Chapter 06 · Keyword map
A keyword map for a moving company
A keyword map is a sheet that assigns every search you want to win to exactly one page on your site. For a mover, most searches combine three parts: a service (local move, long-distance move, packing, storage), a place (city, neighborhood, county or “near me”), and an intent (hire now, compare prices, plan the move, check a company). Fill the sheet from your own data first: the queries in Search Console's Performance report and the search terms in your Business Profile performance report (Search Console Help; Business Profile Help).
The three columns
| Part | Examples for a mover | Where the list comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Service | local moving, long-distance moving, interstate moving, packing, unpacking, storage, office moving, piano moving, loading help, senior moves | Your price sheet and the services you actually staff. |
| Place | your home city, nearby cities you serve, well-known neighborhoods, county names, “near me” | Pickup towns in your job records and your Business Profile service areas. |
| Intent | hire, price, plan, check | The words around the search, explained below. |
Leave out services you do not offer and places you do not serve. A page that ranks for a job you turn down costs you time on the phone.
Reading intent from the words
| Intent | Typical wording | Page that should answer |
|---|---|---|
| Hire | “movers [city]”, “moving company near me”, “packing service [city]” | Service page or city page with a quote form and phone number. |
| Price | “how much do movers cost [city]”, “cost to move a 2 bedroom apartment” | A page that explains how you price moves and what changes the price. |
| Plan | “how to pack dishes for moving”, “moving checklist”, “do I need a parking permit for a moving truck [city]” | A guide or checklist that links to the relevant service. |
| Check | “[your company] reviews”, “[your company] USDOT”, “is [your company] licensed” | Homepage, about page and contact page with your registration details and review links. |
The price row is where invented numbers creep in. Explain what drives your price, such as crew size, hours, distance, stairs, packing and dates, and quote ranges only if they come from your own price sheet.
Where to find real searches
- Search Console Performance report. Group by query to see the searches that already show your site, with clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position. Group by page to see which page Google picks for each query (Performance report (Search results)).
- Business Profile performance report. Shows the search terms people used to find your profile, updated monthly (Understand your Business Profile performance & insights).
- Your phones and forms. Ask callers what they searched for. Read the free-text boxes on your quote form.
- Google Trends. Useful for comparing two phrasings or seeing seasonal shape. Trends shows relative interest scaled 0 to 100, not search counts, so never read its numbers as volumes (FAQ about Google Trends data).
- Keyword research tools. Paid and free tools estimate search volume. Treat their numbers as estimates from a third party, and remember Google says outside tools do not have access to its internal ranking data (Google Search Central).
Build the sheet
Use one row per search pattern, not one row per word variation. Columns:
| Search pattern | Service | Place | Intent | Assigned page | Evidence | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| movers [home city] | Local moving | Home city | Hire | Homepage | Search Console query | Live |
| long distance movers [home city] | Long-distance | Home city | Hire | Long-distance service page | Calls asking about out-of-state moves | Rewrite |
| movers [nearby city] | Local moving | Nearby city | Hire | City page | Booked jobs from that city | To write |
| how much do movers cost [home city] | Local moving | Home city | Price | Pricing guide | Quote form comments | To write |
| [your company] reviews | All | None | Check | Homepage and reviews section | Profile search terms | Live |
The evidence column keeps the sheet honest. If you cannot point to a query, a call, a job or a profile search term, mark the row as a guess and check it again in a few months.
One page per search
When two of your pages answer the same search, Google chooses which one to show, and it may not be the one you would pick. Search Console shows the overlap: open a query, then switch to the pages view to see every page that appeared for it. If several pages share one query, keep the best one, strengthen it, and merge or redirect the others. Chapter 5 covers this for city pages.
Use the map to write
Each assigned page should use the customer's own words in the title, the main heading and the opening paragraph, then answer the question fully. Google's starter guide tells site owners to think about the words a person might search for to find the content, and warns that repeating the same words over and over is tiring for readers and against its spam policies (SEO Starter Guide).
Work order
Do these in order
- Export your queriesSearch Console Performance report, grouped by query and by page.
- Copy your profile search termsFrom the Business Profile performance report.
- List services and placesOnly services you staff and towns you serve.
- Write search patternsCombine service, place and intent into one row each.
- Assign one page per rowMark pages that exist, need rewriting, or need writing.
- Record the evidenceQuery, call, job record or profile search term for each row.
- Fix overlapsWhere two pages share a query, keep one and merge the other.
Chapter 06 sign-off
Keyword map
- Every row has a service, place and intent.
- Only services you offer and places you serve appear.
- Each row is assigned to exactly one page.
- Each row shows its evidence source.
- No search volume figure is presented as fact without a named source.
- Google Trends numbers are read as relative interest, not counts.
- Overlapping pages found in Search Console are merged or redirected.
- Assigned pages use the customer’s wording in title, heading and opening.
Every line true for your company · print this page to keep it with the chapter
Sources
- 01Performance report (Search results) · Search Console Help
- 02Understand your Business Profile performance & insights · Google Business Profile Help
- 03FAQ about Google Trends data · Trends Help
- 04Do you need an SEO? · Google Search Central
- 05SEO Starter Guide · Google Search Central