Keyword Analysis – a practical guide for Irish businesses

Keyword Analysis or Keyword Analytics

A keyword or keyword phrase is the term someone types into Google, ChatGPT or any other search tool when they are looking for a service. The search engine results display web pages SERPs which are most relevant to the keyword used. It is important to do your keyword research to identify and utilise keywords effectively on your web pages to improve Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to help you get found. For a business in Dublin, whether you are based near the Grand Canal Dock, in Raheny or across the city centre, getting this right determines whether your website appears to the right people or to nobody at all. The same applies along the Wild Atlantic Way, for firms in Letterkenny, Donegal town or Bundoran. The right keywords bring the right clients to your door. The wrong ones bring silence. This guide covers how to find them, which tools help and how to structure your content so it shows up whether someone is searching on Google or asking an AI tool.

What keyword analysis actually means for an Irish business

Most people start with the obvious terms. A solicitor off Grafton Street types ‘solicitor Dublin’ into a spreadsheet and calls it keyword research. A financial adviser in Letterkenny tries ‘financial advice Donegal’. Both are a starting point, not a strategy. Real keyword analysis is about understanding which terms your ideal clients actually use when they are looking for what you do, in the location you serve, at the moment they are ready to act.

For professional services firms in Ireland, this usually means moving away from single word terms and towards more specific phrases. ‘Conveyancing solicitor Dublin 2’ tells Google and AI search tools far more than ‘solicitor’ does. It also tells you more. If people are searching for that exact phrase, they know what they want and they are close to making a decision. That is the kind of traffic worth having.

Every page on your website should be optimised for one keyword or key phrase. To let Google, Bing, SearchGPT or any search engine know which term you want to rank for, that keyword needs to appear in the right places on the page. See our on page SEO guide for the full list.

Different Types of Keywords

A single Seed Keyword

A seed keyword is a one word keyword that is a noun or entity such as ‘painter’. These are usually the easiest to come up with. Just add the ones you think of and ask your team or customers, which words or terms would they use when searching for your service or product.

Variant Keywords

A Variant keyword is a keyword that uses a different suffix or prefix but is still related to a seed keyword such as “painting”

Adjective Based Keyword

An adjective-based or descriptive keyword is a keyword that pairs with an adjective such as “Best Painter” or “Professional Painter”

Interrogative Based Keyword

An interrogative-based keyword is a keyword that pairs with an interrogative or question with who, what, when, where, why, and how, such as “How to be a painter”

Location-Based Keyword

A location-based keyword is a keyword that pairs with a location. An example would be “Dublin Painter” or “Donegal Painter”

Keyword “Modifiers” is a term for any word that helps modify the head-noun or entity of a keyword such as size, location, colour, etc.

“Long tail keywords” is a term for any phrase that contains a keyword, paired with adjectives, interrogatives, locations, etc.

This a simple guide with some keyword analysis tools and tips.

Keyword Research Tools – FREE and Paid

Start with Google. Make a list of the keywords that seem logical to you or your clients. These are your seeds. Type the first one into Google and watch the autocomplete suggestions. Google is showing you what people actually search for most often. Search ‘web design agency’ from Dublin and it suggests ‘web design agency Dublin’ and ‘web design agency Donegal’. Search from Letterkenny and the local suggestions shift again. That is free research, available to anyone.

Scroll to the bottom of the results page and look at the Searches Related To section. These are the related terms most popular in your geographic area at the time of your search. The results differ if you are searching from the Docklands versus Donegal town, which is exactly why local keyword research matters for businesses serving specific parts of Ireland.

Also look at the People Also Ask boxes in the results. These are the questions Google is already surfacing for your topic. If you answer them clearly on your page, you are in the running for both featured snippets and Google AI Overview citations, which now appear above all organic results for many searches.

Some other FREE Keyword Analytics options include:

Ubersuggest which is a tool from Neil Patel offering a lot for little or no money. He is looking for the big companies or agencies, so he is offering this platform to attract a lot of users and become the go to option of the experts. People will learn to do keyword analytics using this tool and will want to use it wherever they go as they progress in their career.

Ahrefs Keyword Generator – A useful FREE tool. They also offer a more complex tool from $89 a month.

Answer The Public This pulls aggregated data from a multiple of search engines like Google, but critically it is not just Google and makes suggestions for you to use.

Keyword Sheeter A new kid on the block, which will grade the difficulty to rank for a keyword or term. for a way of getting suggestions on your term.

Also Asked which tells you what else people searched that relates to your term. It is a bit different to Answer the Public which spews out data rather than suggestions.  You can even select your country for more refined results in your own market. Or pick another target country if you plan to export.

Surfer SEO is a paid tool however it does offer a useful Chrome extension which throws up some good stats on search volumes

Keywords Everywhere – Another FREE Chrome or Firefox extension that gives you trends and related keywords. The paid version starts at $10 for 100,000 credits.

Question Database – A Free and paid tool. Their pitch is “Find Ideas that Traditional Keyword Tools Miss”. However to get any decent results you can expect to pay at least $15 a month.

