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
-
Domain and urls aren't showing up in Google search
Hi, Moz community, I hope you are staying safe, I have been trying to search our website in Google by using the whole domain name, but it's not showing up. For example: https://www.example.com/
Competitive Research | | ksmith88
https://www.example.com/inner-page.html
Or if search brand name: Example, doesn't come up But when I try example.com, it comes up along with other pages. Neither the inner pages are being come up in the search nor the home page with https://www.example.com. I have checked with Site:example.com, it is showing all the pages, but it is weird on the other hand that it is not visible in the search, what could be the reason? Any tool to check it? I thought it was because of the latest core update from Google. But, there are many keywords in the rankings, so I am sure the website hasn't been impacted. I checked penalties or issues through many tools and even in the search console, everything is fine. Any help would be appreciated.1 -
Lost Search Ranking - how to fix spammy backlinks
I have a health niche website ( grocare.com ) Recently I subscribed to ahrefs and moz and found out so many spammy backlinks to my site (which i didn't create). Someone told me this is a common competitor tactic. To create bad links for your website to drank it. My question is - in ahrefs now, there are a LOT of spammy anchors and it seems more backlinks are being created by spammy websites automatically. I have lost many rankings because of this. I tried diluting by creating more normal anchors but it doesnt seem to be working. How do I fix this ? Any help is apprecciated xVrvj1q
Competitive Research | | grocare2 -
Strange google search - help me mozzers
Hey Mozzers How Are You All? Hope You Are Doing Well. 🙂 I need your help. I have been having a very bad experience with Google. 😞 Do you know what is "Google Dance"? Somewhere I have heard about this. I don't have even clearance about Google Dance. BTW, the problem is that i have an adult video site about a porns tar. I was ranking at 3-6 position on a "particular keyword" on google. But about 20 days ago when i searched my "keyword term", I could not find it anywhere even on page 50 in Google search. 😄 My heartbeat was gone faster. As i was getting 25k visitors from google of that keyword. 🙂 Then i looked at my webmaster tools to check "manual spam action". There was no issue with spam or anything related to it. Then i checked my google analytics i was getting visitors from google but not from the 'particular keyword'. I was sure it was not "google hit or penalized". I could not find the exact reason why did it happen. I checked my sites everything seems to be fine. Then i did "fetch as google" and the strange thing was happened, my site pop up again in google on "that keyword". But this not the end. From that day my search keyword was getting vanish within 24 hours or more in google. And i do google fetch and it again comes to search results. 😄 I tried moz tools. no such issue. Though i cannot sort out the whole matter. What’s wrong going with google. Its an adult site, otherwise I would provide my site url and the keyword. By the way, I have attached some screenshots. I am waiting for your help. Thanks to all. 🙂 gyKIRVW
Competitive Research | | raja290 -
Methods for estimating competitor website traffic from natural search
Hi all, I'm currently working on some competitor analysis and estimating website traffic based on rankings and estimated search volume for approximately 500 keywords. I'm then estimating based on click through rate from Webmaster tools. I think this will give me a relatively accurate estimation but was wondering how everyone else does this? Any other methods out there? Thanks, Elias
Competitive Research | | A_Q0 -
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 serps for split keyword searches
A client has come to me with an issue with the marketing of their website. it is mainly focused around the search of their name. the site is an Magento GO hosted e-commerce based site through Magento. it requires a good amount of optimisation and its in a very competitive market - which has high volume of searches. When entering the name of the business it doesn't show on the first page of Google but it does on Bing or Yahoo. The site name is lovehugz and is UK based The issue is when searched for by name lovehugz it appears on the second page, however if the search term is separated love hugz it appears first on the first page. The site is poorly optmised at present with the page title limited to the name lovehugz. Does anybody know of reasons why Google might be behaving in this manner and what steps should be taken to overcome. Optimising for the name is not the only aim here, however it something that should be in place for people searching by name, There is a lot of work to be done to optimise the site for its essential relevant keywords to stand a chance in its market. Any ideas of help would be greatly appreciated thanks
Competitive Research | | Bristolweb0 -
Local Real Estate Site vs Larger National Sites
Hello all, I am a local realtor that created my website with an idx feed. I am on page one but at the bottom. Question is how can a local real estate website rank better in the SERPS than the larger national brands? Any tips out there from those who have worked with real estate websites and seo? I'm trying to out rank the larger sites for my main keywords. Thanks all.
Competitive Research | | bronxpad0 -
Search shows site links, but not hyperlinked?
2 of our competitors on Google have site links show in their results which brings you to that specific page. In our listing we show up with the same results a few spots behind them with our site links visible showing very similar content, but are not actually hyper linked. Is there a way to fix the issue and let people actually be able to click on our site links instead of just reading them?
Competitive Research | | sknott0