# How to Do Local Keyword Research for Your Small Business

﻿88% of people who do a local search on
their smartphone will visit a related&nbsp;store
within a week.
So if your local&nbsp;SEO game is weak, then
chances are you're leaving a lot on the table.
Now, the first and arguably most important
step of local SEO is local keyword&nbsp;research.
And this is when you find&nbsp;keywords that
people actually search for&nbsp;to find local
products and services.
And the reason why this step is so&nbsp;important
is because if you get it right,&nbsp;then your local
business will have&nbsp;the potential to rank for
keywords&nbsp;that can drive targeted local traffic
to your&nbsp;website and send
more customers your way.
So let's go through a step-by-step process
to find keywords that your local business
should be targeting so you can&nbsp;get
more customers through your doors.
The first step is simple: jot down
a&nbsp;list of all services you offer.
For example, a plumber might offer
services&nbsp;like drain unblocking, boiler
repairs, boiler installation, and radiator&nbsp;
installations to name a few things.
A dentist might offer comprehensive&nbsp;dental
exams, cleanings, teeth whitenings,&nbsp;fillings,
and crowns.
Take your time going through&nbsp;this
brainstorming stage because we want
to make sure that your website will be
searchable for all the services you provide.
Now, once you've completed your list,
we'll want to&nbsp;expand on these ideas
for good measure.
As a starting point, I recommend digging
through your competitors' websites.
For&nbsp;example, if you hover over the plumbing
services menu for this company, you'll see
they also have services pages for toilet
and sink installations and repairs, sump
pump&nbsp;replacements and frozen
pipes to name a few.
If you offer these services,
then&nbsp;add them to your list.
Another thing you can do is use a keyword
research&nbsp;tool like Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer.
Just paste in your brainstormed list of services,
set the country to where your business operates,
and run the search.
Next, go to the Matching&nbsp;terms
report to find more keyword ideas.
Now, because our goal is to expand our list
of services, we just want to scan the list of
keywords and look for other
services we might have&nbsp;missed.
For example, you'll see new ideas like
servicing gas boilers, commercial boiler
repairs, and combi boiler installations
to name a few.
If you offer these services, then
they're worth jotting down.
Once you have a comprehensive list
of services, move on to the next step
which is to check for local intent.
Local intent refers to queries where Google
assumes the user is looking for a local&nbsp;result.
And an easy way to infer local intent
is by looking for map packs and local
organic listings.
For example, if you search for Mexican
restaurants, you'll see that there's&nbsp;clear
local intent because there's a map
pack that lists local restaurants and
the organic results are all directories
and local businesses in the area.
So to check for local intent, you can search
for&nbsp;each service one by one in Google and
check for a map pack and/or
local organic results.
Alternatively, you can bulk-check
them&nbsp;in Keywords Explorer.
Just paste in your&nbsp;list of
services and run the search.
Then set a SERP features filter to only show
keywords where a local pack is in the SERP.
Hit Apply, and you'll see
keywords with local intent.
Alright, the next step is to
check for search volumes.
Now, because nearly every keyword research
tool is country specific, it's challenging to find
local search volumes.
As far as I know, Google Keyword
Planner is about the only source for this.
And&nbsp;unless you're already advertising with
them,&nbsp;you'll see broad search volume ranges
which aren't helpful at all.
For that reason, checking the relative
popularity of keywords at the national
level will probably be more productive.
This&nbsp;is because what happens in one
city is likely&nbsp;to be similar in the next,
seeing as we're&nbsp;looking at
data for the same country.
You can do this with a keyword research
tool like Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer.
Just paste in your list of services, run
the search, and use the volumes to get
a general idea of how you might prioritize
creating and ranking these pages.
Alright, let's move on to the next step&nbsp;
which is to group keywords by page.
Now, this part of the keyword research process
often gets ignored but it's super-important.
In short, we want to do two main things.
First, we want to find out which
services will need a dedicated page.
And second,&nbsp;we want to get a general idea
of the&nbsp;content type and format we should
use to give ourselves the best
chance at ranking.
Take these services.
Based on the keywords&nbsp;alone, it's tough
to know whether we need&nbsp;dedicated pages
for each one or whether&nbsp;we can rank
for all of these terms with&nbsp;one page
about boiler installations.
To find out, you'll want to analyze the current
top-ranking results for each target keyword.