Remember that as you start typing any term in a Google search, it will start showing you suggestions. And at the top and/or bottom of the page it will show you ‘people also asked’ showing some related terms that have been searched by others. This is a good start for many people when doing initial keyword analysis.

Tip: Look at your competitors websites to see which keywords they are focusing on. Pick a competitor and do a ‘site:’ search as in go to Google and type in  site:https://meanit.ie/  with the colon and you will get a list of all the pages on that website. You will also see the Page Titles and Meta Description for each page which will tell you a lot about the keywords and phrases being optimised by that web design company.
Note: Sometimes Google delivers content from the top of the web page in SERPs rather than the actual Meta Description you specifically created. So they should read the same more or less. Again Google is trying to deliver the best result here too.

Tip: Lots of people target a very short or generic keyword or keyphrase such as ‘Financial Advice’ or ‘Solicitor’ and wonder why they do not rank in their area. Targeting the right search terms for your industry in your geographic area is critical to get found for the service you offer, where you offer it. Focus on long tail keywords/phrases such as ‘Financial Advice Waterford’ or ‘Solicitor in Athlone’. Or get even more focused such as ‘Conveyancing Solicitor Athlone’. Back this up by having great content on each page, explain what you are offering in simple terms, ask and answer any common questions. Add case studies or testimonials and reviews on  how you delivered this service for other people. This is your social proof. Give as much price guidance as you can. Finally add one clear call to action to let people know what to do next.

Paid Keyword Analytics or Keyword Research Tools

When you are ready to get serious with keyword analysis, to do battle with the competition, you can invest in more powerful tools for your company or agency. Any FREE tools are always limited. Or they are there to get you hooked on a platform, so that they can upsell you to a paid version. Paid options include:

SEMRush – Based in Boston, it sells online visibility and marketing analytics software subscriptions from around $100 a month minimum for one user. It allows you track your performance and that of any competitors. You can do website audits to get suggestions. And you can use it to find backlink opportunities or see which backlinks your competitors have to their website.

Majestic -This is ostensibly a backlinks checker from €47 a month. It does not give a guide on keyword difficulty or search volumes or anything else.

KWFinder – This popular keyword research tool from $29 monthly from Mangools

Mangools – helps find long-tail keywords with supposedly low SEO difficulty, much like Ubersuggest. The price starts at $29 a month, but expect to pay $79. This Mangools suite also offers SERP analysis, Backlink Checker and Website Analysis as well as Rank Checking.

Ahrefs – A competitor of Mangools, this is a toolset for backlinks and SEO analysis. Starting at $99 per month it offers an alert functionality to let you know when you move up or down etc.

Keywordtool.io -This has a FREE version and a paid version from $159 a month. It uses Google Autocomplete to generate relevant long-tail keywords for any topic

SpyFu – Shows the keywords that other competing websites buy on Google Ads as well as the keywords that websites are showing up for within search results. Literally spy on your competitors.

Serp Stat – From $69 a month. Try it for free with no credit card required.

The list goes on, so do a search if you want more. Even ChatGPT can be used to do some of the tasks that you will want to do.

Keyword Mapping Tool

Next steps  If you want to practice, pick a suitable keyword or phrase and do a Google search to find out where you rank currently or who ranks on page 1. Then optimise your website page to improve your ranking for the key term. Use a simple Keyword Mapping Tool or Spreadsheet to measure performance. We developed our own proprietary version which we customise for each of our SEO clients.

You do not need paid tools to do this research, but they are useful if you are doing this work as a professional in an agency setting. Stick with the FREE tools until you can use them to a point where you feel you need serious tools, then invest a few hundred dollars a month, but be prepared to work. They are ‘tools’ and require time to master and use in order to make the investment worth it.

This is all a part of your overall SEO or Search Engine Optimisation strategy – if you want to read more about SEO see our comprehensive What is SEO Guide here.

Competition

You can do a search for a keyword or keyphrase and see who ranks on page 1. Pick one of these listings that is of interest to you and visit the site to see why they rank so well. You will be able to see how they structured the url and the headings, the number of words they used, the number of images and any video. You can do a word count to determine how long the article is. You can do a word search to see how may times they use the keyword or phrase and their various synonyms. In order to rank higher, all you have to do is create a better page, more words, more images, more links whatever. Just be better to rank higher. Give the new post some time to rank, it is not immediate. You will also have to promote each new post, possibly sharing the direct link in posts in your social media channels. Encourage shares and likes when you post.

The bottom line on keyword research

There is no shortcut. You build a list, check the volumes, look at who already ranks and decide whether you can create a better page. Then you do it and you wait. Keyword research without content is just a spreadsheet. Content without keyword research is guesswork.

For a business in Dublin targeting professional services clients near the IFSC, Ballsbridge or further out towards Clontarf and Raheny, the sweet spot is usually 10 to 20 specific phrases. Some local, some question based, some comparing your service against alternatives. The same logic applies in Donegal, whether your clients are in Letterkenny, Buncrana or the Inishowen Peninsula. You need phrases that match how people in those areas actually search, not phrases that look good on a generic keyword plan.

If you want us to run this analysis for your business, get in touch. It is one of the first things we do for every new SEO client.