Keyword research guide: know your competitors first

Keyword research means finding the words your customers type into Google, then choosing the searches your site can actually win. This guide gives you the 8-step process I use, with a paid route and a free route for each step. It also covers what AI search changes (less than you've been told), how the local map pack changes things, and, if you serve French-speaking customers, why French keywords need their own research.

Who this is for: owners and marketers of small businesses, especially in Ottawa–Gatineau, choosing keywords for their own site.
Who it isn't for: large e-commerce sites with thousands of products. The steps still apply, but you'll need more tooling than this covers.

The process at a glance

Step 1: Start with the business, not the tool

If you open a keyword tool first, it will hand you thousands of ideas, and most of them will be useless to you. Start with three lists instead:

1. What you sell: every service, in plain words.
2. Where you sell it: Ottawa, Kanata, Orléans, Barrhaven, Gatineau, Aylmer, the whole NCR, or online across Canada.
3. What customers call it: ask the people who answer the phone, because customers rarely use the industry's words.

That third list matters most. Google says writing with your readers' words in mind "could produce positive effects," and that its language systems can connect your page to related wording even when you don't use the exact phrase. Confirmed–Google

When this fails: when your team's words win out over your customers'. Steps 2 and 3 will correct it.

Step 2: Check what you already rank for

Before you chase new keywords, look at the searches your site already appears for, because that's real data about your business, not an estimate.

Free route: Google Search Console's Performance report shows the queries people typed, plus your clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position. Confirmed–Google Sort by impressions and look for queries where you sit just off page one. Those are often your fastest wins. Our view

For AI search, Google now points to a separate Generative AI performance report in Search Console, which shows how your content does in AI features on Search and Discover. Confirmed–Google

Paid route: Semrush and Ahrefs estimate your rankings too. They're estimates, so trust Search Console's numbers for your own site. Our view

When this fails: a brand-new site has no data yet, so skip straight to step 3.

Step 3: Competitive research (the step I never skip)

“If I'm going to rank my clients on page one, have AI cite them, and beat their competitors, I need my research on them. How do you beat something you don't know?”

3a. Find your real competitors

Your search competitors are whoever ranks for your main keywords, and that's often not who you think. A renovation company may compete with the shop down the street in real life, but on Google it may be losing to a directory, a big-box store's how-to page and a contractor two cities away.

Free route: search your 5–10 most important keywords on Google and write down every site that shows up in the top 10 more than once. That's your real competitor list. A private window hides your history, but Google still uses your location, so search from (or set your location to) the area your customers are in.
Paid route: Semrush's and Ahrefs' competitor reports build this list for you.

3b. Keyword gap: what they rank for that you don't

Paid route: put your site and 3–5 competitors into Semrush's Keyword Gap or Ahrefs' Content Gap. You get the searches where they show up and you don't. Ahrefs' own guide recommends the same move. Confirmed–Industry
Free route: read each competitor's service pages and note the topics they cover that you don't. It's slower, but it works in small local markets.

3c. Their top pages

Paid route: both tools have a "top pages" report showing which competitor pages bring the most traffic.
Free route: Semrush and Ahrefs both offer limited free access; check their current limits. Or look at which competitor pages show up most often in your step 3a searches.

Then open those pages and ask why each one ranks. Is it a better answer, a price list, photos, reviews, a local angle?

3d. Backlink gap: who links to them but not to you

Paid route: Ahrefs' Link Intersect or Semrush's Backlink Gap shows sites that link to several competitors but not to you. Local ones (an industry association, a BIA, a local news site) are often the easiest to earn. Our view
Free route: there's no good free version. The closest is checking competitors' "as seen in," sponsor and association pages.

3e. Content gap: what their pages miss

This is where you win, so read their top pages and list what a customer would still need to know after reading them: prices, timelines, service in French, what's different in Gatineau. Your page covers those.

An illustration (not a client): a plumber in Orléans wants to rank for "plumber Ottawa." The live results show a map pack and city-wide companies with hundreds of reviews, so that's a long fight. Searches like "plumber Orléans" and "water heater replacement Orléans" are a different story: the competitors are other local shops, and their pages don't show prices or response times. That's the gap the new pages cover. To make sure those pages say something competitors can't, run them through the only-you test.

