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Keyword research using Google Trends and Google Search


Google Search result showing business listings

As this site is meant to be a portfolio I decided to focus my keyword research on topics that might attract potential clients.


I started by searching Google Trends to find the broadest keyword that people might search for: Web Designer, Website Designer, Web Developer, and Website Developer. Both Worldwide and US web searches over the past 12 months showed 'Web Developer' to be the most popular term out of this group.


To avoid potential language barriers I then drilled down on US-only results. In the Related Queries section of each term's results I found some other useful keywords: Shopify Web Designer, Small Business Website Designer, Magento Web Developer, Web Content Developer, and Wordpress Website Developer. While I am fairly comfortable with Wordpress these queries revealed to me other platforms that I should look into, as people are searching for those specialized developers.


Next I used a seemingly obvious tool: Google Search. More specifically I made use of Google Search's Autocomplete feature to show related queries that didn't appear in Trends. Queries related to 'Website Developer' were obviously generated by potential job seekers, who are not my target audience. I decided to specify my keyword search with 'Hire A Web Developer' which lead to more potentials. 'Hire A Web Developer For Startup' was a popular search, so I could add keywords related to 'Startup' on a targeted landing page. The term 'Hire A Web Developer Or Do It Yourself' could be the topic of a blog post that gives the pros and cons and of course encourages the reader to hire me.


Google Search results showing freelance directory and business review websites

Lastly I did a Google Search for 'Web Developer Near Me' in order to see how other freelancers and agencies are ranking. Google however suggested 'Web Designer Near Me' and 'Web Designer San Francisco' as better queries. Google Maps and Business listings are featured prominently on the results page, so obviously it would be beneficial to setup a business profile with Google. A few individual and agency sites also appeared in the results, however most of the results were actually blogs and freelancer platforms. It could be worth the time to send an email to these bloggers once my site is established, and to create business profiles on these hiring and review sites, such as UpWork, Thumbtack, and Yelp.


Keyword List: