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).
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
-
Is it possible to find out how many indexed pages a website had at particular dates in the past?
I've found all kinds of websites and tools that can tell me how many pages a site has indexed currently, but how about historically? Does such a tool exist?
Competitive Research | | bigvibes9090 -
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 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 -
Tracking competitors in search engines
Hi Mozzers, I'm using Advanced Web Rankings (AWR) to track my site and a number of competitors in Google - seeing how rankings and brand visibility change from week to week. I didn't set this up from scratch and I'm worrying with all of the recent algorithm changes that I might well be tracking the wrong competitors. Is there a tool or methodology I can use to find the biggest players in the market? I'm in the travel market so there's lots of choice and I track the large sites but want to be sure I'm aware of smaller/mid-sized sites gaining visibility without me tracking them via a platform like AWR. Many thanks!
Competitive Research | | panini0 -
Is it valuable for a local business to build links into its Google Place?
G'Day All, Almost all of my clients are geo-based small service-based businesses. I've noticed during my research that the google places for our competitors in 3 separate niches (3 different clients) seem to be the dominating results for almost all relevant keyword terms. I'm curious to see if anyone has actively tried to increase the ranking of a google place by building links into it. Is this something that anyone else sees value to for a local small business? I would love to get some thoughts. And for that matter I'm also curious to see if anyone thinks there might be value to optimizing a Facebook Fan Page or Yelp Business page. They all seem to be key drivers of traffic our client websites so I'm wondering how difficult it is to make them rank as opposed to a website. Thanks!
Competitive Research | | blahblahblah20150 -
Advanced yahoo search
Is it possible to see backlinks to a particular site with the parameters: only .edu backlinks page updated in the last 3 months I've tried using the yahoo advanced search at http://uk.search.yahoo.com/web/advanced?ei=UTF-8&fr=siteexplorer&p= but it just redirects me to yahoo site explorer and doesn't give the results I ask for. Cheers, Peter
Competitive Research | | PeterM220 -
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