Where do the search volumes come from?

Google Keyword Planner, your own Search Console query export, Bing Webmaster Tools and Google Trends. Every one of those is an estimate and different tools disagree, so we treat volume as a way to rank options rather than a forecast. We never ask a language model for volumes — it will produce a confident table of invented numbers.

Why is my own Search Console data so important here?

Because it is the only source that is already true for your site. It shows queries you are actually being shown for, including ones nobody planned. Those queries are proven demand attached to proven relevance, which makes them the strongest starting point in the whole exercise, and they are invisible to anyone researching your market from outside.

Do I get one page per keyword?

No, and that approach is what produces sites full of thin near-duplicate pages that compete with each other. Keywords are grouped by what a single page could genuinely satisfy. One page can serve dozens of related queries, and the map states which queries belong to which page.

Does this include the articles themselves?

No. The deliverable is the map — the groups, the page types, the titles and slugs, the internal linking plan and the build order. Detailed briefs for each page, and the writing itself, are separate services. Keeping them separate is what stops a research budget quietly turning into a writing budget.

What if the map says a page we already have should cover this?

Then it says so, and that is one of the more valuable outputs. Mapping a group onto an existing page is cheaper and faster than building a new one, and building the new one anyway would create a cannibalisation problem the map exists to prevent.

How is the build order decided?

In three phases. Phase one is pages closest to money and realistically winnable now. Phase two is the supporting content that makes those pages credible and gives them internal links. Phase three is broad top-of-funnel material. Most of the commercial value sits in phase one, which is why it is built first rather than last.

SEO & Organic Growth

Keyword research and content map

What people actually search for, what they mean by it, and which pages should exist as a result — ordered so the pages closest to revenue get built first.

From: $250–$1,800
Typical time: 1–2 weeks
Usually bought by: Content teams

Publishing without knowing if anyone is asking

There are two versions of the person who needs this. One has been publishing for months and nothing is happening — traffic flat, no enquiries, and a growing suspicion that the whole effort is going nowhere. The other is starting something new and genuinely does not know which pages the site should have.

Underneath both is the same expensive problem. Content is being commissioned without anyone having checked whether the demand exists, what the person searching actually wants, or whether the page being planned is the kind of page that could ever satisfy them. Words get written, invoices get paid, and the pages arrive into a market that was never asking the question.

The output of this service is not a spreadsheet of keywords. It is a map — every page that should exist, what it is for, which cluster of real queries it answers, what type of page it needs to be, how it links to the others, and in what order to build them. It is the document that lets a content team stop guessing and start executing, and it is the thing that makes a writing budget defensible.

How the research runs

Seed the list from the business, not from a tool. The first conversation is about what customers say on the phone and in emails — their words, not the industry's. This step is skipped constantly and it is why so many keyword lists describe a market that only exists inside the company. Half a day.
Expand from four sources and keep them separate. Google Keyword Planner for breadth, your own Search Console queries for what is already true, Bing Webmaster Tools because its keyword and backlink data is free and routinely ignored, and the pages competitors already rank with. Keyword Planner shows volumes in wide bands unless an ad account is actively spending, so the numbers are treated as ranking signals rather than forecasts. One to two days.
Assign intent by looking at the result page, not by guessing. Every candidate query worth keeping gets its results opened and read. Whether Google shows shopping results, a map pack, a troubleshooting article or a comparison page tells you exactly what kind of page can rank. It takes about two minutes per query and it changes the plan more often than any tool does. One to two days.
Group, then cut. Queries that one page could genuinely satisfy become one group. Then the harder half — deliberately dropping the enormous, heavily contested terms you cannot realistically reach, and keeping the smaller ones with clear buying intent. Every group is checked against existing pages and flagged if it overlaps, because an overlap is a cannibalisation risk rather than a new page. One day.
Build the map and the order. Each group gets a proposed title, a URL slug, a page type, the existing page it maps to if there is one, and the internal links that should point at it. The groups are then sorted into three build phases so the pages closest to revenue are produced first. One to two days.

What moves the price

The range is $250–$1,800 over 1–2 weeks, and three factors move a project from one end of it to the other.

How wide the market is. A single local service in one city is a contained piece of research. A product sold to five countries in three languages multiplies the query set, the intent checking and the mapping work, and sits at the top of the range for that reason alone.

How much already exists. Mapping onto a site with four hundred published pages means auditing what each of those pages currently covers before a single new page can be proposed, otherwise the map creates the exact duplication it is supposed to prevent.

Whether briefs are included. The map says what to build. A brief says how to build one specific page — structure, questions to answer, entities to mention, links to include. Briefs are a separate service with separate pricing, and the scope names which you are buying so there is no argument later.

What usually goes wrong

The plan gets built around the biggest number in the sheet. A term with tens of thousands of monthly searches looks like the obvious target, so months of work go into it. The result page for that term is usually owned by the largest sites in the world, and the intent behind it is frequently informational, which means it would not have produced sales even if it had worked. A term with a fraction of that volume and a buyer behind it is worth more, and saying so out loud is part of the job.

Intent is decided from the words instead of from the results. Two queries that look almost identical can demand completely different pages — one wants a product listing, one wants a troubleshooting guide, one wants a map. Deciding without opening the results costs two minutes saved and an entire page built in the wrong format, which will never rank regardless of how well it is written.

One keyword becomes one page. It feels systematic and it produces a site full of near-identical thin pages that split their own relevance, compete with each other, and drag down the page that should have won. Grouping is the whole skill in this service — the map's value is as much in the pages it refuses to create as in the ones it does.

See where the site stands before you brief anyone.

If the site is already live, start from what it scores rather than from a guess. The audit reports what it checked, what it found, and — the part most tools leave out — what it could not check, and why.

See the website audit Talk about this work

Questions people ask before they commit.

Where do the search volumes come from?: Google Keyword Planner, your own Search Console query export, Bing Webmaster Tools and Google Trends. Every one of those is an estimate and different tools disagree, so we treat volume as a way to rank options rather than a forecast. We never ask a language model for volumes — it will produce a confident table of invented numbers.
Why is my own Search Console data so important here?: Because it is the only source that is already true for your site. It shows queries you are actually being shown for, including ones nobody planned. Those queries are proven demand attached to proven relevance, which makes them the strongest starting point in the whole exercise, and they are invisible to anyone researching your market from outside.
Do I get one page per keyword?: No, and that approach is what produces sites full of thin near-duplicate pages that compete with each other. Keywords are grouped by what a single page could genuinely satisfy. One page can serve dozens of related queries, and the map states which queries belong to which page.
Does this include the articles themselves?: No. The deliverable is the map — the groups, the page types, the titles and slugs, the internal linking plan and the build order. Detailed briefs for each page, and the writing itself, are separate services. Keeping them separate is what stops a research budget quietly turning into a writing budget.
What if the map says a page we already have should cover this?: Then it says so, and that is one of the more valuable outputs. Mapping a group onto an existing page is cheaper and faster than building a new one, and building the new one anyway would create a cannibalisation problem the map exists to prevent.
How is the build order decided?: In three phases. Phase one is pages closest to money and realistically winnable now. Phase two is the supporting content that makes those pages credible and gives them internal links. Phase three is broad top-of-funnel material. Most of the commercial value sits in phase one, which is why it is built first rather than last.

Often taken together.

Start with the brief, not the invoice.

Send what you are trying to achieve. You get a written scope, a price and a date — or an honest “this is not the right service for that”.

Talk about Keyword research & content map All SEO & Organic Growth services