Local Monthly Searches for a particular city
-
I'm not exactly new to SEO but totally new to local SEO. How do I check monthly searches for a specific city so that I know if it makes sense to develop a site for that a particular area.
-
Hi Vince,
Robert has given a great answer, below. Local keyword research is traditionally conducted without the use of geo-modifiers, because no keyword tool exists which provides accurate numbers for local terms. So, you would do keyword research without any geographic terms, and then city names, zip codes, etc. into your list.The free Google Adwords Keyword Tool is a great place to start.
https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer?__c=1000000000&__u=1000000000&ideaRequestType=KEYWORD_IDEASAdditional ideas can come from Google Insights: http://www.google.com/insights/search/
And this is a neat newer tool for helping you discover local zip codes and other geo data:
http://www.localmarketingsource.com/local-keyword-research-tool/Beyond the use of tools, it's vital that you closely interview the client about their list of most common terms - things their clients say to describe the products or services at hand. There are regional differences in terminology that are very important to reflect. For example, you may discover that a plumber in California fixes 'water heaters', while one up in British Colombia fixes 'hot water tanks'. So, zoning in on regionalism is very important, custom work every good Local SEO does, and it's not something you can expect from any automated tool. This is something I find so interesting and exciting when taking care of my clients! I just love those language differences.
-
Red or Blue,
Having not seen Linkdex prior to your answer, I will first say that I have no experience with it.
I went to the site and read a bit of the data then downloaded their "white paper."
I also joined on the free trial and would suggest to Vince that he can do the same. (I like the sites where I don't have to dig out a credit card to try it out for a month and this is one.) NOTE: GeoRanking is not available on the free trial????? What's the point?
Unfortunately, I do not see how this could assist Vince given that the software is geared toward showing you where you rank and not toward showing traffic for the given keywords in a specific industry in individual cities. If, you are doing market research to determine an expansion, you would not have a site up and your competitor ranking in that city cannot be compared to where you are (because you are not there).
I appreciate you providing the info on Linkdex and will try it out for the month. If I am missing something as to how it could be used for the purpose Vince wants, please let me know.
-
Hi Vince,As Robert said, this is a common problem for many and an answer didn't really exist until a month ago when Linkdex released a scalable solution called geo-rankings. You can upload your keywords, enter any locations you want (cities, towns, ZIP codes etc) and compare your rankings for those keywords across all those locations. You can then see where there are new opportunities to rank in different areas and decide whether it makes sense to develop a new site for that region.A good place to start is the geo ranking page where you can download the whitepaper Linkdex have put out or use their tool to compare rankings in different locations.I hope this helps
-
Vince,
This is an oft asked question and I will give you my best work around. First, there is no really good software I have found that does this for you. (Yes, there are some that say they can...)
What I would do is to utilize the keyword tool in AdWords and use it as follows: Assuming you sell vegetables, search first on the basic terms you would use and the basic term plus the city you are checking. I live in Houston, so will use that.
Beets
Beets Houston
Fresh Beets
Fresh Beets Houston
farmers markets
farmers markets houston, etc.
For the broader terms like farmers markets, I usually see a number that is large and then a smaller number when the geolocation (Houston) is used. That will allow me to derive a general impression as to the efficacy of a vegetable market in Houston. If I am also seeing Geo Located searches on the more narrow terms, I assume that means more interest in that area.
Hope this helps,
Edit Note: For city to city, if you have a baseline city that is in same general geolocation and you want to see how city A is versus city B, use the same keywords and then append the location and compare A to B. So, for Texas: Austin Farmers Market vs. Houston Farmers Market. If there are 200 monthly searches in Houston and you are thinking of going to Austin, it could be assumed that a result for Austin of equal to or greater than Houston would be favorable given that Austin is smaller. (don't use a city in Texas against a city in New York as the data will likely have a location flavor).
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
-
Competitors' paid search analysis tool
Hi, What tool will do the following: will tell me paid keywords our competitors are using. Ideally, I could narrow down by country. Thanks. Katarina
Competitive Research | | Katarina-Borovska0 -
Finding Local SERPs
Good Afternoon Everyone, I am looking into finding a tool that can use different IP addresses for local markets to find what their SERPs look like for searches such as: Cogs in Calgary Cog Installer Miami Cog Repair New York With local IP addresses for that search in that market. Not sure if such a thing exists, but thanks in advance!
Competitive Research | | RandyEpp0 -
Turning off personalized search
Hello, Is there any way to turn off personalized search in Google. I used to add &pws=0; to the search but that doesn't seem to work anymore. Thanks!
Competitive Research | | BobGW0 -
Google recipe search...
I just did a search for a recipe and saw something new. Google has a sidebar that lets you toggle on/off ingredients... Pretty nifty, and interesting. I did not have the recipe toggle marked, I was just using regular search "everything"
Competitive Research | | Mcarle0 -
Local SEO
Im trying to rank well for a local search. im trying to rank for my city plus lawn care. Its not that competitive, because people in this field dont know about seo. Im trying to just rank well for it can someone give me suggestions to do that. Should i create blogs and use the comments to hyperlink to my page. Im doing research on my competition and seeing what backlinks they are using. and off page seo ideas would be great as well We have a great google places page same with yahoo. We are trying to rank for different city's i rank well for the city i live in and my address is in, but i dont rank that well for other cities. Even tho they are less competitive than mine competitive under 500k results for my keyword
Competitive Research | | fhnhockey0880 -
How to do this type of listing on Google organic search results?
The typical listing looks like this (as im sure you know): However, one of my competitors has a listing that looks like the following: (http://i.imgur.com/Io1oX.png - link to image if its too small for you to see) How do they do this? Am i right in thinking this is a lot better for SEO because effectively it takes up 3-4 positions on search results? YIHQA.png Io1oX.png Io1oX.png
Competitive Research | | CompleteOffice0 -
Keyword Ranks reported by SEOMOZ don't match actual searches
SEO Moz reported that various keywords I was tracking were not in the top 50 results on Yahoo or Bing, yet when I did a Yahoo or Bing search for those keywords (from multiple computers and not logged into any Yahoo or MSN/Bing account) I found the keywords easily. What's the scoop?
Competitive Research | | Cybernautic0 -
1 domain dominating unbranded search terms?
Anyone have any insight or comments? We’ve been negatively impacted by the last Google algorithm update - not by a penalization of our site but because another site is now grabbing the top 3-4 search results for long tail physician name searches thereby pushing us lower in the rankings. Being that we’ve never seen this happen with unbranded search terms, we’re not sure how to address it. To see an example, click http://www.google.com/search?q=dr.+elizabeth+eads. You’ll notice that the top 4 results are all from 1 site - HealthGrades - with 2-3 of the 4 pages being canned, pre-written templates without any unique content (see malpractice & sanction pages). It seems that they are doing this by paginating their information into separate pages, thus appearing in multiple search results, instead of putting all the information on 1 page, as we do and Google’s best practices suggest. Any advice or comments would really be appreciated.
Competitive Research | | irvingw0