Keyword research and backlinks: what each one does for your site

Keyword research and backlinks are two SEO jobs a business owner is often offered, and both are worth understanding before you pay for either. Keyword research is finding the words your customers type into Google, so that your pages can answer them. Backlinks are links from other websites to yours. They help Google find your pages, and they are one of the things it looks at when it judges a page’s quality.

Both jobs are plainer than the sales emails make them sound, and you can start both with tools from Google itself. This guide explains each job, shows where the risks are, and points to two longer guides: keyword research for a small business, and which backlinks help, and why buying them backfires. If SEO itself is new to you, start with what SEO is.

What is keyword research?

Keyword research is the work of finding out which words and phrases people type into a search engine when they are looking for what you sell, and then deciding which of those searches deserve a page on your site. The result is a short list of searches, each one matched to the page that should answer it.

It matters because customers rarely use the words a business uses about itself. Google’s SEO starter guide gives the example of people searching for “charcuterie” while others search for “cheese board”, and advises you to think about the words a user might search for to find your content. A plumber’s website may say “hot water cylinder maintenance” while the customer types “geyser repair”.

The words on the page still count. Google’s explanation of how results are ranked calls it the most basic signal of relevance: content that contains the same keywords as the search. It adds that a page might be more relevant if those keywords appear in its headings or body text.

That does not mean chasing every variation. The starter guide says Google’s language matching systems can understand how a page relates to many searches, even if the page doesn’t use the exact terms.

How do you find the keywords your customers use?

Start with your customers, then check your guesses against Google’s own tools. Write down what you sell in the words customers use on the phone and in emails. See which searches already show your site in Search Console. Look at what Google suggests as you type. Then compare the phrases in Keyword Planner and Google Trends.

One caution about checking your own position by searching. Google’s page on the Performance report says that even if a search appears in your list, you might not see your site when you run the same search yourself, because results are specific to the time, place, device and recent history of the person searching. Read the report, and do not judge by what your own phone shows you.

Our guide to Google Search Console for business owners shows where the Performance report is and how to read it. The supporting guide to keyword research for a small business works through the whole method with an example.

How do you choose which keywords to go after?

Choose the searches made by people who are close to buying what you sell, in the area you serve, where you can give a better answer than the pages already showing. A phrase searched less often, but by the right people, is worth more to a business than a popular phrase searched by everyone.

Put three questions to every phrase on your list.

• Who is searching, and what do they want? Someone typing “what is a geyser element” wants an explanation. Someone typing “geyser repair Midrand” wants a plumber today. Both are worth answering, but only one of them is about to spend money.
• What is already on the first page? Search the phrase and look. If every result is a national retailer or a directory, a small business’s page has a hard job. If the results are thin or out of date, there is room.
• Which of your pages answers it? Each search on your list needs one page whose job is to answer it. If no page does, that is a page to write. If three pages half-answer it, that is a page to tidy up.

A list made this way is a list of customer questions, not a list of words to insert. Google’s guidance on helpful, people-first content recommends content created primarily for people, rather than search engine-first content made primarily to gain rankings.

A keyword list belongs inside a plan. An SEO plan for a small business sets out what to do first and what can wait.

Where do keywords go on a page?

In the places a reader looks first: the page title, the main heading, the subheadings and the opening paragraph, written as ordinary sentences. Use the customer’s phrase where it fits naturally, then answer the question behind it. One clear page about one subject does more than the same phrase repeated in every paragraph.

The title deserves the most care. The starter guide says Google generates the title of a search result from a few sources, including the page’s title element and other headings on the page. Every Business and Professional website we build has an SEO plugin set up, so that each page can carry its own title and description. Our guide to WordPress SEO covers what a site should already be doing.

The starter guide also lists keyword habits you shouldn’t focus on. One of them is against Google’s rules.

One example of keyword stuffing is common on South African service websites. Google’s spam policies list “blocks of text that list cities and regions that a web page is trying to rank for”. A paragraph of suburb names at the bottom of a page is that block. A page about the work you did in one suburb is not.

What are backlinks, and why do they matter?

A backlink is a link on a page of another website that leads to a page on yours. Backlinks matter for two reasons. Google finds most new pages by following links. And whether other prominent websites link to a page is one of the factors Google uses to judge the page’s quality.

The definition follows Google’s own, on the help page for Search Console’s Links report. The starter guide gives the first reason. It says Google primarily finds pages through links from pages it has already crawled, and that the vast majority of the new pages it finds every day are found through links.

The second reason is in Google’s explanation of how results are ranked. One of the factors used to determine quality is whether other prominent websites link or refer to the content, which it calls generally a good sign that the information is trustworthy. Note the wording: one factor, and prominent websites. A link from a site nobody reads is not the same thing.

Which backlinks help, and which can harm your site?

Links that someone chose to give, because your page was useful to their readers, help. Links made mainly to move rankings can harm. Google’s spam policies call that link spam, and their examples include buying links, excessive link exchanges and using automated programs to create links to your site.

Most link offers that reach a business owner’s inbox match one of those examples.

Paying for an advert or a sponsorship is a different matter. The same policies say Google understands that buying and selling links is a normal part of the web’s economy for advertising and sponsorship, and that such links are not a violation as long as they are marked as paid, with a “nofollow” or “sponsored” attribute. Marking the link is the publisher’s job. Ask for it in writing before you pay.

