LOCAL (city of 500k) Keyword Research - am I just wasting my time?

[Mrupp44]

I have tried numerous tools, my team of freelancers, (fiver I admit) and a couple people from Upwork and still not getting a GOOD response to - How much search volume is there for "home builders" JUST in WIchita, KS (for example) I get local results like that are challenging because a lot of them show no search volume.

Am I missing something? Can  recommend a resource? I would be really grateful!

I am trying to figure out a nice long (ideally) list of keywords for 'plumbers, wichita ks', 'dentist, wichita ks' - Local service businesses and everything I try shows next to nothing.

Thanks for ANY advice!

Matthew

[MiriamEllis]

Nice discussion going on here. To be honest, I am still unaware of any tool that does a very good job with local-specific kw info. I have never really trusted Google's numbers on this, so my rule of thumb remains to do keyword research without geomodifiers and then simply add the geomodifiers into your kw list for optimization purposes.

The one proviso here is when you are dealing with a product/service that is called totally different things in different regions (pop vs. soda vs. cola). There are many, many examples of this and it is going to require regional research (interview the business owner and staff to define local terminology) to get the terms right.

[Toddfoster]

Hi Matthew,

The tool Rob suggested above is great for general research for Competition analysis but if you are trying to do full out long tail Keyword Research for specific locations then my advice would be to use Google Adwords Keyword Planner.

The issue with Kwfinder is that you cannot select your City so you can only research keywords like "Keyword City". If you are trying to run a full Keyword Research locally then Kwfinder is not going to help you find every Keyword in that Locality. Simply because you can only select the Location as a country, not City.

I have attached a couple of example screenshots, I would run a few Keyword variations on Adwords Keyword planner, export the Keyword to excel, merge the different outputs you received from your different searches. Remove duplicates and then manually eliminate any Keywords you don't want to use.

Keyword tools are great but for Local you need to be able to pin point your City for the most accurate results.

You can also select service areas if your City is too small so you can target a larger service area and find more search volume that way.

Nice resource on Moz here as well:

https://moz.com/blog/using-the-new-adwords-keyword-planner-for-local-seo-keyword-research

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[RobCairns]

Hey Matthew,

Nope, you're not wasting your time here. I have a great tool I use for KW research for Local clients and I quickly ran your example terms through it and came back with several thousand combined searches just in the Wichita area. I have a basic excel spreadsheet with the terms for wichita plumbers if you want - feel free to PM me and I will send it over.

The tool is called Keyword Finder:

kwfinder.com

and I've found it to be very powerful. Not a free tool, but it gives you competition ratings for websites targeting the same terms as well as the search volume and rough CPC estimates if you are going the PPC route. Also lets you save lists for future reference so you don't have to conduct numerous keyword searches. Pretty handy. Also works for multiple countries and languages if you want.

Hope this helps with your search - I guarantee it will be less frustrating to conduct local kw research with it.

There's also the Keyword Planner through Google Adwords, but I assume you have already used it and found it to be a bit unwieldy on the local front.

Let me know if you have any further questions and I will help as best I can.

Cheers,

Rob