Keyword research for services

How to find the exact words clients type when they look for an event service, sort them by intent and value, and assign one main phrase to each page of your website. You will finish with a keyword map that tells you which pages to build and what to call them.

Read the transcript

Keyword research for services.

Keyword research is not a hunt for the biggest number in a tool.

For a local service business it is the discipline of writing down the words your clients actually use, then making sure each of those phrases has one page on your site that answers it better than anyone else's.

How event clients search.

Nearly every useful search for an event service is built from a few parts.

Learn the parts and you can generate your whole list.

Building your seed list.

Use sources that reflect real client language before you open any tool.

Read the last 30 inquiries and copy the exact phrases people used to describe what they wanted. Clients say “day-of coordinator” far more than “event management services”.

Sorting by intent and value.

Now group the list.

Put every phrase into one of three intent buckets from Lesson 1: hire, research or brand.

Worked example: Lantern and Lane's keyword map.

Marco gathers 94 phrases from inquiries, autocomplete and Keyword Planner, scores them, and groups them into pages.

The rule is one primary phrase per page, with close variants supporting it.

Avoid three common mistakes.

Two pages chasing one phrase. If your “Weddings” page and your “Wedding planning” page both target “wedding planner Toronto”, they compete with each other and both rank worse.

Writing for the tool instead of the client. A phrase that reads awkwardly, such as “wedding planner Toronto cheap best”, should never appear word for word.

That is the lesson. The worksheet and the quiz are just below this video.

What you will be able to do

• Build a seed list of service, place, occasion and audience terms from client language and free tools
• Score keywords by intent, value and winnability to set priorities
• Create a keyword map that assigns one primary phrase and its close variants to each page

Keyword research is not a hunt for the biggest number in a tool. For a local service business it is the discipline of writing down the words your clients actually use, then making sure each of those phrases has one page on your site that answers it better than anyone else’s. A florist who ranks for “wedding flowers Hamilton” will book more than one who ranks for “flowers”, even though far fewer people type the first phrase.

How event clients search

Nearly every useful search for an event service is built from a few parts. Learn the parts and you can generate your whole list.

“Kids magician Etobicoke” is service, audience and place. “How much does a wedding photographer cost in Ontario” is qualifier, occasion, service and place. Once you see the pattern, you will stop guessing and start listing.

Building your seed list

Use sources that reflect real client language before you open any tool.

1. Your inbox. Read the last 30 inquiries and copy the exact phrases people used to describe what they wanted. Clients say “day-of coordinator” far more than “event management services”.
2. Your calls. Note the words clients use when they explain their event on the phone.
3. Google autocomplete. Type the start of a search, such as “wedding DJ” followed by a space, and note the suggestions. Repeat with different letters and places.
4. People also ask. The question boxes on a results page show the research questions clients have. Each good question is a possible guide.
5. Search Console. If your site is already live, the Queries report shows the searches you already appear for. Lesson 7 covers it in detail.
6. Google’s Keyword Planner. Available inside a Google Ads account. Set the location to the area you serve and use it to compare phrases and find variants, rather than trusting any single number.

Aim for 60 to 150 phrases in a spreadsheet. Do not filter yet.

Sorting by intent and value

Now group the list. Put every phrase into one of three intent buckets from Lesson 1: hire, research or brand. Then score each phrase from 1 to 3 on three questions.

• Value: if this searcher booked, how much would it be worth to you? A corporate holiday party is worth more to a caterer than a backyard birthday.
• Intent: how close to hiring is this searcher? “Photo booth rental Oakville” scores 3. “Photo booth ideas” scores 1.
• Winnability: can you realistically rank? Look at who ranks now. If the first page is full of national directories and huge brands, score 1. If it is full of small local businesses with thin pages, score 3.

Multiply the three scores. A phrase scoring 27 is a priority. A phrase scoring 2 can wait. This is a judgment tool, not science, but it stops you spending a month on a phrase that would never pay.

Worked example: Lantern & Lane’s keyword map

Marco gathers 94 phrases from inquiries, autocomplete and Keyword Planner, scores them, and groups them into pages. The rule is one primary phrase per page, with close variants supporting it.

The last row is revealing. “Wedding planning timeline” is popular, but the results are dominated by national wedding sites, and the searcher is early and unfocused. Marco parks it. The coordination and small-wedding pages score as well as the main service page because fewer competitors have bothered to build them. Those become the first two pages Priya writes.

