Local Keyword Research—Why You Need It & How to Start Today

Local keyword research identifies the keywords people use when looking for products or services in a specific locale.

Here are some examples of local keywords and their respective volumes:

In Salt Lake City, 1,900 searches are conducted every month for the search term emergency dentist near me:

More than 200 searches are conducted monthly for snow removal in minneapolis (with seasonal fluctuation, of course!).

One hundred and fifty searches are conducted monthly for the local query roof repair baltimore.

That’s valuable data if you’re a dental professional, a snow removal company, or a roofing contractor in those locations. And that’s the point of local keyword research: identifying what potential customers are searching for and optimizing your website and content to show up when they search.

Why local keyword research matters for your business

Local keyword research matters for your business if your customer base is local.

• Do potential customers or clients come to your physical location? You should be doing local keyword research.
• Do you travel to customers or clients within a service territory? You need local keyword research.

Any business that sells products or services to nearby customers benefits from local keyword research to inform their local SEO strategy. Good local keyword research paired with proper strategy boosts your business visibility among potential customers looking for what you offer right where you offer it.

🚫 Ignore local keyword research and miss out on countless leads.

✅ Use local keyword research and watch your visibility skyrocket among your target market.

Is local keyword research really that different from “traditional” keyword research?

The principle is essentially the same for standard and local keyword research: in both cases, our aim is to identify what keywords are searching for that we can capitalize on for our online presence.

Local keyword research differs from traditional keyword research by focusing on keywords with local intent—that is, searchers are looking for products and services in a specific locale, perhaps “near them.”

What about “implicit” and “explicit” local keywords?

Local search intent is sometimes implied, meaning that the keyword itself does not explicitly encode local search intent. For example, if we search furnace repair while in Portland, Oregon, we get a local pack and a local result in the #1 organic position:

In fact, examining the rest of the first page shows that all the results point to local businesses—whether by a directory or a local business website—because the keyword furnace repair has implicit local intent.

Conceivably, if someone searches furnace repair, they could be looking for tips, how-tos, or other instructional material. However, Google has analyzed enough user data to learn that most people who search this keyword (and millions like it) are looking to enlist local services for help.

The implicit/explicit keyword discussion really matters when you are looking at keyword potential. If we went to a typical tool armed with a list of keywords that include Portland, we’d see results like this:

Those explicit local keywords alone add up to notable volume. But if we factor in implicit local keywords, the results are even juicier:

These two keywords alone add substantial volume.

You’ll notice that we have a near me keyword listed. While technically, spatial modifiers like near me and nearby indicate local intent, they function much more like implicit keywords when tracking their volume. SEO keyword research tools usually do a decent job of showing explicit local keyword volume, but they tend to struggle with near me keywords and implicit local keywords.

Semrush recently added a feature to their Keyword Overview tool that allows filtering by location. This allows you to check location-specific keyword volumes, although you can only check one location and one keyword at a time.

4 Steps to Successful Local Keyword Research

Here, we’ll explore the steps you might take to conduct local keyword research and some tools you might use along the way.

Keep in mind that there is no flawless local keyword research process. It can prove challenging to find accurate search volumes because, unlike standard keyword research, we are dealing with more variations that more or less intend the same result.

If someone in Phoenix searches the following queries, they are essentially looking for the same thing.

• emergency plumber
• local 24/7 plumber
• emergency plumber near me
• phoenix emergency plumber
• 24/7 plumbing company phoenix

That’s quite a few variations (and, certainly, there are many more!) for a fairly narrow service in a specific locale.

The point is this: Local keyword research is an iterative process. Once you optimize your website and content, you’ll want to check your progress, find out what’s working in the “real world” as best you can via Google Search Console, and refine and adjust as necessary (more on that in the next section). Checking rankings, impressions, and clicks daily can be like watching paint dry. Give your optimized content some time to settle and check weekly or monthly.

1. List your core services.

Identifying your own core services lays the groundwork for all local keyword research. Initial brainstorming can yield a lot of options once you get into using keyword research tools.

Grouping your ideas into general topics, including keeping synonyms close together (for example, auto repair and mechanic), from the beginning will help you determine how to implement your keyword research later.

Remember, however, that you are not your target customer.

For initial brainstorming to be effective, you have to try to get into your target customers’ shoes. What do they think of your services? For example, if you fix cars, you might think of your primary category as auto repair, but your customers may refer to you more often as a mechanic.

The nationwide volume for these queries shows that, at least nationally, people tend to search mechanic near me over 22 percent more often than auto repair near me. While search engines are savvy enough to catch the semantic synonymy, the volume difference is something to consider when implementing your research.

