not “breaker panel.” Getting the local language right at the seed keyword stage ensures the tools generate relevant Australian results rather than US-centric variations your customers do not actually use.
Step 4: Build Your Keyword List Using Long-Tail Variations
With seed keywords in hand, your job is now to expand each one into a list of long-tail keyword variations. These are the specific phrases your customers are actually typing into Google when they are ready to hire someone.
There are three reliable ways to generate long-tail keywords without any paid tool:
Google Autocomplete: Type your seed keyword into Google without pressing Enter and write down every autocomplete suggestion. Then add modifiers like your suburb, “cost,” “near me,” “Brisbane,” and “emergency” to trigger different suggestions. We covered this in detail in our guide to free keyword research tools.
People Also Ask: Search your seed keyword on Google, open the People Also Ask box, and click through several questions to generate more. Write down every question that is relevant to your business. Tools like AlsoAsked map these question hierarchies automatically and are worth using at this stage.
Think like your customer: What problem are they trying to solve? What are they worried about? What do they need to know before they call? A customer searching for an electrician is often searching things like “how much does a switchboard upgrade cost Brisbane” or “do I need a licensed electrician for powerpoints.” Those questions are keyword opportunities.
For our Brisbane electrician, here is what that expansion looks like for just one seed keyword, “electrician Brisbane”:
- electrician Brisbane cost
- licensed electrician Brisbane
- local electrician Brisbane northside
- residential electrician Brisbane
- electrician Brisbane southside
- electrician Brisbane same day
- electrician New Farm
- electrician Paddington Brisbane
- electrician Fortitude Valley
- electrician Brisbane reviews
- find a good electrician Brisbane
Notice how the list naturally branches into three types: cost and qualification questions, urgency and service variations, and suburb-specific searches. Each of those branches represents a different type of content your website might need, from service pages to location pages to blog articles.
Here’s what Google Autocomplete looks like for a local service query. The suggestions come directly from real searches and often reveal valuable location-based keyword opportunities.
Step 5: Refine Your List With Keyword Research Tools
You now have a working keyword list built from real customer language. Step 5 is about using keyword research tools to evaluate and refine that list, not to replace it.
This is an important distinction. Many guides tell you to start with a keyword tool. The problem with that approach is you end up drowning in tool-generated suggestions that may have nothing to do with how your specific customers actually search. Coming to the tools with your own list first means you are using them to validate and expand your thinking rather than letting them dictate your strategy.
Here is what to check at this stage for each keyword on your list:
Search volume confirms there is meaningful demand. For an Australian small business, a keyword with 50 to 200 searches per month is often more than sufficient if the intent is commercial and the competition is manageable. Do not chase volume for its own sake. A keyword with 80 searches per month that drives qualified enquiries for a $2,000 service is worth far more than a keyword with 5,000 searches per month that attracts people who will never buy.
Keyword difficulty tells you which terms are realistic to rank for given your current website authority. As a rough guide for a small business website just starting out, focus on keywords with a difficulty score under 30 on Ahrefs. If you are using Semrush, note that it scores approximately 15 to 25 points higher than Ahrefs for the same keyword, so adjust accordingly. Build toward harder terms as your authority grows.
Search intent is confirmed by searching each keyword on Google and looking at what is currently ranking. If service pages dominate the first page, your service page is the right content type. If blog posts dominate, the intent is informational and a blog article is what Google wants to see.
Commercial signals include meaningful cost-per-click data in Google Keyword Planner, which indicates businesses are already paying to appear for the keyword because it converts into enquiries or sales.
For the Brisbane electrician running this process on the keyword “switchboard upgrade Brisbane”:
- Search volume: meaningful local demand confirmed by multiple Brisbane electricians actively competing for this term
- Keyword difficulty: low to moderate, with small local firms dominating the current first page
- Search intent: service pages and local business listings dominate the results
- Commercial signal: multiple Brisbane electricians running Google Ads for this term, confirming purchase intent
All four signals align. This keyword belongs on the priority list.
Here’s an example of a keyword research dashboard for a local electrical service. It highlights search demand, traffic potential, and the businesses currently competing for visibility in search results.
Step 6: Check What Your Competitors Are Ranking For
The final step is to look outward. You have built your keyword list from your own business and validated it with tools. Now check what is working for your competitors, because there will almost certainly be keyword opportunities you missed.
