What's the best keyword tool for discovering regional/metropolitan area keywords?
-
Generally I use the Google Keyword Tool for my keyword research, but given the fact that the data is either country specific or global, I was wondering what others use for regional/dma-specific keyword discovery. Regional traffic is very important to my site, so I'm hoping to find a tool that I can use to find keywords germane to my audience.
-
Hello Jon,
Thanks for coming to Q&A with your question. I'm the Local SEO Associate here in the forum. You've asked one of those questions for which there still isn't a 100% percent satisfactory answer, but I'll do my best to provide you with some excellent resources here.The trouble is, that unless you are doing KW research for a pretty major area, tools are often likely not to actually show you appropriate geo modifiers. However, I was recently speaking with Darren Shaw of Whitespark (awesome company) about this and will quote his advice to you, which is about as good as it gets on this topic.
Use Google Adwords tool without the location modifier, supplement with data from Google Insights, Suggest, and Related. Build a huge list.
Then, remove all location-oriented KWs from your list and set them aside temporarily.
Then, go through the list again and remove any KWs that don't trigger local search results in the search engines, or don't bring up your competitors in the search engines. Set those aside, too.
Next, go through the list again and identify all main keyword terms. These are keepers. So, if you're in the vacation rental business, then 'vacation rental' would be in this list.
Then, go through the list again and identify plurals, more descriptive terms, combined terms, etc. So, here, in the same business, terms might be 'pet friendly vacation rentals'.
At this point, you should have a really big list of main terms, plurals, longer terms, combined terms.
Now you can add back in any geo terms that came up. So, you can have Vacation Rentals Boise, Idaho, as well as Pet Friendly Vacation Rentals Boise, Idaho and so on. At this point, your list will be quite huge because for every possible geo term, there are all of the non-geo keywords you have identified that you can add the geo terms to.
Finally, if your research hasn't turned up any geo terms, it's likely that they aren't being tracked. Add them. Also, look at your analytics for any geo terms that didn't appear during your research. Add those to the list, too.
From this step by step process, you should end up with a really good list.
Also recommend you read these:
http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/local-keyword-research/1787/
http://www.expand2web.com/blog/tips-for-using-google’s-keyword-research-tool-in-a-local-context/
Hope this helps!
Miriam
-
Please, take a look at this blog post. There i think you will find more than you look for. Good luck!
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/be-careful-using-adwords-for-keyword-research
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Any tools to scan URL to identify keyword opportunities
Hi guys, Looking for tools which can scan content and identify keyword opportunities. I know you can use Google Keyword Planner or tools like Semrush. But was wondering what else there is on the market? Specifically looking for tools which can pull relevant keywords by scanning the content, exactly the same as Google Keyword Planner. Cheers.
Keyword Research | | jayoliverwright0 -
Where to use which keywords...
After doing keyword research and coming up with a list of keywords/phrases that I'd like to optimise a specific page for (an additional page to an existing website), I get confused about WHERE to use which keywords. For example, choosing between two keywords like home insurance and specialist home insurance. Let's say home insurance is more searched than the other, and but is more difficult to rank for, and specialist home insurance is less searched but easier to rank for. Firstly, which one should I use as my "main keyword" and secondly, what benefit does the other keyword(s) then have on the rest of the page, and were do I use them? I hope this makes sense. Any help will be greatly appreciated!
Keyword Research | | Jana_Joubert1 -
Setting Up a Keyword Matrix
Greetings MOZ community!! My real estate web site contains about 500 pages with perhaps 70 pages targeting low volume, somewhat valuable but not very competitive keywords. Three to four URLs target very competitive terms. The following terms are among the most valuable: New York City office space,
Keyword Research | | Kingalan1
New York office space,
Manhattan office space,
NYC office space Such variants as: Office space in New York City,
Office space in New York,
Office space in Manhattan,
Office space in NYC
ETCETERA convert really well How would I match different terms to different URLs? For example I have just re-written the following two critical URLs: www.nyc-officespace-leader.com (home page)
http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/commercial-space/office-space (product page) Would it make sense to use "Manhattan office space" and variants on the home page while excluding "New York City office space" variants? At the same time I would use "New York City office space" variants on the "office-space" product page while excluding all mention of "Manhattan office space". Is this logical and does it conform to SEO best practices? For the "NYC office space" terms I would add them to http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/listings. This URL has almost no text but a strong potential to rent because of a high number of incoming internal links. Is this approach sensible? In general what measures should I take to prevent URLs from competing for the same keywords? Also, is there a software package or tools that I can use to come up with keyword variants? As a non SEO professional, can I create my own keyword matrix or is this really in the realm of a professional SEO consultant? Thanks, Alan0 -
Why does this keyword have much greater volume in Bing Keyword Research Tool than Google AdWords Keyword Planner?