Pro Tip: Don’t forget to add these categories to your Google Business Profile. Your primary category will have the most impact on rankings, but adding more relevant categories to fill out your profile will help more people find your business for the right reasons.

2. Check tools for keywords and search volumes.

Now that you have a list of initial ideas, keyword research tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, and Google Keyword Planner can help you zero in on keyword opportunities and add up your keyword potential with estimated volumes. We’ll also take a look at Google Search Console, an oft-overlooked asset for local keyword research.

Semrush + Ahrefs

If you have access to one of these major SEO tools, you’ll have an excellent jumpstart on local keyword research—at least for explicit local keywords.

Let’s say you’re a roofing contractor in the Baltimore metro, and you want to get found for roof repair. You can start with the very general keyword roof repair, but there’s a lot to sort through there, with nearly 60,000 variations in Semrush:

One quick way to zero in on opportunities is by adding your location(s) to a filter. If you’re in the Baltimore metro, your service territory might include a lot of neighboring locales like Towson or Elkridge.

At some point, we’ll want to check all the locales in our service territory (or at least the major ones) to identify as many opportunities as possible. For now, we’ll just filter with baltimore.

Head to the Keyword Magic Tool, click Include Keywords, and add baltimore. We could also add other locales here if we wanted.

This filtering yields a much more manageable list of 85 keywords. What’s more, because we started with the broad term roof repair and are only filtering with a location modifier, we see a lot of diversity in the filtered list. There may be opportunities we hadn’t considered emphasizing before our research with just some initial brainstorming.

For example, if our company hadn’t done much slate roof repair but we have the ability, we may want to consider ramping up that segment of our repair services.

Or perhaps we hadn’t thought that many folks would be searching specifically for flat roof repair. It makes sense, considering that Baltimore City and the region have a significant number of rowhouses, which tend to have flat or gently sloping roofs.

You can accomplish the same kind of filtering in Ahrefs by heading to the Matching terms report under Keywords Explorer and adding your target location to the Include filter.

As you use these third-party tools for keyword research, start with your more general products and services. Using the filtering described above will help you generate more specific ideas—and perhaps even some you hadn’t thought to focus on in your initial brainstorming and keyword logging.

Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner (GKP) is an excellent asset for local keyword research. While GKP tends to group keywords together, often inflating search volume numbers, it’s super valuable because of its ability to restrict research to the local level by state, Designated Market Area (DMA), county, and city.

If you don’t have access to a Google Ads account, you’ll just see volume ranges, but they can still provide value to make sure you’re on the right track. If you can access Keyword Planner via an active Google Ads account, you’ll get more exact numbers (keeping in mind the caveat about GKP’s tendency to group and round).

To conduct local keyword research with GKP, all you need to do is hit All locations under the query bar and add your locale of choice. We will continue our example with Baltimore from above.

Punch in your locale, and you’ll probably see a few options pop up. Choose the geographic area that best suits your business.

In our case, we’re going to go with the city option over the DMA because the media market includes area across the Chesapeake Bay and closer to Washington DC that are beyond our business’s radius.

Once you have your geo-restriction in place, punch in your target keyword and have at it! We’re gonna keep things broad and go with roofer to capture a variety of keywords.

Here’s what returns without an active Google Ads account:

Useful info, for sure! While the volumes are seriously broad, we get a reasonable gauge for how potential customers in our locale are searching.

Here’s what it looks like with an active Ads account:

We have a lot of useful data here. You can tell by the patterns in the numbers that some definite grouping is happening, so we’d be naive just to add up all the monthly search volume (MSV) and run with that keyword potential. Still, even just this snapshot gives us some great implicit and near me keyword data we would have struggled to come up with elsewhere.

With that simple search and geo-restricting, GKP gives us nearly 900 keywords to work with.

Not all of them will be realistic for our business or yours. You might try some filtering in the Refine keywords section to zero in more closely on what you’re looking for.

However you choose to sort and note your options, running through the list will undoubtedly give you quite a few money 💵 local keywords to work with.

Google Search Console

If you’re working with an existing web presence and you have Google Search Console (GSC) set up, GSC can be a goldmine of incredibly useful keyword data. What’s most valuable about Search Console is that you get real-world data on the queries your website shows up for in Google search results.

To grab some first-party data for yourself, head over to GSC, look at the last 6–12 months or so, and punch in one of your target keywords.

Here’s an example of what that looks like when we add roof as the query in Add filter and select Queries containing to get broad matches:

It’s important to note how Google defines impressions:

In general, an impression is counted whenever an item appears in the current page of results, whether or not the item is scrolled into view, as long as the user need not click to see more results (such as being required to click “see more” to see the link).

