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Local keyword research: what it shows and how to read it

Local keyword research finds the phrases people use when they look for a service in or near a place, and counts how often each is searched. A finished one is a table: services down the side, places across the top, monthly searches in each cell. This page shows what that table looks like, how to read it and the mistakes that make local numbers misleading.

It sits inside search volume, the page on what the monthly number counts.

What local keyword research covers

Local keywords, also called local SEO keywords, come in three shapes:

• Service plus a place. A phrase that names the town, such as "plumber" followed by a city.
• Service plus "near me". The searcher's location is read from where they are, so the phrase holds no place name.
• Service alone. No place in the words. The place comes from where the searcher is.

All three can bring the same customer. They show up as different rows with different counts, and a local count that leaves out the second and third shapes is too small. That is why local keyword search needs its own table rather than a note on a national list.

Why a national number is not your number

"Near me" phrases show how misleading a single figure can be. These are US monthly searches for phrases that ask for SEO services:

The first row is not the demand of one town. It is the sum of every town in the country, typed by people who each want someone nearby. A business serving one metro area gets a small slice of that figure, and the slice depends on the place. A US count is the size of the need across the country. It is never one city's number.

What a finished local table looks like

This is the shape of a local table. A Querytally report counts US monthly searches for the whole country, not for one city, so the cells below are invented to show the layout only. The numbers are for illustration.

Say a plumber serves three towns:

Three things stand out. The biggest cell is a near-me phrase, not a town. The two rows no leading competitor covers are small but cheap to take. And the smallest row may still be the best job in the table: a tankless install can be worth far more than a drain cleaning.

How to read a local table, and where it goes wrong

• Add towns before judging them. Say a phrase has 12 searches in one town. Across three towns it can reach three times that.
• Look at the service, then the place. Services decide how much a customer is worth. Places decide how many customers there are.
• Keep "near me" apart. It can be the largest row, and it cannot be assigned to a town.
• Compare with the competitors' pages. A row with demand and no competitor page is a gap you can fill first.

Mistakes that make local numbers misleading:

• Using the number for the subject. "Local seo" has about 8,100 US searches a month. It names a subject, not a service in a place, so it is not the demand for any one local service.
• One page per town for every town. A page for a town with a handful of searches a month can do little. Group small towns on one page.
• Ignoring the value of the job. Say a phrase has 30 searches for a $2,000 job and another has 300 for a $20 job. The first can earn more.
• Treating a US count as a local one. The national figure sizes the need. It does not say how many of those searches happen in your towns.
• Counting searches from people who will never buy. They belong in the exclusion list, not the count.

What to do with it

• Plan the pages. Turn rows into location pages where a place has enough searches, and group the rest.
• Audit what you have. Check your current pages against the table with a local SEO audit.
• Buy or sell leads by place. The same table sizes local lead generation.
• Ask for the competitor link. Whatever you buy, each row should show its monthly searches and the competitor page behind it.

Questions people ask

What are local SEO keywords?

They are the phrases customers use to find a service near them: a service with a place, a service with "near me", or a service alone.

Do I need local keyword research tools?

You need the finished table, not a number for each phrase: each need with its US monthly searches and the competitor page behind it.

Does search volume change by city?

Yes. The same phrase has different counts in different places, and the national number is the sum of all of them.

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