For example, if we look at the search results
for the query "oil boiler installation," you'll&nbsp;see
that this result is from a local company&nbsp;in
the New York area that offers specifically
an oil boiler installation – not just
a general&nbsp;boiler installation.
To top it off, all the top&nbsp;results
are specifically about oil boilers.
So in my opinion, our site should have
a&nbsp;dedicated page specifically targeting
"oil boiler installation" – and the type of
content we should&nbsp;create is a landing page
that tells people details about
our service – just like this page.
Now, if we do the same thing for "gas
boiler installation," you'll see that a bunch
of&nbsp;the top 10 results are just about
regular boiler installations despite
the&nbsp;query including the word "gas".
So we probably don't need a dedicated page
for&nbsp;gas boiler installations and can try to rank
for this and related terms with a broader page
about&nbsp;just boiler installations and replacements.
Now, if we look at the search results for "combi
boiler installation", you'll see that there isn't
a local pack and the top results are all mainly
informational results with instructions showing
how to install your own combi boiler.
Seeing as there isn't local intent, it probably
wouldn't be worth creating a services landing
page&nbsp;– from an SEO perspective at least.
But if this is a service you provide, then you may
still&nbsp;want to create it for business purposes.
Alright, the next step is to look for things
to mention on your services pages.
Now, the way many local companies
approach&nbsp;service page copy is by just
straight up keyword stuffing.
For example, if we look at this&nbsp;page that
ranks for "boiler repair" in Albany,&nbsp;New York,
you'll see they've intentionally&nbsp;tried to
mention "boiler repair" and&nbsp;"albany ny"
as many times as possible.
This is the wrong approach because it's not
helpful to visitors in understanding if you're
the&nbsp;right company to help
them solve their problem.
Now, while you shouldn't stuff keywords,
it's still worth looking for relevant&nbsp;‘things
to mention' for a few reasons.
#1. It can help improve ‘topical relevance'.
#2. It can help you rank for
long-tail keywords.
And #3. It helps you to better serve your
visitors by addressing questions they
might have when they land on your page.
For example,&nbsp;that might include details of your
service,&nbsp;pricing, and other important details.
Now, to find things worth mentioning,
the first place I'd look is at the top-ranking
competitors' pages.
And what you're looking for
are potential talking points.
For example, this page ranks for "teeth
whitening"&nbsp;in Los Angeles, California.
Their content uses&nbsp;words like
"stained" and "discolored teeth."
It talks about "bleaching" your teeth.
It talks about over the counter vs.
professional&nbsp;grade teeth whitening.
It tells you&nbsp;that it's a one-hour procedure.
That the results are long-lasting.
It addresses tooth sensitivity during
whitening as well as the costs&nbsp;associated
with the service.
These are all important things that I think
a)&nbsp;helps Google better understand what
the page is about; and b) provides a great
user experience for&nbsp;those looking for teeth
whitening services.
The second place you can look&nbsp;is in
the People also ask box or in this case,
a Buyer's guide box.
As you can see, the search results for the
query "teeth whitening" shows questions
like "can sensitive teeth be whitened",
how much does a teeth whitener cost,
what is&nbsp;the best teeth
whitener brand, and more.
Now, if you want to cut out some of
the guesswork,&nbsp;you can try the third
method and that's to look at your
competitors' organic keyword rankings.
To find these keywords, we can paste our
competitors' URL into Ahrefs' Site&nbsp;Explorer
and then head on over to
the organic keywords report.
Next, let's set a filter to only show
keywords that rank in the top 10 to
keep&nbsp;our results relevant.
And as you can see,&nbsp;the page ranks
for things mentioning specific&nbsp;cities
like Los Angeles, Beverly Hills,
and even a specific zip code.
It also ranks for things related
to tooth bleachings.
So these are some things that you'd&nbsp;want
to consider talking about in the&nbsp;content of
your service landing page.
Now all you have to do is rinse and repeat&nbsp;
these steps and you should know exactly
which service pages you'll need to create
and&nbsp;what key points to talk about in them.
Keyword research is in the books and&nbsp;now
it's time to actually create the content for
those pages.
Watch our video on&nbsp;content writing
for SEO to learn how you can best
optimize your pages to rank higher in&nbsp;Google.
And I'll see you in the next tutorial.