When this fails: if every top result is a national giant (a big retailer, a government page), that keyword may not be winnable for a small site. Pick a more specific or more local version of it.

Step 4: Check the live results

Tools tell you how many people search, but only the live results tell you what those people actually want. For each main keyword, note:

• What type of page ranks: a service page, a guide, a list, a directory.
• Whether the local map pack shows up (see 4a).
• Whether an AI Overview appears, and which pages it cites (see 4b).

Match your page to what's ranking. If Google shows the map pack and service pages, a 3,000-word blog post won't win that search. Our view

4a. When the map pack shows up

For searches like "plumber Orléans" or "comptable Gatineau," the map pack often sits above the regular results. Winning there depends on your Google Business Profile as much as your website. The local SEO guide covers the profile step by step.

Google says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and prominence. Complete, accurate business info helps you show up, and "more reviews and positive ratings can help your business's local ranking." Links to your business count toward prominence too. "There's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking." Confirmed–Google

What that means for keyword research Our view:

• Distance is part of the formula, so results in Ottawa and Gatineau can differ. Check both if you serve both.
• Customers search by neighbourhood (Kanata, Barrhaven, Hull, Aylmer, the Plateau). Note which ones bring up a map pack.
• Make sure your Business Profile category matches the main keyword group for each service.

4b. What AI search actually changes

Less than the hype says, and Google has said so directly. Here's what it has confirmed:

• Google's AI features "are rooted in our core Search ranking and quality systems." Confirmed–Google
• To be eligible, a page must be indexed and eligible to show in Search with a snippet, and your site must be included in Search generative AI features in Search Console. Confirmed–Google
• AI Overviews only appear when Google decides they add something, and they "often don't trigger." Confirmed–Google
• AI features may use query fan-out: "a set of concurrent, related queries" the model runs to get more information. Confirmed–Google
• You don't need llms.txt files, special schema markup, chunked content or a special writing style. Google Search ignores llms.txt. Confirmed–Google
• Google lists "providing a unique point of view" among the things that matter. Confirmed–Google

What that means for keyword research Our view:

1. When an AI Overview shows up, the keyword may bring fewer clicks even if you rank, so write that down next to it. Google says the clicks it does send are "higher quality." Confirmed–Google Independent data shows fewer clicks overall; see Is Google search going away?
2. Fan-out rewards pages that answer a topic's follow-up questions, not pages built around one exact phrase. That makes step 5 more important.

Don't forget Bing. Microsoft Copilot and Bing's AI summaries cite sources too. Since February 2026, Bing Webmaster Tools has an AI Performance report (in public preview). It shows a sample of how often your pages are cited and the phrases the AI used to find them. Confirmed–Industry It's free, so set it up. For how AI answers choose their sources, see AI search and GEO.

Step 5: Group by topic, then rank by business value

Put keywords that share the same intent into one group, and give each group one page. "Kitchen renovation cost Ottawa," "how much does a kitchen reno cost in Ottawa" and "Ottawa kitchen remodel price" are one search in different words, so they belong on one page.

Rank by value, not volume

A keyword searched 30 times a month by people ready to hire you beats one searched 3,000 times by students doing homework. Score each group with this scale Our view:

Work on 3s first. Ahrefs uses a similar 0–3 "business potential" score in its own guide. Confirmed–Industry

Three numbers worth reading

• Search volume: an estimate. Real local searches, especially in French, can show as zero or near zero in tools. Don't drop a keyword only for that. Our view
• Difficulty: each tool's guess at how hard it is to rank. Use it to compare keywords, not as a verdict. Our view
• Cost per click (CPC): what advertisers pay. A high CPC is a quick sign a search makes businesses money. Our view

Why one page per intent

Google's spam policies name doorway abuse: pages "created to rank for specific, similar search queries." Their example includes "pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page." Confirmed–Google

Twenty near-identical "plumber in [city]" pages is exactly that. Build one strong page per real service. Add a city page only when you have something real to say about that city.

Step 6: Map your keyword groups to your pages

Crawl your site so you can see every page you have. Screaming Frog's SEO Spider lists every URL, title and heading. The free version crawls up to 500 URLs, enough for most small business sites. Confirmed–Industry

Then, in a spreadsheet:

1. Give each keyword group one page.
2. Mark groups with no page; those are the new pages you need to write.
3. Mark pages chasing the same group, because they compete with each other. Merge them, or give each one a distinct job.

