Picture this. It is eleven o’clock at night. Your ideal client is in bed, phone in hand, unable to sleep. Something is bothering them. Maybe it is the house they are about to close on and they are not sure if their coverage is right. Maybe it is the HVAC system that has been making that sound for three weeks. Maybe it is the business they have been running for ten years and the liability exposure they have been quietly ignoring.
They open Google. They type something. They hit enter.
The question is: do they find you?
For most salespeople, the answer is no. Not because the help is not available. But because nobody told them that those eleven o’clock search terms are the most valuable piece of marketing intelligence they will ever have — and that they are sitting on a goldmine of it every single day.
This is keyword strategy in plain English. And it starts with one simple shift in how you think about your blog.
The Mistake That Makes Great Blogs Invisible
Most salespeople who blog make the same mistake: they write about themselves.
They write about their experience. Their credentials. Their philosophy. How passionate they are about their work. And the result is a blog that looks professional, reads well, and drives exactly zero traffic. Because nobody searched for any of it.
I watched a video recently from a mortgage professional. She was sharp, well-presented, clearly knew her stuff. But the video? I could not tell you what it would bring up in a search. No specific phrases. No location. No pain points named out loud. She was talking about how great she was instead of talking about what her clients are searching for.
Blogs are not about you. They are about your client.
“Blogs are not about you. They are about your client — and the words they type into Google when they are scared, frustrated, confused, and looking for someone who gets it.” — B
Search engines are not reading your blog to assess your credentials. They are crawling it looking for language that matches what someone just typed into a search bar. When your ideal client types something into Google at eleven o’clock at night, your blog either speaks that language or it does not. There is no middle ground.
The One Question That Changes Everything
You do not need a fancy keyword research tool to start. You need to ask yourself one question:
What does my ideal client type into Google when they are looking for what I sell?
Not what you call it. What they call it. There is a difference that matters enormously.
You might call it a BOP policy. Your client calls it business insurance. You might call it a HEPA filtration system. Your client calls it an allergy air filter. You might call it an HSA-compatible health plan. Your client calls it a lower-cost insurance option with a savings account attached.
Whatever the gap is between your industry language and your client’s plain language — that gap is where your keywords live. Write in their language, not yours. When someone types their problem into Google, your article either matches that language or it gets buried on page fourteen where nobody will ever find it.
“Those are keywords. They’re the words your ideal client types into Google at 11 o’clock at night when they’re worried about something. Your job is to know those words and build them into everything you write.” — B
Layer In the Local Angle — That Is Where You Win
Once you know what your client calls their problem, the next step is layering in location. People do not just search for solutions — they search for solutions near them.
“Million dollar home insurance” is a decent search term. “Million dollar home insurance Grosse Pointe” is significantly better. “High-value home coverage Grosse Pointe Shores” is even better than that — because now you are speaking to a specific neighborhood with specific people who have a specific problem.
Here is how a metro Detroit insurance agent’s keyword list might actually look in practice: Grosse Pointe, Grosse Pointe Shores, Grosse Pointe Farms, Grosse Pointe City, Lakeshore Drive, Shelby Township, Macomb Township, Troy, Rochester Hills, Oakland County, Macomb County, million dollar home insurance, high-value property coverage, water backup insurance, vacant property insurance.
That is a real list. And every one of those location terms is a version of the same blog article that hits a different part of the territory.
One Blog Into Ten: The Rewrite Strategy
Here is the move that turns a single piece of content into a full month of traffic — and most people never think of it.
Write one blog targeting one city. Get it right. Let it live on your site for three or four months. Then drop it back into AI and say: rewrite this for a different area. Keep the same structure, same tone, same keywords — but swap out all the location-specific references.
Sixty seconds of work. Brand new page. Brand new search hits from a completely different part of your territory.
One article becomes two. Two becomes five. Five becomes ten. And every single one of those pages is working for you around the clock — indexed by Google, pulling in searches from people who need exactly what you sell — while you are out in the field doing the actual work.
