A services business does not need two thousand keywords. It needs the ten phrases that describe work it wants to be asked for.
Start with what you already have
Search Console first, even with three weeks of data. The queries that already appeared are real, and no tool can argue with them.
Then add the phrases a customer uses on the phone.
A filled shortlist
Meridian Landscaping, a fictional client. Twenty phrases, grouped by the page that would answer each one.
/services/patios
1. patio installation cost seen, 3 impressions this month
2. block paving patio 0 impressions, customer wording
3. patio ideas small garden customer wording, guide topic
/services/fencing
4. fence installation near me seen, 7 impressions
5. how much does a fence cost seen, 2 impressions
6. fence height rules customer wording, guide topic
/services/drainage
7. driveway drainage solutions seen, 1 impression
8. soakaway cost 0 impressions
9. standing water in garden customer wording, guide topic
/pricing
10. landscaper prices seen, 4 impressions
11. garden design cost 0 impressions
/guides
12. when to plant a hedge seasonal
13. best time to lay turf seasonal
refused, with the reason
14. cheap landscaper near me position does not fit the brand
15. artificial grass fitters not a service we offer
16. garden designer jobs recruitment, wrong audience
17. landscaper software software intent, not a buyer
18. how to lay a patio informational, no page to support it yet
19. commercial landscaping tender too broad to answer on one page
20. garden maintenance contract thin demand, revisit in a year
Ten phrases map to a page that exists. Three map to a page that does not, and those are content decisions rather than keyword decisions.
How to judge a phrase
- Would you want to be asked to do this work?
- Does a page you have, or could write, answer it?
- Is it the same intent as a phrase you already target?
- Can you tell whether it worked?
Two yeses is a candidate. One is a note.
Acceptance: the shortlist is usable when
- every phrase names the page it belongs to
- refused phrases carry a reason
- no two phrases share one intent and one page
- the list fits on one screen
- the first three are already in the queue, not in a document
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| The list has 300 phrases | Nothing was grouped by page | Group first, then cut |
| Every phrase is already served | The site is mature | Work the queries with impressions and no clicks |
| Volume looks great and nobody converts | Commercial intent was assumed | Read the query wording again |
| Two pages compete for one phrase | The intent was never assigned | Merge them, or give each one a different page |
| Nothing converts | The offer, not the phrase | Fix the page before the keyword list |
Limits
Volumes are rounded buckets, and they aggregate close variants. Never publish a keyword-level traffic forecast from this data.
Publish a page, then read what happened, including when the answer is nothing.