Avoid three common mistakes

• Two pages chasing one phrase. If your “Weddings” page and your “Wedding planning” page both target “wedding planner Toronto”, they compete with each other and both rank worse. Merge them, or give each a distinct phrase.
• Writing for the tool instead of the client. A phrase that reads awkwardly, such as “wedding planner Toronto cheap best”, should never appear word for word. Google understands natural language. Write the sentence a person would say.
• Ignoring tiny numbers. Local phrases often show very low volumes, or no volume at all, in keyword tools. A phrase searched 20 times a month by people ready to book a $4,000 service is worth more than one searched 2,000 times by students writing essays.

A template you can copy

Set up your keyword map with these columns: phrase; intent (hire, research, brand); value (1 to 3); intent score (1 to 3); winnability (1 to 3); total; current ranking page (if any); target page; notes on what currently ranks. Sort by total, then assign pages from the top down until every important phrase has a home.

Keep the map alive. Each quarter, add new phrases from recent inquiries and from Search Console, rescore anything that has moved, and note which pages now rank. A keyword map that is a year old describes last year’s clients. The next lesson turns each row of the map into a page title, a main heading and a set of subheadings, so keep the spreadsheet open.

In Canada and the GTA

Small numbers are normal here. Keyword tools report searches for the area you choose, and Canadian volumes are a fraction of American ones. A phrase that shows 30 searches a month for the Toronto area may be one of the most valuable phrases in your business. When you use Keyword Planner, set the location to the specific area you serve, such as Toronto or Ontario, rather than to all of Canada, and treat the figures as relative rather than exact.

Ontario vocabulary. Some event words are regional, and if you do not know them you will miss demand. In much of Ontario a fundraising party before a wedding is a stag and doe, sometimes called a Jack and Jill, and couples search for halls, DJs and supplies by that name. A banquet hall is the everyday word for a large event venue across much of the 905 region. Corporate buyers say holiday party more often than Christmas party, though both are searched. Write the words your local clients use, not the words a national template uses.

Cultural and community terms. The GTA’s wedding and celebration market is shaped by its communities, and their searches use specific words: mehndi, sangeet, baraat and walima; debut for an 18th birthday in Filipino families; quinceañera; bar and bat mitzvah; Chinese tea ceremony; Lunar New Year banquet; Eid celebration; Diwali party. Each term signals a client who wants a vendor who already understands the occasion. If you have real experience, a dedicated page for that occasion, with real photos and a clear account of what you did, can rank well against generic competitors. If you do not, do not create the page.

Place names that people actually type. GTA searchers use municipal names (Mississauga, Vaughan, Markham), former municipality names (Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough, East York), neighbourhood names (Liberty Village, the Distillery District, Yorkville, Leslieville) and venue districts. A loft venue may get more searches for “Liberty Village event space” than for “Toronto event space”. A catering company in Woodbridge may find “Vaughan” outperforms “Woodbridge”, or the reverse. Test both in autocomplete and Keyword Planner.

French and bilingual searches. If you serve Ottawa, eastern Ontario or national clients who work in French, research French phrases separately. Translating “wedding planner” gives you “planificatrice de mariage” or “organisatrice de mariage”, and real searchers use both. Do not machine-translate your keyword list and assume the volumes follow.

Seasonal research windows. Run your keyword research twice a year. Many GTA wedding searches build through winter after holiday engagements, while corporate holiday party searches build from late summer. Phrases that look dead in March may be your best phrases in September. Keep each year’s spreadsheet so you can compare, and note the month each phrase first appeared in your inquiries.

Brand names are not keywords to borrow. Do not build pages around another business’s name, such as “[Competitor] alternative”, or use a venue’s name in a way that suggests you are its official supplier when you are not. Representations that give a false impression of an affiliation can be misleading under the Competition Act. Naming a venue where you have genuinely worked, in an honest account of the event, is fine and often helpful. The Competition Bureau’s guidance on deceptive marketing practices sets out the general rules.

Free tools are enough. Paid keyword tools are useful for agencies but are rarely necessary for a single local event business. Your inquiries, autocomplete, People also ask, Keyword Planner and Search Console will give you a map good enough for the next year. Spend the money you save on photographing your work, which helps every page you build.

Worksheet

Download the worksheet and complete it for your own business, using Lantern & Lane as the model where it helps. Keep it with your marketing plan. It takes about 10 minutes.

Download the worksheet (PDF)