Start from the customer's own words

How to do it

Keyword tools show what many people search, but not how your buyers name their problem. Read support email, chat logs, call notes, reviews and the log of your site's search box. Write each phrase the way the customer said it, not in your product's terms. A buyer searches "oak floor turning grey", not "UV-stable hardwax oil". Group the phrases by the problem behind them. Each group becomes a seed term for Expand seed terms with free tools. Google's Search Essentials ask for exactly this, the words people would use to look for your content. Store site search terms without user IDs or IP addresses.

Examples

JavaScript example

// Count what visitors typed into the site search box
const counts = new Map();
for (const line of searchLog.split('\n').filter(Boolean)) {
  const phrase = line.trim().toLowerCase();
  counts.set(phrase, (counts.get(phrase) ?? 0) + 1);
}
const top = [...counts].sort((a, b) => b[1] - a[1]).slice(0, 50);

Python example

from collections import Counter

counts = Counter(line.strip().lower() for line in search_log.splitlines() if line.strip())
top = counts.most_common(50)

How to check

A keyword file in the repository or a shared sheet holds at least 50 phrases. Each phrase is tagged with its source (ticket, call, review or site search) and a problem group.

Sources

• Google Search Essentials – Key best practices

Related rules

• SEO-24 Expand seed terms with free tools in SEO
• DOC-26 Name help articles after the task people came to do in Documentation
• SUP-4 Tag every ticket with one contact reason in Customer support
• SUP-26 Fix the articles that end in tickets in Customer support