This step has two parts.
Part one: identify your real SEO competitors. For the Brisbane electrician, this means searching a handful of your target keywords on Google and noting which businesses consistently appear in the top results. These are your true SEO competitors, which may be different from who you consider your business competitors. A larger electrical company appearing in Google results is an SEO competitor even if you do not compete for the same customers in a day-to-day business sense.
Part two: analyse their keywords. Using a paid tool like Ahrefs or Semrush, enter a competitor’s website URL and look at which keywords are driving organic traffic to their pages. This will often surface keyword variations you had not considered. You are looking for two types of opportunities:
- Keywords your competitors rank for that you do not have content for yet, representing gaps to fill
- Keywords your competitors rank weakly for, sitting in positions 4 to 10, where strong content could take the top spot relatively quickly
For the Brisbane electrician, this step might reveal that a competitor is ranking on page two for “EV charger installation Brisbane” with a thin, poorly optimised page. That is a genuine opportunity. Search volume for EV charger installation keywords is growing rapidly across Australia as more homeowners purchase electric vehicles, and electricians who create dedicated service pages now are capturing that demand before competitors catch on. A well-researched, comprehensive page targeting that keyword could outrank a weak competitor page relatively quickly.
Reviewing the keywords that already drive traffic to competitors can reveal content gaps and opportunities that may not appear during traditional keyword research.
What Your Final Keyword List Should Look Like
By the end of this six-step process you should have a prioritised keyword list structured into three tiers. This structure keeps your efforts focused and ensures you are building toward long-term authority while also targeting the terms most likely to drive near-term enquiries.
Tier 1: Priority commercial keywords These are your highest-value targets. They have commercial or transactional intent, local modifiers, manageable difficulty, and meaningful search volume. For the Brisbane electrician this means “switchboard upgrade Brisbane,” “safety switch installation Brisbane,” and “electrician New Farm.” These are the keywords your service pages should be optimised for first.
Tier 2: Supporting location keywords Suburb-specific variations and secondary service keywords that expand your reach without requiring entirely new content. “Electrician Paddington Brisbane,” “licensed electrician northside Brisbane,” and “smoke alarm installation Brisbane” sit here. Many of these can be addressed through location pages or by expanding existing service pages with suburb-specific sections.
Tier 3: Informational keywords Questions and research-phase keywords that potential customers ask before they are ready to hire. “How much does a switchboard upgrade cost in Brisbane,” “how to tell if your switchboard needs replacing,” and “when do I need a licensed electrician” belong here. These become blog articles that build authority and capture early-stage searchers who may hire you later.
| Tier | Intent | Examples | Content type |
| 1 | Commercial and transactional | “switchboard upgrade Brisbane” | Service pages |
| 2 | Local and location-specific | “electrician Paddington Brisbane” | Location pages or expanded service pages |
| 3 | Informational | “how much does a switchboard upgrade cost” | Blog articles |
Start with Tier 1. Get those service pages properly optimised before investing time in blog content. The commercial keywords drive direct enquiries. The informational keywords build long-term authority. Both matter, but in that order.
How Long Does This Process Take?
For a small business doing this for the first time, allow three to four hours to work through all six steps properly. The keyword list you produce at the end of this process will inform your content strategy, your website optimisation, and your SEO investment for the next twelve months. Getting it right the first time saves you from months of effort pointed in the wrong direction.
Once your initial keyword list is built, plan to revisit it every six months. Search behaviour changes. New competitors emerge. Your website authority grows and harder keywords become achievable. Keyword research is not a one-time task. It is an ongoing part of running a business that competes online.
For more on how to use the keywords you have identified to improve your website, our guide to strategic keyword placement covers exactly where and how keywords should appear across your pages. Our article on top SEO ranking factors gives useful context on how keyword optimisation fits into the broader picture of what Google evaluates. And our piece on how to rank a brand new website on Google is worth reading if you are starting from scratch.
Want This Done For You?
Working through this process yourself is absolutely achievable and this guide gives you everything you need to do it. But if you would rather have an experienced team build your keyword strategy, map it to your website, and create a twelve-month content and optimisation plan around it, that is exactly what our SEO service delivers.
Our Free Website and Marketing Review is a good place to start. We will look at your current keyword rankings, identify which keywords your competitors are capturing, and give you a clear picture of where the real opportunities are for your specific business.