“Hey Claude — here’s a blog I wrote about [topic] for [City A]. Please rewrite it targeting [City B] instead. Keep the same structure, tone, and keywords, but update all location-specific references. Add any relevant local details if you know them.”
Teaching AI What You Know — The Step Most People Skip
Here is the most powerful part of the whole system — and the step almost nobody actually does.
AI is smart. But it does not know your clients. It does not know your market. It does not know that the people in the Grosse Pointe area had sewage back up into their basements when the city pumps failed. It does not know that for a multimillion-dollar home, a $5,000 water backup policy is basically a bad joke. It does not know that your HVAC client’s real pain is not the cost of the unit — it is the kid with asthma who cannot sleep through the night.
You have to teach it.
Get the PDF documents from your vendors, your carriers, your suppliers. Every carrier, every furnace company, every mortgage lender — they all have marketing materials. Usually written by lawyers, dry as dust, boring as a warranty card. But the facts are in there. Upload those PDFs to Claude or ChatGPT. Give it your client’s pain points. Ask it to connect the dots.
“Hey Claude — I’ve uploaded PDFs from my carriers/vendors about [product or service]. My ideal client’s biggest pain points are [pain point 1], [pain point 2], and [pain point 3]. Please read through these documents and tell me: which features or benefits directly address those pain points? Then write a 500-word blog article using those points, in a conversational tone, targeting [ideal client] in [city/region].”
If you do not have vendor PDFs — if you sell something you make yourself or built from scratch — here is the shortcut: talk to your repeat customers. Ask them why they keep coming back. Write down their exact words. Those words are your keywords. That is your content. It came straight from the client’s mouth.
“Ask your best clients why they keep coming back. Write down their exact words. Those are your keywords. That’s your content. It came straight from the client’s mouth.” — B
How to Find Your Next Ten Blog Topics Without Thinking Hard
You already know more than you think. Here is how to pull the topics out of your own experience without staring at a blank page.
Look at the questions you get asked constantly.
Every salesperson has three or four questions that come up in almost every new client conversation. Write them down. Each one is a blog topic — and a search term. If your client is asking it in your office, strangers are typing it into Google. The exact same question, word for word, becomes your headline. “What is the difference between actual cash value and replacement cost?” is a question you have answered a hundred times. It is also a blog article that someone in your market is searching for right now.
Look at what clients worry about before they call you.
What is the thing they are nervous about? What do they bring up in the first ten minutes of every first conversation? What concern comes up over and over that you spend your time reassuring people about? That concern is a search term. Put it in a headline. Build a blog around the answer.
Look at what changed recently in your industry.
Did a carrier change a policy? Did a regulation shift? Did a product get discontinued or improved? Did something happen in your market that your clients should know about? That kind of timely, relevant, locally-specific content is exactly what search engines prioritize — and exactly what clients share.
Look at what your competitors are not writing about.
Whatever the obvious topics are in your industry — your competitors are probably already on them. Go narrower. Go more specific. Go more local. The more specific your topic, the fewer results exist for it, and the better your chances of being the one article that shows up when someone types that exact thing.
Your Clients Are Searching Right Now
At this exact moment, someone in your market is typing something into a search bar. They are describing a problem they have. They are using plain language, not industry jargon. They are probably adding a city name or a neighborhood. And they are hoping someone out there actually understands their situation.
That someone could be you. But only if your words match their words.
The strategy is not complicated. Think like your client. Write in their language. Layer in the local angle. Put it on a page that belongs to you. Do it consistently.
Every article you publish in your client’s language is another door that stays open — not for a day, not for a week, but permanently. Each one is a page that gets indexed, gets found, and works for you long after you wrote it.
“Your clients are searching for you right now. Someone is typing your ideal client’s exact pain point into Google at this very moment. The question is whether they find you — or they find your competitor.” — B
Build the foundation. Build it with their words. And let Google do the rest.
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This post is adapted from Salesperson’s Platbook by B, available now. If this resonated with you, reach out to DBG to learn how we help salespeople build a content strategy that puts them in front of the right clients at the right moment.
