Local SEO Keyword Research

Does anyone have any good tips on how to conduct keyword research with volume for local search terms? It seems Google AdWords does not provide enough data for keywords with geo modifiers. I'm doing SEO for a local mechanic in my city and every time I put in "car repair services" followed by the city, I get no search results.

Any advice?

hey,

I have been doing local seo for my own business for a while now and these are key factors that I found out to be helping a lot (i got my listing to #1 for 5-6 VERY competetive keywords)

1. Do NOT overpack your listing with Keywords, Just as humanly possible. max 2-3 keywords in the description of the listing.
2. Categories - now, this part is probably the main thing. choose the right categories that the business fits into
3. Local SEO keywords on the website content itself
4. Local Citations, websites like qype.co.uk, citywize.co.uk (i'm in UK) yellowpages etc etc help a lot
5. I found out that a listing with a radius to serve a client ranks better than just a static address, but wouldn't advice it on ur business, might be risky.
6. local seo keywords backlinks
7. fullt listing images, video

I ranked my listing in about a month time for 5-6 keywords totaling about 500k exact searches a month

Thanks for the input. I'm aware with most of the things you have listed, the only obstacle I'm facing is with keyword search volume. I want to target "car repair services irving" (irving is the city I'm targeting) and I get no search volume. This is the problem with local SEO. Its hard to get any search volume for small cities.

Is the city you are targeting showing sufficient search volume for your services?

Berkeli said:

hey,

I have been doing local seo for my own business for a while now and these are key factors that I found out to be helping a lot (i got my listing to #1 for 5-6 VERY competetive keywords)

1. Do NOT overpack your listing with Keywords, Just as humanly possible. max 2-3 keywords in the description of the listing.
2. Categories - now, this part is probably the main thing. choose the right categories that the business fits into
3. Local SEO keywords on the website content itself
4. Local Citations, websites like qype.co.uk, citywize.co.uk (i'm in UK) yellowpages etc etc help a lot
5. I found out that a listing with a radius to serve a client ranks better than just a static address, but wouldn't advice it on ur business, might be risky.
6. local seo keywords backlinks
7. fullt listing images, video

I ranked my listing in about a month time for 5-6 keywords totaling about 500k exact searches a month

Click to expand...

It's in london, uk. So you can imagine main keyword has 100k exact searches. And i was getting about 700-800 visits a day

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2

Hello Man
As one who comes from the same niche Local search the only way to get quantity result for keywords + city is through google ads tool for now, Google really usually do not give the right results least he gives only at the min 12, as it seems there is no way in the world that really only 12 customers are looking for Car Repair in Irvine the better way is to really try to get customers from neighboring towns, but from my experience will be sure to seeking much more than 12 people looking for Mechanic repair in Irvine , if you like to share more info Pm

Maybe the niche does not have a lof of searches.

Try other keywords....

mechanics city

car repair city

auto shop city

garage city.... etc

get a Whitespark account, get clients, get paid $$$$$

also check out LocalScraper.com

For local SEO, a certain amount of the search volume will be local due to the IP address giving a geo lock even when the modifier is not used in the search query.. Google adwords tool only gives you the volume of people who buy ads for that keyword, so the number isn't really search volume, it's part of the search volume.

What matters is to hit the traffic keywords in your niche FOR YOUR AREA, and include geo modifiers in case there is volume there.

More or less, you have to track how people come to your site and hit the longtails they come on on.

You have to also watch local vernacular. In your location they may have colloquial terms that no one else uses.

"For instance, by and large, people in Houston refer to a soft drink as a "Coke". we do not say "soda", nor "pop". We are prone to say:

"Can you get me a coke?"
"Sure, what do you want?"
"A DR. Pepper"

Even though a DR Pepper is not a coke, our local term for a soft drink is "coke". You need to be especially aware of terms in your area that are not the normal search terms people use.

Also, try all permutations, you never know what people might do.

You might think "Carpet cleaning houston" is a good search term, but does it have more volume than "Houston carpet cleaning", or "cleaning carpets houston" or "houston cleaning carpets"?

You must ferret out the traffic keywords in your local community. Start with the major terms that show traffic with a geo modifier first, they are the most targeted traffic. Then target the traffic keywords without the geo modifier, then look at your stats and target the long tails that people are actually using to come to your site.

Remember, the more terms used in the search query, the better odds that person will spend money.

"carpet cleaning" can be anyone who wants to know how to do it, or a customer looking for service.

"Houston carpet cleaning" is a person very likely to be looking for service in Houston.

Houston Carpet cleaners emergency same day steam cleaning " is a customer itching to spend money.

zee007 said:

Does anyone have any good tips on how to conduct keyword research with volume for local search terms? It seems Google AdWords does not provide enough data for keywords with geo modifiers. I'm doing SEO for a local mechanic in my city and every time I put in "car repair services" followed by the city, I get no search results.

Any advice?

Click to expand...

When ever you are doing keyword research for local market.
1. Set the languages used in your area.
2. Select the country (region)
3. Mark at the Exact Match

Its simple... now try and search on Google for more deep info !

It's not really a "keyword research" tool, but it's definitely useful in tracking how national and international companies reach local cities. I've been using KeywordSearchRanker to generate SERP and Adwords Advertisers heatmaps for various countries and cities. Through this tool you can easily track where your competition is heading to and thus, discover their sources of local search traffic.

What happens is that, if your search volume is too low, then Google Keyword Research tool will not display any results. This can happen also if the city is too small...

So in order to get a good idea of the search volume, you can use a bigger city; this will give you a general idea of the search volume. You can also use the phrase "car repair" plus the city or "auto repair" and the city; yet if the city is a small one, Google just does not display local search volume results