If your team is targeting keywords based on volume alone, they’re flying blind.
Not because the keywords are wrong, but because the intent behind them is misunderstood.
That’s how you end up investing in content that will never rank, or worse, that ranks and brings the wrong audience entirely.
There’s a simple fix: check the live SERP.
Not the tools.
Not the spreadsheet.
The actual Google results.
Every SERP is a mirror. It shows you how Google interprets the query, the user, and the commercial context behind it.
Get this wrong, and no amount of optimization will help you rank.
You’ll be trying to force a square page into a round result.
You’re a SaaS ERP tool for car garages.
“Garage ERP” looks like the perfect keyword.
Until you search it... and Google shows local garages in the town of Erp.
Why? Because user behavior trained Google to think “garage ERP” is a local query, not a SaaS one.
So now, you’re not competing with your SaaS competitors.
You’re competing with Google Maps.
Keyword tools don’t show you:
If your team is chasing search volume without checking how Google frames the intent, you’re building the wrong assets.
And every one of them burns time, budget, and focus.
Make SERP validation a core step, not a formality:
This isn’t about “being good at SEO.”
It’s about building content your market (and Google) agrees is worth surfacing.
You own the budget. The goals. The growth targets.
If your SEO effort is built on misread queries, you’re not just missing rankings, you’re missing pipeline.
And no one sees it until it’s too late.
I work with growth and marketing leaders to pressure-test SEO strategy and eliminate waste.
That means looking beyond keywords to understand what Google is actually rewarding, and how that aligns with how buyers search.
Let’s make sure your team isn’t building invisible content.