How To Find The Best Keywords For Your Local Business

Keyword research is one of the most important aspects that none of us should neglect or overlook when it comes to doing local search engine optimization for our own business.

In the past, when two persons were to search for a particular keyword, let’s say, “housekeeping services”, (assuming one is in Ohio and another one in Texas) chances are the top ten results shown to them would be exactly the same.

However, the time has changed. With the rise of smartphone users around the world, Google is seen encouraging more and more small business owners to gain more traction for their local search results. When the local search results improved, that means, you will have a better chance to increase your online visibility, as well as reaching out to a more targeted group of people. Hence, bringing in more sales to your local business.

This is why optimizing your website for local search gives you a better opportunity of coming up with a more personalized approach that can cater to your targeted audience’s needs and wants specifically. And once you can achieve that, Google will be more likely to increase your local search rankings.

This can be seen from the Google search ranking algorithm that was rolled out in July 2014, called the Google Pigeon. This algorithm update is aimed to return mobile users with more useful, relevant and accurate results based on their distance and geographical location.

So now, personalizing your local SEO results is the key that can bring you more success to your local business.

But Why Is Local Keyword Research So Important For Your Local Business?

Some time ago, Google has predicted that mobile searches will soon surpass the desktop searchers someday. And this has finally been confirmed by Google saying that the number of mobile searches has exceeded the number of desktop searches.

This actually means that for those smaller business owners who have been optimizing their business websites for local SEO would have a better opportunity of targeting larger competitive broad search terms like “hostel”, “dentist”, “florist”, “coffee” and etc.

Here are some statistics

1. 1. Every month, people visit 1.5 billion destinations related to what they searched for on Google (Google, 2016).
   2. 76% of people who search on their smartphones for something nearby visit a business within a day
   3. Over the last 3 years, “near me” searches has increased steadily (Google Trends, 2019)

The trend for “near me” searches

However, choosing the right local keyword that can bring in more quality traffic and sales for your business can be quite a challenge, if you do not know how to perform the local keyword research correctly.

Unless your business is loaded with lots of funds which can allow you to test it out by running a few PPC campaigns simultaneously. And then based on the performance results to get the most lucrative keyword for your business.

But then, if you target the wrong keyword, not only will you not be getting the business that you’re aiming for, but you will also tend to screw up every other marketing plan that you have been implemented.

MAKE SURE: You find KEYWORDS that can return a local results with the HIGHEST SEARCH VOLUME for your local business.

Find Your Best Local Keyword Research Tools

Below are some of the popular local SEO keyword research tool options that can help you to find the best local SEO keywords for your business.

• BiQ Keyword Intelligence
• SEMRush
• Google Autocomplete
• Google Keyword Planner
• Google Trend
• LSIGraph

Update:

BiQ Keyword Intelligence

For those of you who want to do keyword research on a larger scale, identify the REAL SEO value of each keyword, take a look at BiQ’s Keyword Intelligence!

It is an SEO suite that democratizes the pricing model, so it’s safe to say that this would be the most flexible tool you’d find in the market. BiQ changed the landscape of traditional SEO tools that you subscribe to (Moz? Ahrefs? SEMrush?, no more getting tied to monthly subscriptions anymore!)

With over 2.5 billion keywords in its database, the related keywords of your niche will be presented to you in an easily understandable interface alongside important keyword metrics.

If you’re looking for interesting ideas for your next blog post?  Head to content ideas for a range of keywords you can target!

If you’re eager to know what are some of the questions revolving the content you’re about to create, popular questions tab is able to help you out!

Or if you’d like to know what are the current trends that people are looking for on the SERP, trending searches will give you an immediate and accurate answer to the right local keywords!

All in all, with the availability of BiQ’s Keyword Intelligence, you can use them for content creation, search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising or other marketing activities.

Grab a free tier account of this awesome product here: https://biq.cloud

Bonus: 

If you’d like to get your keyword research done quick and efficient then allow me to present to you this extension known as LiveKeyword.

If you are doing SEO content, this will be the best extension for your SEO keyword research. It shows keyword suggestions together with their search volume, cost-per-click, and competition, all for free!

Now, let’s look at some of the tips and tricks on how to perform a thorough local keyword research.

How To Do Keyword Research For Your Local SEO

Step 1: Identify your industry and location.

