You want more inquiries. More appointments. More people finding your business when they need what you offer.
Then someone tells you to do keyword research, and suddenly you are looking at a spreadsheet full of unfamiliar numbers.
There is a simpler place to begin: the questions your customers already ask.
Imagine an Ottawa physiotherapy practice. Its team answers questions about new patients, appointments, costs, insurance and services every day. Much of that information may never reach the website.
If you don't explain what your business does, no one else is going to do it for you. They certainly won't know the details as well as your team does.
Those everyday questions are valuable starting points for SEO, or search engine optimization. They help you connect what people want to know with the services your business provides.
Start with one service that matters
Choose something you genuinely want more inquiries about. For our hypothetical physiotherapy practice, that could be welcoming new patients.
Be specific about the opportunity. Does the practice have appointment availability? Who can it serve? What does someone need to know before booking?
The answers should reflect the business today. A page promoting appointments that aren't available can create frustration rather than useful inquiries.
Starting with one service also makes the work manageable. You can learn from one page before planning an entire website expansion.
Ask the people who hear the questions
Your front desk may know more about what stops someone booking than a keyword tool does.
Ask the team to collect the questions they hear over a normal working week. Review general themes from emails and inquiries without putting personal details into a public document or an unapproved AI tool.
For a physiotherapy practice, the list might include:
- Are you accepting new patients?
- Do you offer evening appointments?
- What happens during the first visit?
- What should I wear and bring to the first appointment?
- How do insurance and payment work?
- Is the entrance accessible, and where can I park?
Include the questions people hesitate to ask. Someone may be unsure whether they need a referral. Another person may want to know whether a particular service is offered. A plumber hears different questions, such as whether emergency calls are available or what affects the call-out price.
Treat these as questions to answer accurately, not assumptions about what every patient needs.
Turn customer questions into SEO keywords
A keyword is simply a word or phrase someone searches for.
“Physiotherapist Ottawa” is one possibility. “Physiotherapist accepting new patients Ottawa” describes a more specific need. An AI search question might be: “How can I find an Ottawa physiotherapy clinic accepting new patients with evening appointments?”
Keep both the short phrases and the full questions. They give you different views of the same decision.
Don't assume the professional term is the term your customer uses. A practice may describe a procedure precisely, while a prospective patient describes the problem in everyday language. The website can explain the relationship without making clinical promises or diagnosing a visitor.
Google's SEO Starter Guide recommends thinking about the words readers might use and writing naturally. There is no benefit in forcing the same phrase into every paragraph.
Understand search intent before choosing a page
Try a few searches and inspect the results.
Are they mostly practice homepages, service pages, maps, educational articles or comparison guides? A person asking what a procedure involves may need an explanation. Someone searching for a nearby practice accepting new patients may be ready to contact one.
Don't use this exercise only to count competitors. Look for the information a person would need to make the next decision.
For example, a new-patient page may need a clear account of the first appointment, what to bring, how to ask about payment and how to request a booking. A general article about staying active probably won't serve that same purpose.
Search results are clues. They are not instructions to copy the highest-ranking page.
Group related keywords and questions on useful pages
You don't need a separate page for every wording of a question.
“Accepting new patients,” “first physiotherapy appointment” and “what to bring to a physiotherapy appointment” may fit together on a useful new-patient page. A distinct treatment may need its own service page with appropriate clinical review.
Check what already exists before creating more. Sometimes the right page is already there but contains only two vague paragraphs.
Improve it. Add the missing answers. Link it from relevant parts of the website.
Other times there is a real gap. A practice may offer a service but mention it only in a list on the homepage. That may justify a dedicated page.
Your website should be large enough to explain the business properly. The useful number of pages depends on what you offer and what customers need, not an arbitrary target.
Use Search Console and keyword research tools wisely
If the website has Google Search Console, review the search terms and pages receiving impressions and clicks. Impressions are appearances in search results; they are not visits.
AI can help connect that export with the questions your team hears. Use an approved tool and a short, anonymous list of question themes, not patient emails or case details. Check the tool's data-use settings first.
Try: “Group these questions by customer need. Compare them with the exported queries and our existing pages. Which three unanswered questions could help someone decide whether to book? Show your evidence and flag assumptions.”
Check the suggested groups with your team. An AI tool may combine questions that need different answers. Search Console also omits some query data for privacy, so a missing query doesn't prove nobody searches for it.
Keyword tools can suggest related searches and estimate demand. Their figures are estimates, and very specific local searches may have limited data.
Don't dismiss a useful question simply because a tool shows little volume. A question heard repeatedly by your front desk can still deserve an answer.
Equally, don't chase a broad, popular phrase just because its number is large. Ask whether the person making that search is likely to need your service and whether your business can help them.
Choose the questions worth answering first
For each topic, consider four things:
- Does it relate to a service we actually provide?
- Would answering it help someone decide whether to contact us?
- Is our current information missing, weak or out of date?
- Can we provide a useful, accurate answer?
You can then create a simple brief: the customer question, the page that should answer it, the facts needed and the person responsible for checking them.
Think of it as a small-business version of a Columbo investigation. Keep asking the useful next question until you understand what is stopping the customer from taking the next step.
Make your value clear, within your industry's rules
There is nothing useful about hiding genuine strengths. Explain your actual services, hours, accessibility and how your team works.
For a dentist, however, beating your chest has limits. Ontario's RCDSO advertising guidance restricts practice comparisons, superiority claims and testimonials in advertising. The dentist remains responsible for material produced by an agency.
The practice can describe accurate service facts without claiming to be better than another clinic. Clinical information and treatment advertising also need appropriate professional review and required registration disclosures.
Other industries have their own obligations. Knowing the rules belongs in the content process, alongside knowing the customer.
Connect the answer to an inquiry
Once someone has the information, make the next step easy.
Place a clear appointment-request option or phone link where it helps. Explain whether the form requests a callback or confirms a booking. Test it on a phone.
For our example, the business challenge is attracting suitable local patients. Ottawa SEO work helps connect the practice's information with those local searches. The service term describes the marketing work; the patient is searching for a physiotherapist, not for SEO.
Record what you improve and watch what happens. Review search visibility alongside qualified inquiries and appointments. Ask callers how they found the practice, recognizing that no single tracking method captures every journey.
Start with the questions your customers already ask. Give them clear answers, show the relevant facts and help them contact you.
Learning which questions to ask takes practice. Through recurring AI coaching, Salient AI helps businesses work on real tasks like these, review the output and refine the next question. You can also explore Salient AI's SEO services for help turning the findings into a plan.
Written from Stephen Lau’s experience and point of view, with AI-assisted research, editorial production and illustrations.