Your customers don't search the way you talk
Most small business sites are written from the inside out. The owner knows the business, so the pages describe the business. Who we are. What we offer. Call today.
That works for someone who already found you. It does nothing for someone who hasn't.
Search runs the other direction. Somebody in Sandy has a problem at 9pm, grabs their phone and types a few words. Google goes looking for pages that match those words and the reason behind them. If your site never uses the language your customers use, you're invisible at the exact moment they're shopping.
Those words are keywords. Not a trick, not a hidden tag. Just the phrases real people type. So the first job isn't writing. It's listening.
Search volume keeps you honest
Every phrase you could go after has a rough number attached: how many times a month people search for it. That's search volume. Google's free Keyword Planner shows a range, and paid tools like Ahrefs or Semrush narrow it down.
The number settles two arguments before they start. It stops you from building a beautiful page around a phrase nobody types. And it stops you from assuming everyone searches the way you do.
But volume is a filter, not a goal. Forty searches a month where you show up first beats ten thousand where you're on page four. Nobody clicks page four. Nobody.
Short keywords vs. long-tail keywords
Every keyword sits somewhere on a line from short and vague to long and specific. Where you aim on that line decides whether SEO pays off this year or in five.
Short keywords: big numbers, bad odds
One or two words. "Plumber." "Wedding photographer." "Accountant." Huge volume, and a results page stacked with national directories, franchise chains and sites that have been publishing since dial-up.
There's a second problem. You can't tell what the person wants. Someone typing "plumber" might want a job, a licensing exam, a definition, or a human with a wrench tonight. Google has to guess, and it guesses in favor of the biggest, broadest sites on the internet.
If your business is new to SEO, chasing these is a slow, expensive way to spend a year.
Long-tail keywords: small numbers, real buyers
Three words or more, and specific. "Water heater replacement cost Salt Lake City." "Does a tankless water heater work in a basement." "Emergency plumber open Sunday Murray."
Fewer people type each one. But look at what you know about the person who did. They have a water heater problem. They're in a specific city. One of them is in a hurry. These aren't browsers. They've already narrowed it down and they're deciding who to call.
Less competition, clearer intent, better odds of the phone ringing. For a local business, that trade isn't close.
The bonus nobody mentions
Going long doesn't mean giving up on short. A page about "water heater replacement cost Salt Lake City" also contains "water heater replacement," "water heater" and "Salt Lake City." Google notices.
Publish enough specific pages on one topic and your site starts to look like the authority on the broad version too. The short-keyword rankings show up as a side effect, not something you fought for head-on.
If it sounds like a category, a bigger company owns it. If it sounds like something a customer would say out loud, it's probably yours for the taking.
Search intent: why they're searching
Two people can type nearly the same words and want completely different things. Matching the words isn't enough. You have to match the reason. That reason is called search intent, and most searches land in one of four buckets.
- Learning. "How often should a furnace be serviced." "What's the difference between a will and a trust." No wallet out yet. They're curious or worried and want a straight answer.
- Comparing. "Best CPA for small business Utah." "Square vs Toast for a coffee shop." They know roughly what they need and they're weighing options. Pages that lay out trade-offs honestly, including when you're not the right fit, win here.
- Buying. "Book furnace tune-up Draper." "Wedding photographer Park City availability." They're ready. Skip the philosophy. Show the price, the calendar, the button.
- Finding you. Your business name, plus "hours" or "phone." They already picked you. Don't get in the way. Correct hours, correct listing, a page that loads before they lose patience.
A site with only buying pages hands the start of the journey to someone else. A site with only learning pages gets read and never called. You want some of each, linked together, so a reader can walk from "how does this work" to "book it" without hunting.
The learning searches are the quiet winners
It's tempting to skip the how-to questions. Nobody's buying yet, so why bother?
Because that's where people pick who they trust. The accountant who writes a plain guide to quarterly taxes for freelancers is the one that freelancer remembers in March. The lawn care crew that explains which grass actually survives a Utah July gets the call in May. By the time someone's ready to spend money, the decision is half made.
These are also the cheapest pages you'll ever produce. You already know the answers. Your customers ask you these questions on the phone every week. Write them down and publish them.
How to pick your keywords this month
- List twenty questions customers actually ask you. Not what you wish they'd ask. The real ones, in their words, typos and all.
- Check the volume on each. Keyword Planner is free. Drop anything that shows zero. Don't panic about small numbers.
- Sort them by intent. Learning, comparing, buying. Make sure every bucket has a few.
- Add the city. For almost every local business, the place name is part of the keyword. Google needs to know where you are before it can send anyone nearby. Our guide to showing up on Google Maps in Utah covers the other half of that.
- Write one page for each of the three most specific phrases. Answer the question completely. Put the phrase in the title, the first paragraph and one heading. Link to the page where they can book or call.
- Do it again next month. SEO isn't a project with a finish line. It's a habit, like invoicing, only less painful.
Not sure what your customers type?
Pulling the real search phrases for your trade and your city, then sorting the winnable ones from the hopeless ones, is the first thing we do on every SEO job. If you'd rather hand that off, start here.