The cost of getting this wrong is set out in Google’s Manual actions report help page. Buying links or taking part in link schemes can result in some or all of a site getting a manual action, and most manual actions result in pages or sites being ranked lower or omitted from the results.

Links can also be placed on your site without your knowledge. Google’s spam policies deal with that under hacked content, which they define as any content placed on a site without permission, due to vulnerabilities in a site’s security. Xscape4u was referred to us after a compromise: the site was being injected with links to offshore casino sites. We rebuilt the entire platform, left the hacked content out, and delivered it clean, with encryption and Wordfence. Our guide to SEO-spam hacks and casino redirects explains how that happens.

The supporting guide on backlinks goes further into which links are worth having. If the offer in front of you is a low monthly price for a fixed number of links, read low-cost SEO offers: what you are really buying first.

How do you check the backlinks to your site?

Open the Links report in Google Search Console. It shows which sites link to you the most, which of your pages have the most links, and the text other sites use in their links. Google says the report is a sample and not a comprehensive list, and that it includes links found over time which may since have been removed.

Google’s help page suggests three things to look for:

• Do you recognise the sites? Confirm that you know the sites that link to you the most.
• Are the sites that matter to you there? Google’s example is a restaurant checking whether food blogs and review sites mention it. For you it might be a supplier, an industry body or the local press.
• Does the link text describe you accurately? Confirm that other sites describe your site accurately. If they don’t, Google says you might need to clarify your site’s content.

If you find links you don’t recognise, don’t panic, and don’t pay for a clean-up on the strength of a list. Google’s page on disavowing links says that in most cases it can assess which links to trust without additional guidance, so most sites will not need the tool. It calls disavowing an advanced feature that can harm a site’s performance if used incorrectly. Google says to disavow only when a site has a considerable number of spammy links and those links have caused a manual action, or are likely to.

So anyone selling you a link clean-up owes you two answers in writing: which links, and what evidence that they are harming the site.

How do you earn backlinks without buying them?

By being worth linking to, and by making sure the right people know your site exists. Google’s SEO starter guide says links from other sites come naturally over time, and suggests promoting your site through social media, community engagement, advertising and word of mouth. It also warns that search engines may see overdone promotion as manipulation.

For an established business, the honest sources of links are usually close at hand: suppliers, associations you belong to, customers and partners, and people who write about your field. The guide to backlinks takes each source in turn.

None of this is quick. The starter guide calls word of mouth one of the most effective and lasting ways to promote a site, and says it can take time.

Should you do keyword research and link work yourself?

You can do much of it yourself. Google’s page on whether you need an SEO says that if you run a small local business, you can probably do much of the work yourself. It also lists keyword research among the useful services SEOs provide, for owners who would rather hand it over.

If you hire someone, that page gives questions to ask. For these two jobs, add your own, and ask for the answers in writing:

• Which searches will you target, and why those?
• Where will links to my site come from, and will any of them be paid for?
• What will the monthly report show?

Our guide to backlinks has the full set of questions for link work.

Google’s page also says to be wary of SEO firms that email you out of the blue, and that if someone guarantees first place in the results, you should find someone else. Our guide on how to choose an SEO company has the full list of questions.

Our own SEO work begins with an audit, and you decide what happens after it. The SEO audit costs R6,500 incl. VAT and takes about a week. Its on-page part asks whether each page makes clear what it offers, in the words your customers search with. Its competitor part asks who appears where you want to be, and what their pages have that yours don’t. We also map each search you want to be found for to a page, and review your backlinks and Manual actions report through read-only Search Console access. Our guide to what a proper SEO audit covers has the detail. See a sample audit report (a fictional example).

The monthly retainer starts from R7,500 a month incl. VAT, with a six-month minimum, and link acquisition is part of it. That starts with free routes: reclaiming lost links and unlinked mentions, supplier, industry-body and local listings, and business directories. We pay for a placement only when free work cannot close the gap, and never use link sellers, private blog networks or paid guest posts. Our reports count referring domains, not raw backlinks. Our SEO service in Johannesburg page lists what the audit and the retainer include. Send us your website’s address and the searches you want to be found for: Book an SEO audit. We reply to new enquiries on the same business day.

Frequently asked questions

Can I do keyword research for free?

Yes. As at 2 October 2026, Google describes Search Console as a free service, and its Performance report shows which searches already bring visitors to your site. Google’s Keyword Planner page calls that tool free too, although it sits inside a Google Ads account that asks for billing information. Our guide to free SEO tools worth using covers the rest.

What are the top 10 keyword research tools?

There is no official top ten. Google’s page on whether you need an SEO says Google doesn’t evaluate or endorse third-party SEO tools, and that these tools don’t have access to its internal ranking data. For a business owner, Google’s own tools come first: Search Console, autocomplete, Keyword Planner and Google Trends.

How to do keyword research for beginners?

Start small. Pick one service and the one page that sells it. List the phrases customers use for that service when they phone or email you, and keep the one that best describes what the page offers. Rewrite the page’s title and opening paragraph to answer that phrase, then move to the next page. Our guide to keyword research for a small business takes you through it step by step.