Most SEO advice focuses on how to rank for keywords. What gets far less attention is which keywords are worth ranking for in the first place. For a service business, this distinction is everything.
Ranking #1 for "what is plumbing" drives zero revenue. Ranking #3 for "emergency plumber Carindale" drives actual paying customers. Keyword research is the process of finding the second type and ignoring the first.
The Difference Between Informational and Transactional Keywords
Keywords fall broadly into two categories based on intent:
- Informational: The searcher wants to learn something. "How to fix a leaking tap", "what causes blocked drains", "how much does an electrician cost"
- Transactional (or commercial): The searcher wants to buy or hire. "Plumber near me", "emergency electrician Brisbane", "accounting firm Fortitude Valley"
For service businesses, transactional keywords are where you should focus the majority of your effort. These are the searches that come from people who are ready to pick up the phone or fill in a contact form.
Informational keywords have a role — they're the foundation of a content strategy like this blog — but they convert at a fraction of the rate of transactional terms.
How to Find Your Best Transactional Keywords
Start With What You Already Know
Write down every service you offer and every suburb you service. Cross-reference them. "Electrician [suburb]", "emergency [service] [suburb]", "[service] company [suburb]", "[service] near me [suburb]" — these patterns generate your initial keyword list.
A plumber serving 15 Brisbane Southside suburbs across 6 core services would have 90 base keyword combinations from this exercise alone.
Use Google to Expand Your List
Type your base keywords into Google and pay attention to:
- Autocomplete suggestions — what Google suggests as you type tells you what people are actually searching
- "People Also Ask" boxes — these reveal related questions and concerns your target customers have
- "Related searches" at the bottom of results — variations worth targeting
Free tool: Google Search Console (if you have it set up) shows you exactly what searches are already bringing traffic to your site. This is gold — it tells you what's working so you can double down.
Assess Keyword Difficulty
Not all keywords are equally achievable. "Plumber Brisbane" is enormously competitive — dominated by large directories like HiPages and established businesses. "Gas plumber Sunnybank" is far more achievable for a local business.
As a rule of thumb for service businesses: the more specific the keyword (longer, with more qualifiers), the more achievable it is. These "long-tail" keywords also convert better because they capture searchers who know specifically what they want.
Mapping Keywords to Pages
Once you have your keyword list, each keyword (or cluster of closely related keywords) should map to a dedicated page on your website. This is why suburb pages are so important for local businesses — they give each location-specific keyword a specific, relevant page to land on.
One of the biggest keyword research mistakes we see is targeting 20 different keywords on a single page. Google can only rank a page for a handful of primary terms. Give each keyword group its own page and you multiply your chances of ranking significantly.
Tracking and Measuring Your Keywords
Keyword research isn't a one-time activity. After publishing your optimised pages, you need to monitor which keywords are gaining traction, which ones need more work, and what new opportunities are emerging as Google ranks you for new terms.
Google Search Console is free and provides this data directly from Google. Set it up if you haven't already — it's one of the most valuable SEO tools available to Brisbane business owners at no cost.
Our SEO service includes comprehensive keyword research as the foundation of everything we do. We identify the specific transactional searches your ideal customers are making in your service areas and build a content architecture designed to capture them.
Want to know what keywords your business should be targeting? Get a free SEO audit — we'll include a keyword opportunity analysis specific to your service area and industry.