What is a search strategy for a small business?
Someone at a kitchen table types a question to Google, the exact one a client of yours asked last week. If your page answers it better than anyone else, you are in the room before they have met you.
It is a list of questions you want to be the answer to, and one page for each. Google itself says content should be written for people and give a real answer. What you compete with are pages that give a worse one.
Where do I find my customers' real questions?
- Your emails and messages: what do new clients ask about the first time?
- What clients say in the first meeting.
- “People also ask” and the suggestions at the bottom of Google's results page.
- Questions in groups you are part of.
Here are ten emails and messages from new clients (without names): [paste]. List the questions they ask, grouped by theme. Write each question the way a person would type it into a search box, in [language]. Say which are most common.
Which search terms should I go after?
Narrow questions, not broad words. “What is an AI agent” and “does Claude work in Swedish” can be won by a small business. “AI” cannot. You want terms where you have something of your own to say: an experience, an example, a price you have checked.
Starting from my services [list] and the questions above, suggest ten search terms in [language] I can rank for. For each: who searches and what they want, which page or article of mine answers it, how strong the competition seems (say you are estimating and on what basis) and what I can offer that nobody else has. Say what you are unsure about. Do not guess search volumes.
How do I build one page for one question?
Question to page
Write one question your customers ask. Get the page plan.
Page plan Customer question: Can Claude write in Swedish Search phrase: can claude write in swedish Address: /guide/can-claude-write-in-swedish Heading (H1): Can Claude write in Swedish? Direct answer (two sentences, right under the heading): [answer] Something only I can add: [a number, a screenshot, a mistake, a price I checked] Links to include: three to six pages of mine One call to action: [what the reader should do next]
- The heading is the question or topic in plain words.
- Under the heading comes the answer, in one or two sentences. Then the details.
- Something of your own: a figure, a picture from your work, a mistake, a price you checked.
- Three to six links to your other pages, and one call to action, not five.
If you serve people in one place, create a Google Business Profile, put the place in the heading where it is natural, and ask satisfied clients for reviews. Do not write the place name twenty times.
How long does it take, and what should I not do meanwhile?
Expect three to six months before new pages are noticed, and longer for broad terms. Measure after four weeks in Search Console, to see whether the pages are indexed and getting impressions.
Do not move pages or change addresses meanwhile. A move makes everything Google has learned start again. If you must move, use permanent redirects, keep them for at least a year and add the new address in Search Console. I did exactly this when I moved my AI agent pages to their own domain, so I know what a few weeks of wobble feels like.
What becomes possible?
Searches are your customers' own words for what they need. Whoever answers best wins, and an answer can be a tool.
- A calculator, a checklist or a comparison people search for.
- A guide better than anything that exists, with your own pictures and figures.
- A glossary of your field, in your clients' words.
Which tools would my audience search for and be able to use for free, that lead them to me? Suggest five: what it does, which search it answers and how I can build it in an evening. Rank by how likely people are to share it.
Questions people ask
Is it enough to let AI write the pages?
No. What gives a page value is what you add yourself: your experience, pictures and checked facts. AI will happily write text without those, and that text already exists everywhere.
How many pages do I need?
Start with three to five for the most important questions. Quality before quantity.
Sources
Who is writing this
I am Nathaniel, a commercial operator. For twenty years, across four continents and more than fifteen ventures, I have taken research and young companies from idea to customer. Two KTH spin-offs reached joint development agreements with Fortune 500 partners. An indoor farm sold its full production within about ninety days and ended in a joint venture exit. This year I am a commercial expert for the European Innovation Council's Tech to Market programme. Now I build agents, because the hard part of new technology is rarely the technology. It is getting people to want it and use it.
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