I'm using the Google AdWords keyword planner and Bing Webmaster Keyword Research tool. For both, I'm trying to get accurate search volume for the exact term "advertising sales". Over the last thirty days, Bing reports a volume of 5,988. Google's average monthly search volume is 880. Given the market share Google has, I would expect a much higher volume, especially when compared to Bing. Can you offer some ideas of why this might be happening?
Keyword Research | | Kevin_P0 -
Keywords/URL
Greetings! I've read previous posts on this topic, but wondering if something has changed recently...On the on-page grading, the following was suggested:Use Keywords in your URL - high importance - easy fix _(In the past it has read difficult fix). _Could it be as easy as creating a new page with the name in the url, then redirecting to it? My site is www.enchantingquotes.com and the keyword that brings in virtually all of business is "wall quotes". I've read in the forum this isn't worth the trouble of trying to do, but the "easy fix" comment has me wondering...?Any help is much appreciated....I'm been trying to recover from a recent unexplained drop in rank. Ugh! (So feel free to analyze my site LOL!) :DA huge thanks for any advise!
Keyword Research | | eqgirl0 -
Checking history of keyword rankings
When working on a new client how can we look in to the history of keyword rankings? I would like the last 2 years but they have been tracked by me for only 1 month?
Keyword Research | | dynamic080 -
How should I use keywords in a sentence?
The keywords that I target are phrases that wouldn't ever be used in a sentence... Ex: Stained Concrete Virginia My question is... Is it better to use the phrase, even though its odd? Ex: Stained Concrete Virginia is a great product Or is it better to make it a natural sentence? Ex: Stained Concrete in Virginia is a great product? Im trying to find a way to use my keyword phrases at least 4 times in the content of the pages...but it seems difficult if I have to use such an odd phrase. Thanks! Tim
Keyword Research | | Timvroom0 -
Why does google's autocomplete not align with google's keyword tool?
Is google autocomplete based solely off keyword search volume? Or is there some other factors i am missing here? Here's an example: Auto complete suggestions for 'storage toronto': [storage toronto cost] [storage toronto downtown] [storage toronto rates] [storage toronto leaside] [storage toronto prices] [storage toronto dupont] [storage toronto laird] [storage toronto eastern ave] [storage toronto ontario] Google adwords keyword tool results for these: <colgroup><col width="151"> <col width="129"> <col width="169"></colgroup>
Keyword Research | | adriandg
| Keyword | Global Monthly Searches | Local Monthly Searches |
| [storage toronto cost] | 0 | 0 |
| [storage toronto downtown] | 36 | 28 |
| [storage toronto rates] | 0 | 0 |
| [storage toronto leaside] | 0 | 0 |
| [storage toronto prices] | 73 | 73 |
| [storage toronto dupont] | 0 | 0 |
| [storage toronto laird] | 0 | 0 |
| [storage toronto eastern ave] | 0 | 0 |
| [storage toronto ontario] | 0 | 0 | So here is what i find confusing: If [storage toronto cost] is the top suggestion for [storage toronto...] then why does google say it has 0 monthly searches? Why isn't [storage toronto downtown] the first suggestion? or better yet, why isn't [storage toronto prices] the top suggestion? So either: 1) google adwords keyword tool is wrong. or 2) google suggest isn't based on just volume?? I've run these same keywords through Bing's Excel keyword information spreadsheet query and it came back saying all keywords had 0 searches ever, except for...drumroll: [storage toronto prices] with 7 monthly searches, once, in august, and 0 all other months. Now i assume that bing/yahoo numbers are significantly smaller, but this does show that that the same keyword is the most popular, so in some way suggests that google's keyword is accurate. So i guess this brings be back to my confusion, what other factors is google's suggest based on, because it obviously isn't primarily search volume. And yes, i have made sure to clear caches, and disable personalized search and search history, and tried the query in several browsers, just to double check i wasn't getting a personalized list, so we can rule that out. Thanks, Storwell.0