5.1 Keyword Research Basics

Write down 10--15 words or phrases your customers would use to find your business. Think about your services, your location, and the problems you solve. Ask your receptionist or sales team what people say when they call. Example: a Perth photo booth hire company might start with "photo booth hire," "wedding photo booth," "corporate event photo booth," "photo booth rental Perth."

Take each seed keyword and run it through these free tools to find related searches:

• Ubersuggest -- 3 free searches per day. No account needed for your first searches. Shows keyword ideas, search volume, and SEO difficulty score.
• Google Keyword Planner -- the most accurate volume data because it comes directly from Google. However: it requires a Google Ads account with billing set up before it shows useful data. You do NOT need to run ads or spend money -- just create the account, add a payment method, then pause any default campaign Google creates.
• AnswerThePublic -- shows questions people ask about your topic. Excellent for blog content ideas.
• Google autocomplete -- start typing your seed keyword in Google and note what it suggests. These are real, high-volume searches.
• "People also ask" -- the expandable questions in Google search results. Each one is a content opportunity.

For each keyword, note three things:

• Monthly search volume -- how many people search for it. For local businesses, even 50--100/month is valuable.
• Keyword difficulty -- how hard it is to rank. Tools score this 0--100. Below 30 is achievable for new sites.
• Search intent -- is the searcher looking to learn (informational), compare (commercial), or buy (transactional)? "What is a photo booth" = informational. "Photo booth hire prices Perth" = transactional. Target transactional keywords for service pages, informational for blog posts.

Create a spreadsheet with columns: Keyword, Monthly Volume, Difficulty, Intent, Target Page. Assign one primary keyword and 2--3 secondary keywords to each page on your site. Every page should target a unique primary keyword -- if two pages target the same keyword, they compete against each other (keyword cannibalisation).

Start with your highest-intent, lowest-difficulty keywords. These are your quick wins. A typical priority order: homepage (your main service + location), service pages (specific services + location), location pages (if you serve multiple areas), then blog posts (informational keywords).