Key takeaways
- A 2026 keyword research workflow for UK small businesses using only free tools, built around search intent, topic clusters and questions people ask AI.
- Google Search Console is the best free keyword tool, because it shows the exact searches your site already appears for, with the demand proven and the intent high.
- Sort keywords by search intent before you write. A buying-intent search needs a focused service page; a research question needs a helpful article, and mixing them wastes both.
- Group keywords into topic clusters around the entities your customers care about, so each page has one clear job and the site reads as an authority on its subject.
- Extend the same list to AI. The questions people ask ChatGPT and Google's AI answers are keyword research too, and autocomplete and People Also Ask reveal them free.
Keyword research is the work of finding the words, phrases and questions your customers actually use, so you can build pages that match them. In 2026 you can do all of it with free tools: Google Search Console, autocomplete and People Also Ask, Keyword Planner, Google Trends and a handful of free tiers, with no paid subscription required. The paid platforms are faster and tidier, and we use them in client work, but for most UK small businesses the free stack is more than enough to find the searches worth having and to turn them into a plan.
The tools are the easy part. The value is in the order you work in. Anyone can export a list of a thousand keywords, and most of it is noise. What matters is starting from demand you can prove, grouping words by what the searcher wants, and organising them into clusters so each page has one clear job. This guide walks through that workflow with free tools only, then extends it to the questions people now ask AI assistants, because being found in Google and in AI answers is really the same job done once.
The free stack, at a glance
A small set of free tools, most of them from Google, covers demand, phrasing, rough volume and direction between them. No single one gives the whole picture, so the sensible approach is to combine two or three and let their strengths cover each other’s gaps.
Here is the stack we would hand a small business starting from nothing.
| Free tool | What it is good for | Good to know |
|---|---|---|
| Google Search Console | The searches you already appear for, and quick wins sitting on page two | Needs your site verified; only shows queries you already get impressions for |
| Google autocomplete and People Also Ask | Real phrasing and the follow-up questions people ask, straight from Google | Qualitative, with no volume numbers attached |
| Google Keyword Planner | Rough monthly search volumes and related terms | Needs a free Google Ads account; volumes come in broad bands unless you are spending |
| Google Trends | Whether interest in a topic is rising or falling, plus seasonality | Shows relative interest over time, not absolute volume |
| AnswerThePublic or AlsoAsked (free tier) | Question and comparison variations clustered around a topic | Free tiers cap how many searches you run a day |
| Bing Webmaster Tools | A free second source of query and volume data | A smaller dataset than Google, but a useful cross-check |
| Keyword Surfer and similar free add-ons | Rough volumes shown next to results as you search normally | Estimates only, best treated as a quick sense check |
Google’s own free tools do most of the work, and the rest confirm a hunch or fill a gap.
Start with Search Console
Google Search Console is the best free keyword tool there is, because it shows the exact searches your site already appears for. This is proven demand from real people, attached to your own pages, which makes it the cheapest and highest-intent place to start.
Open the Performance report, which is Google’s own record of how you show up in search (see Google’s Performance report guide). The Queries tab lists every search term that brought up your site, with impressions, clicks and your average position for each. Two patterns are worth hunting for straight away.
First, the quick wins. Sort by impressions and look for queries where you rank around positions 8 to 20. Google already shows you for these, so a stronger page, a better title or a dedicated section can often nudge them onto page one, where the clicks are. Second, the content gaps: queries you never deliberately targeted, phrases people used to find you by accident. Each one is a hint at a page you could write on purpose.
For a focused view, go to the Pages report, pick a single URL, then open its Queries tab to see exactly what that page ranks for. It is the fastest way to spot a page trying to do three jobs at once, which is a cue to split it.
Mine autocomplete and People Also Ask
Google’s own search box is a free keyword tool, because autocomplete and People Also Ask show you how real people phrase things and what they ask next. No export, no login, just the words straight from the source.
Start typing a core service into Google and watch the predictions appear. These are based on real searches people actually run, so they are a live read on common phrasing. Repeat with different starting letters and you pull a fresh set each time. The “People Also Ask” boxes and the related searches at the foot of the results page do the same job for questions, showing the follow-ups Google associates with your topic.
Collect these as you go. The questions make natural headings and FAQ entries; the phrasings tell you the exact words to use rather than the ones you assume. To do this at scale, free tiers of AnswerThePublic and AlsoAsked cluster the questions and comparisons around a seed term, within a daily limit. It is qualitative work, with no volume attached, but it is often where the most useful, lower-competition phrases come from.
