Keyword research is how you figure out what your potential customers are actually typing into Google — and then make sure your website shows up for those searches. Most guides on the topic recommend tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush, which are excellent but cost upwards of €100 per month.
You don't need them. At least not to start.
There's a set of genuinely useful free methods that, used together, give you most of what the paid tools offer. Here's how to use them.
Why Keyword Research Matters
Guessing what to write about based on what you think your customers search for is not a strategy. It results in pages optimized for terms no one actually uses, and missed opportunities on the searches your ideal clients are making every day.
Keyword research replaces guesswork with data. It tells you:
- What specific phrases people type to find businesses like yours
- How often those terms are searched (relative demand)
- How competitive they are (how hard it'll be to rank)
- What questions people have that you could answer
Get this right and your content works. Get it wrong and you write things that are invisible.
Method 1: Google Autocomplete
Open Google in a private/incognito window (so your own search history doesn't influence results) and start typing your topic. Before you press Enter, Google suggests completions based on what other people are actually searching.
Type "web design for" and you'll see suggestions like "web design for small business," "web design for restaurants," "web design for beginners." Each of those is a real keyword with real search volume.
Work through variations systematically. Try your main topic with different prepositions and question starters:
- "web design [for / near / in / with]..."
- "how to [get / find / build / improve]..."
- "best [adjective]..."
- "[topic] tips / guide / checklist / cost / examples"
Write down everything relevant. You're building a raw keyword list.
Method 2: Google's "People Also Ask" and Related Searches
Search your target keyword and look at two features on the results page:
"People Also Ask" — the expandable question boxes that appear mid-results. These are real questions Google knows people ask related to your search. They're gold for content ideas because each one represents a genuine user need you could address on a blog post or service page.
Click any question to expand it, and watch the box expand further with more related questions. You can rabbit-hole through dozens of variations this way.
Related Searches — the section at the bottom of the search results page. These are the search terms people move to after searching your original term. They reveal adjacent topics, alternative phrasings, and searches that have similar intent.
Both features are free, real-time, and directly from Google. They tell you exactly what Google considers related to your topic — which is exactly the information you need.
Method 3: Google Search Console
If your site is already live and verified in Google Search Console, you have access to what might be the most valuable keyword data available: the actual searches that are bringing people to your site right now.
Go to Performance → Search Results. You'll see the queries people used to find your pages, how many clicks and impressions each got, and your average position for each term.
Use this to:
- Find keywords you're almost ranking for (positions 4–15) and optimize those pages harder
- Discover variations and long-tail terms you hadn't thought of
- Identify which pages are getting clicks vs. impressions (high impressions, low clicks means your title/meta needs work)
- Spot content gaps — queries that bring people to the wrong page, or queries you're appearing for but not properly targeting
This is your most actionable free keyword data source if you have an existing site with any traffic at all.
Method 4: Answer the Public (Free Version)
AnswerThePublic.com visualizes the questions, prepositions, comparisons, and related terms people search around any topic. The free version limits daily searches but is more than sufficient for occasional research.
Enter your main keyword and you get a structured breakdown of how people phrase searches about it: "how to [keyword]," "why [keyword]," "[keyword] vs [alternative]," "best [keyword] for [type of business]" — organized by search intent.
It's essentially a more visual version of the autocomplete method, and it's excellent for generating blog post ideas and FAQ content.
Method 5: Competitor URL Research with Free Tools
Ubersuggest and Ahrefs' free Keyword Generator both offer limited free searches that can show you keyword volume and difficulty estimates. Use them sparingly — you get a small number of free lookups per day — but they're useful for validating the volume on specific terms you've identified through the other methods.
If you paste a competitor's URL into the free version of Ubersuggest, you can see some of the keywords they're ranking for. This is particularly useful for finding gaps: terms your competitors are capturing that you're not yet targeting.
How to Prioritize Your Keyword List
Once you have a raw list of 30-50 potential keywords, the challenge is deciding which ones to pursue. Without paid tools, you can't get exact search volume numbers — but you can make smart prioritization decisions based on:
Relevance. Does this keyword match what a potential customer would search when they need what you offer? High relevance = high priority regardless of volume.
Intent. Keywords with commercial intent ("web designer hire," "local SEO service cost") are more valuable than purely informational ones ("what is web design") — even if the informational ones have higher volume.
Competition signals. Search the keyword and look at what's ranking on page 1. If the first page is dominated by major national brands, high-authority sites, or Wikipedia, the keyword will be very hard to rank for. If you see smaller local businesses or lower-authority sites, you have a chance.
Long-tail specificity. "Web design" is extremely competitive. "Web design for restaurants in Ghent" is highly specific with much less competition — and the person searching it is more likely to be your ideal client. Long-tail keywords convert better.
Building Your Keyword Map
As you research, organize keywords by page or topic:
- Homepage: target your most important commercial keyword
- Each service page: target the specific keyword for that service
- Blog posts: target informational and question-based keywords
- Location pages (if relevant): target location-specific variations
This prevents you from accidentally competing with yourself — a common issue where multiple pages on the same site target the same keyword, splitting their ranking potential. We call this keyword cannibalization and it's one of the issues we look for in a full SEO audit.
The best free SEO tool collection — Google Search Console, autocomplete, related searches, and Answer the Public — covers the fundamentals without any monthly fee. When you're ready to go deeper, paid tools add precision and scale. But for most small businesses getting started, the free methods are more than enough to build a solid content strategy.