In order for you to rank high in Google local search results, first of all, bring your buyer persona into the picture, then think about what are some of the most common phrases or terms that people would use to look for when searching for your business. Write it all down in an Excel spreadsheet as you may want to refer, add, or delete in the future.

Step 2: Spy on your competitors.

Well, spying on your competitors may sound a little unethical to some, but that’s just how the way the business world works! So, below are some of the essential things that you might want to see how your competitors are doing. Analyze it and see how you can make it even better.

How to do it:
> Search for their general head terms Keyword + City or City + Keyword
> Insert into SEMRush or Google Keyword Planner to check on the search volume

For example: Let’s say the keyword is “Housekeeping Services + Ohio”

Select some of the regular websites and then do a little research on it.

Look for some of the regular websites and copy down their links.

• www.maids.com/ohio-cleaning/
• www.elitehomecleaners.com/
• www.mollymaid.com
• www.cinderellahousekeepingservices.com/
• www.themaidscolumbus.com

Tip #1: Use SEMRush For Local Keyword Research

With all the gathered websites links from the above, head over to SEMRush, then do a little research on these competitors’ websites.

SEMRush will show you the organic positions and keywords that “The Maid” is ranking for…

Enter the website into the search bar and then click search. Once the results are out, then go to the Organic Research tab and then click on the “Organic Positions.” The number shown is actually the organic positions and keywords that “The Maid” is ranking for on Google search results.

You will be able to see the whole list of keywords together with the search volumes.

Here you will be able to see quite a number of terms that “The Maids” is ranking for and by looking at the search volume, you will be able to know whether is it worth the time and effort for choosing a certain particular keyword from the list.

Besides, you may also want to download it into an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV file for easy reference.

Now, let’s proceed with another research on Elite Home Cleaners.

Run a little background check on “Elite Home Cleaners” website to see if they have better SEO rankings than “The Maid.”

The results above show that “Elite Home Cleaners” is actually ranking for 94 keywords. Again, look into some of the variations of these keywords and then pick up those which you think have the highest potential that can bring you greater ROI for your business.

It gives you some pretty good ideas of what kind of keywords you should be targeting for your business.

As you can see from the diagram above, these are some of the keywords that “Elite Home Cleaners” are ranking for and bear in mind that, since you are searching for a local keyword, it is also always best to add in the location in your keyword, and in this case “Columbus Ohio” is the most appropriate one.

Now, repeat the steps for the other following websites. Then later try to do a comparison between these five websites and then shortlist them.

Anyway, this is NOT the only way of doing such local keyword research.

Tip #2: Use Google Suggested Searches For Local Keyword Research

However, if some of you have not signed up with SEMRush, then there is always another way to do so and that is by scrapping those keywords from Google suggested searches. Let’s see how I do it.

Step 1: First, type in the search term “House Cleaning Ohio” into the search box and Google will suggest some popular search queries for you.

Type in your keyword and location and Google will propose some popular search queries.

Then head down to the bottom of the result page and look at the suggested searches related to the keyword you typed in the search box earlier on.

Step 2: Then perform a few more rounds of searching based on these four related searches. So if you have more than four, then you will just have to do all of it (usually there is only a maximum of 8 related searches) or just pick the one you like most. But I would suggest you do all.

Below are some of the suggested searches when I entered “house cleaning columbus ohio.”

Now look at some of the suggested searches when I entered “cleaning service ohio.”

And the suggested searches when I entered “maid service ohio.”

So whenever I see more unique suggested searches, I will continue to do a few more rounds. I’ll only stop whenever I found out that if any of these related searches are starting to repeat on it own.

Step 3: Then copy and paste all the related searches to Google Keyword Planner and get the search volume data for all these keywords.

Use Google Adwords Keyword Planner to get the search volume data for all the keywords.

Other things to look at: Let us look at the search terms for “Maid Ohio.”

• Titles: The very first thing that users will notice when searching for your product or services.
• Meta descriptions: In order to get a higher click-through rate, make sure you put a higher emphasis on writing a great meta description that can convince users to click on your websites. That can be done by looking at some of these top-ranking websites’ meta descriptions. See what keyword they use and see how they write it.

Look into some of the top ten rich snippets and see how they write their meta descriptions.

• Primary keyword & secondary keyword:
  As you can see from the website, these are some of the blog posts that have been written in past November. By just looking at the titles itself, it is quite apparent that Cottage Care’s primary keyword should be “Home Cleaning.”

Check your competitor’s blog and see what kind of keyword they are targeting!