Add volume with Keyword Planner and Trends
Keyword Planner gives you rough search volumes for free, and Google Trends tells you which way a topic is heading. Together they turn a long list of ideas into a shortlist you can prioritise.
Keyword Planner sits inside Google Ads, and a free account reaches it without running a single advert. Google’s own guide to Keyword Planner covers the setup. Use the “Discover new keywords” option to expand a seed term into related ideas, each with an estimated monthly volume and a rough competition rating. One honest caveat: unless you are actively spending, volumes show as broad bands rather than exact figures, which is fine for sorting big from small at this stage.
Then sanity-check direction with Google Trends. Volume tells you how many people search a term now; Trends tells you whether that number is climbing, flat or fading, and whether it spikes at certain times of year. A term with modest volume but a clear upward line can be a better bet than a bigger term in slow decline. For a UK business, set the region to the United Kingdom so you are reading your own market, not a global average.
Sort every keyword by intent
Before you write anything, sort your keywords by search intent, which is what the person actually wants when they type the words. Two searches with similar wording can need completely different pages, and mixing them up is the most common reason good keywords never convert.
Intent usually falls into four rough buckets. Informational searches (“how to”, “why”, “what is”) want to understand something. Commercial searches (“best”, “reviews”, “vs”) are comparing before they buy. Transactional and local searches (“near me”, “book”, “price”, “quote”) are ready to act. Navigational searches are looking for a specific brand or page. Someone searching “emergency electrician Leicester” wants to book now; someone searching “why does my fuse box keep tripping” wants an explanation and might become a customer later.
Match the page to the intent. Buying-intent terms belong on clear, focused service pages; questions belong in genuinely helpful articles. Google is explicit that the content that wins is written for people first, not reverse-engineered for a search engine, so lead with the answer and write plainly. We cover how intent shapes your core pages in our guide to SEO for small business.
Group keywords into topic and entity clusters
Once your keywords are sorted by intent, group them into topic clusters, so a single pillar page covers a subject broadly and supporting pages go deep on each part. This stops you writing five thin pages that compete with each other, and it signals to search engines that you genuinely cover the subject.
A cluster is simply a main page on a broad topic, linked to focused pages on the specific questions and services beneath it, all pointing back to the pillar. It concentrates authority where you want it rather than scattering it across competing pages. Keyword research feeds this directly: your head terms become pillars, and the long-tail questions from autocomplete and Search Console become the cluster pages.
It helps to think in entities, not just strings of words. An entity is a thing a search engine recognises, such as a place, a service or a company, and the systems behind modern search are built on a Knowledge Graph of these entities and how they relate. Covering a topic and its related entities thoroughly is what builds real authority. If you want a hand turning a keyword map into a publishing plan, that is the heart of our content strategy work.
Extend the list to AI search
The questions people type into ChatGPT, Gemini and Google’s AI answers are keyword research too, and the free tools you already have reveal most of them. Being found in Google and in AI answers is one job, and your keyword list is where it starts.
People phrase things differently to an assistant, asking fuller, more conversational questions with context attached: not “CRM software” but “what is the best CRM for a small plumbing firm in the UK”. Those are the same follow-up questions autocomplete and People Also Ask already surface, so the work overlaps almost entirely. Capture the long, specific, question-shaped phrases, because that is what an assistant is trying to answer.
Then write so a machine can lift a clean answer. Lead each section with a direct, self-contained response, use question-shaped headings, and keep your facts in plain text rather than buried in images. That same answer-first habit helps you in ordinary search and gets you quoted in AI answers at the same time. We set out the full method, including how to check whether an assistant ever names you, in our guide to answer engine optimisation.
Turn the list into a plan
The workflow is the point, not any single tool: start with proven demand, add phrasing and volume, sort by intent, cluster, map to pages, then extend to AI. Do that in order and a free toolkit will take you a long way.
A simple rhythm keeps it going. Begin in Search Console with what you already rank for, pull phrasing and questions from autocomplete and People Also Ask, then size the opportunities with Keyword Planner and Trends. Sort everything by intent, group it into clusters, map each cluster to a page, and write the ones with the clearest buying intent first. Revisit Search Console every month or two to see what new queries have appeared and which page-two terms are ready for a push.
If you would rather have someone do this with you, that is a core part of how we work. Book a free growth review and we will show you the quickest keyword wins hiding in your own Search Console, or read how we approach the wider programme on our SEO services page. You are also welcome to just get in touch and ask.