So, we need to note that these impressions aren’t monthly search volumes; instead, they are the number of times URLs from our site appeared before users in search results over the given period we’ve filtered by. If our website is on the first page of search results, we’ll obviously be registering a lot more impressions than when our website is lagging behind.

Regardless, the impressions numbered here are at least directionally helpful for our keyword research. They are handy if you aim to improve existing content rather than just starting from scratch. If you filter by page, you’ll easily identify striking distance keywords that are worth pursuing either by updating existing content or creating new content.

3. Analyze competitors.

Even if you don’t have access to tools, you can learn a lot about relevant keywords from your competitors. With access to tools, you can discover even more!

Competitive analysis without paid tools

You probably know who’s succeeding online in your niche for your target market. If you’re unsure, search for some of your target keywords. Remember to search for both implicit and explicit local keywords, as the results may vary.

Pro Tip: If you’re not presently in the locale for which you are conducting research, visit valentin.app or add gs location changer to Chrome to simulate your target location in Search.

Once you’ve identified a strong competitor, click around on their website a bit. What sorts of pages do they have on their site? What keywords does it look like they are targeting?

You can check the title tag in your browser by letting your mouse hover over the tab at the top of the window.

What is the big text at the top of the page? That’s probably the H1, which is another good indicator of what your competitor believes is the most important keyword for the topic they are covering on a given page.

The way they structure their site and their pages can reveal a lot of valuable SEO data points for your local keyword research. You won’t see everything with the naked eye, of course, but it’s at least a starting point since content is fundamental to ranking.

Competitive analysis with paid tools

If you have access to tools like Semrush or Ahrefs, you likely already know the possibilities before you. Once you’ve identified your top online competitors, you can use Organic Research in Semrush or Site Explorer in Ahrefs to lift the curtain on a whole host of keywords your competitors rank for.

In Semrush, head over to the Positions tab and filter by Organic.

In Ahrefs, check out Organic keywords in the Site Explorer tool.

From here, you’ll gain valuable insights into explicit local keywords that are very likely leading to clicks and calls for your competitors. Like we did above in Matching terms and Keyword Magic Tool above, you can try filtering to get to the most pertinent keywords for your research.

Remember: These tools won’t give you an accurate view of what’s happening with implicit local or near-me types of keywords. You’ll need to use Google Keyword Planner or Google Search Console to gain a fuller list of keywords and their potential.

4. Map your content strategy.

Once you’ve conducted some robust research, what will you do with all those keywords? I’m thinking we just plaster them all over the homepage and sit back and watch the rankings take off.

Nah. 🚫

We need to create a robust content strategy to rank well and increase our chances of converting paying customers from organic local search.

Generally speaking, for local SEO, creating specific pages for your primary services is to your benefit. You can easily go overboard with local landing pages targeting specific locations, but we recommend getting as specific as you think is useful to your customers for your primary location.

The SERPs can also provide valuable guidance—although you’ll often find mixed results there. Take this example for slate roof repair with our location set to Baltimore:

In the first four positions alone, we see a home page, a directory, a location page, and a forum. Beyond those results, there’s a further mix of home pages, directories, and local landing pages.

In this case, though, all the results have something to do with slate. So, in this case, a generic roof repair page that mentions slate probably isn’t going to cut it with the local competition. We’ll need a targeted page to rank well.

Ensure that you check the SERPs before you plan out all your pages. They will help you gauge just how general or granular you ought to get with your content. Just remember that what is ranking doesn’t necessarily reflect what ought to be ranking. In other words, the SERPs are volatile and sometimes spammy. You shouldn’t fear trying a strategy that differs from your competitors. It might just be better.

Revisiting and Refining Your Keyword Research

Local keyword research isn’t a one-and-done task. It really ought to be an ongoing, iterative process. Take care when crafting your local content strategy. Measure your keyword volumes twice and deploy once (or something like that!). But even if you’re super careful, you’ll want to revisit and refine on a regular basis—perhaps every six months or so.

Search behavior changes over time. Evaluate the performance of existing keywords and content and make adjustments as needed. Look for emerging keywords. Mine your user data, such as client calls and reviews.

Remember: Tools won’t tell you everything. If you’re hearing your target market talk about something but don’t see it mentioned in a tool, trust your instincts and create quality content about that emerging topic.

Skyrocket Leads with Strategic Local Keyword Research

Local keyword research done right can supercharge your performance in organic search. Armed with an arsenal of money local keywords, who can stop you? (Probably the business down the street who hired RicketyRoo for local SEO… but we digress…)

Beyond rankings, local keyword research can help you inform your business priorities. If it makes sense for your business, why not follow the search volume where it leads—for both locations and services—and give the people what they want?

However your research informs your marketing strategies and business decisions, you’ll have an edge over any competitor who only assumes without data that they are targeting the right services in the right places.