Source: Cottage Care

Besides, you may also want to check on the PPC ads that are available on the first page of Google.

See how these companies optimized their snippets.

These companies have probably spent thousands of marketing dollars to optimize their ads messages in order to get higher-quality traffic and the best return on investment from the PPC advertisings.

Tip: So it is always advisable to look into some of these ads. And then carefully scrutinized on some of the words they used in the ads and think about why such words are being chosen. That is because you may want to use some of those words as an idea to optimize your meta description later.

Tip #3: Use Google Trends For Your Local Keyword Research

This is another great tool to use when doing some research in finding your best local keywords. Why? That is because Google Trends give you a better insights on your chosen keyword by looking at three most important features:

Interest over time

This feature allows you to know which keywords terms perform better over past decade.

By looking at the interest over time, you will have a better notion on which keyword actually performs better over the past decade.

Regional interest

This feature shows the search volume for different location on the map.

It is always good to know this as it will also give you a pretty good idea on how to develop a better marketing strategy to target different region if you wish to expand your products or services in multiple locations.

Related searches

This feature shows the popular top queries within the geographical area.

Tip #4: Use LSIGraph For Your Local Keyword Research

This keyword suggestion tool is specifically designed for generating Keyword Research. No doubt, it has contributed hugely in the world of SEO.

LSIGraph is a freemium tool that provides you with keywords that are semantically related to your main keyword, mainly used in a search query. They have a high degree of correlation. In other words, when people are searching for the main keyword, these LSI keywords will likely appear in the content.

LSI Keywords are used as a supplement to your main keywords, adding context to your content. Ultimately, it helps search engines and users to understand your content better.

For instance, for the main keyword “housekeeping services”, you will be able to see the LSI Keywords provided are “housekeeping services near me”, “housekeeping service prices”, and “house cleaning services”. They are phrases that usually appear when users search for the main keyword.

Referring to the data the tool provided, you may then include helpful keywords in your content to provide more context for your users and search engines. In fact, LSIGraph provides you the value of all LSI keywords, calculated with their proprietary formula called Latent Semantic Value. It takes into account the keyword’s search volume, competitiveness, as well as the traffic potential. Try the tool today: LSIGraph

Tips #5: Use Grid My Business For Your Local Rank Tracking Based On The Targeted Keywords

After you have identified the targeted keywords and checked their search volumes, it is crucial to track and monitor the effectiveness of your keywords through local search rankings on Google SERP. 

Grid My Business is a local rank monitoring tool that will show you the local search rankings of your local business and your competitors’ on Google Maps in a grid view. It supports all locations that can be found on Google Maps. Once you have finalized your targeted keywords, you can obtain more profound insights into your local rankings with Grid My Business.

This ultimate local rank tracking tool allows you to uncover ranking opportunities among your pool of competitors based on each specific search query. You can identify local rankings of multiple search queries by performing a quick and easy bulk scan of up to 5 keywords per scan. It Saves time saves money. 

Besides that, you can alsoschedule an automated rank monitoring and obtain precise weekly updates of all your local search rankings in a comprehensive white-label report. By having this report, you can easily keep track, monitor, and even have a side-to-side comparison with your local competitors. Thus, supporting your local SEO ahead of the competition.

Track my local search rankings with Grid My Business now!

Conclusion

Well, there isn’t a fixed method when it comes to finding the best local keywords for your business. But, it is always recommended if you can combine some of the above methods in order to find the most suitable keywords and that’s related to your industry.

One last tip, always maintain a low keyword density to avoid getting penalized by the search engine for keyword stuffing!

No matter what, leveraging on some of these tips will definitely give you a better opportunity in uncovering more and more potential as well as profitable keywords for your local business. So, give it a try and feel free to let me know if you have any other better ways to do local keyword research in the comment section. That’s all for now.

Grow Your Traffic And Ranking:
The Definitive Guidebook To LSI Keywords

“LSIGraph’s LSI Keywords formula gave us awesome insights into how Google rates the relevancy of different keywords.” - Ben Fisher
• Learn the 6 different types of keywords relevancy
• Understand 4 LSI signals Google & Bing are looking for
• Discover the secret formula that powered SEOPressor LSI Feature

Updated: 23 November 2024

About Vivian

Vivian is an anthropologist lost in the world of digital marketing. She has an interest in learning about the science of marketing and the creativity that businesses use to transform themselves into purple cows.