When this fails: skip this step and you'll write new pages that compete with old ones you forgot about. On an older site, this step usually finds a few. Our view

Step 7: Research French keywords separately (if you serve French speakers)

Skip this step if all your customers search in English. If you serve Gatineau, or run a bilingual site, don't translate your English keyword list. French searchers search in their own words, not in a translation of an English search. Our view

What Google confirms: it recommends a separate URL for each language version, works out a page's language from its visible content, and advises against mixing languages on one page. Confirmed–Google

How:

1. Repeat steps 1–4 in French. Ask your French-speaking customers and staff what they call your service.
2. Use Quebec French terms, not France French. Your customers will notice. Our view
3. Set your tool's database to Canada and look at the French keywords. Expect low or zero volumes; once your French pages are live, trust Search Console's data on them over tool estimates. Our view
4. In Google Trends, compare interest in Quebec against Ontario for your main French and English terms.
5. Search in French on Google and look at who ranks. Your French competitors may be different businesses from your English ones.

Need help with the French side? We do French keyword research on request.

Step 8: Check it worked

Give a new or updated page 60–90 days, then check. Our view

1. In Search Console, filter the Performance report by that page. Compare impressions and clicks for its keyword group with the period before.
2. Check the Generative AI performance report, and Bing's AI Performance report, for citations.
3. If nothing moved, go back to step 3. Usually a competitor's page still answers the search better.

For a full monthly check, not just one page, use the 6-number scorecard in the analytics guide.

Myths to skip

• Keyword density. There's no magic percentage. Google's spam policies name keyword stuffing, and its starter guide says repeating the same words "is tiring for users." Confirmed–Google
• The meta keywords tag. "Google Search doesn't use the keywords meta tag." Confirmed–Google
• Keywords in the domain name. Google says keywords in a domain name or URL "have hardly any effect beyond appearing in breadcrumbs." Confirmed–Google
• A page for every keyword variation. One page per intent (step 5).
• Special tricks for AI. Google says there are none (step 4b).

More myths, graded against Google's own documentation, in Google ranking factors.

Paid or free: what you actually need

About Keyword Planner: it's built for Google Ads, and Google asks for billing information to finish setting up the account. Confirmed–Google Accounts that spend little on ads may see search volume as broad ranges rather than exact numbers. Confirmed–Industry Use it for ideas and rough size.

I use Semrush, Ahrefs and Screaming Frog for client work. I have no paid relationship with any of them, and there are no affiliate links on this page.

Next step

Do steps 1 and 2 this week: write your three lists and open Search Console. In an hour you'll know more about your own site than a tool can tell you.

If you'd rather have it done, start with a free visibility audit. It includes a competitor check for your main keywords.

About this page

Who: Written by Khalid Mohamed, founder of CapitalSEO, who wrote the first version of this guide in 2015.
How: Rewritten from my 2015 guide with AI assistance. Every Google claim was checked against Google's own documentation on October 12, 2026, and labelled; opinions are labelled "Our view."
Why: To help a small business choose keywords it can actually win.
Last substantive update: October 12, 2026: full rewrite. Competitive research is now the core step; added the map pack, AI search, French research, measurement and current tools. Old unsourced statistics removed.

Sources

• Google Search Central — Optimizing your website for generative AI features (updated July 10, 2026)
• Google Search Central — AI features and your website (updated December 10, 2025)
• Google Search Central — SEO Starter Guide (updated December 10, 2025)
• Google Search Central — Spam policies for Google web search (updated August 28, 2026)
• Google Search Central — Managing multi-regional and multilingual sites (updated December 10, 2025)
• Google Business Profile Help — Tips to improve your local ranking on Google
• Google Search Console Help — Performance report (Search results)
• Google Ads Help — Use Keyword Planner
• Bing Webmaster Blog — Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools Public Preview (February 10, 2026)
• Ahrefs — Keyword Research: The Beginner's Guide (updated December 5, 2024)
• Screaming Frog — SEO Spider
• Search Engine Land — Google officially throttling Keyword Planner data for low-spending AdWords accounts (August 13, 2016)