Let’s explore:

What are local SEO keywords

Why local SEO keyword research is important

How to find your local SEO keywords

Using the right keyword research tool (both free and paid)

How the intent of local SEO keywords shapes your selection process

What is local SEO keyword research for service-Based businesses?

Simply put, local keyword research is the identification of those terms and phrases that people manually enter into Google’s search engine that specify a niche service and location. It serves as the basis for creating your brand identity, website content and additional digital assets.

What are people looking for?

Local keyword research is a great tool for small business owners. It can be used in conjunction with your marketing efforts to increase awareness of your brand and provide potential clients with a way to contact you.

Why is Local SEO keywords research so important?

Even if you have the best content, no one will ever see it unless they are properly targeting keywords (i.e. those with sufficient search volume).

Keyword research, when done properly, can enable many other aspects of search engine optimization. Your business can reap long-term benefits by investing in content creation. This is both a way to build awareness and convert prospective clients. The foundation of content creation is keyword research.

How do you do Research Local SEO keywords?

Keyword research is both an art and a science. No matter how sophisticated tools may be, they are not able to predict search volume impressions accurately. It can be helpful to survey your clients.

Analyze your competitors

Start by looking at your top-ranking competitors’ websites in your market. Then, look at the blogs and practice areas they are creating. This will provide you with a pool of keywords that you can use to begin modeling. You can then analyze these keywords later to determine if there is search volume potential.

Once you have identified a group of keywords, you can analyze them using Google Search. You can drag them one by one into Search, and then scroll down to search for related terms or queries and People Also Ask questions. This will allow you to expand your keyword pool by adding additional phrases and terms.

Google Trends

Google Trends is a tool you can use for free to determine what’s current and timely in terms of consumer interest. It will show you whether a keyword is trending up or down, and if it has grown in demand over the time.

Google Keyword Planner

Although it may not be as comprehensive as the other tools in this list, it’s worth remembering that Google has more raw data than anyone else. The Keyword Planner is an excellent place to start as you will be able to see a large section of the internet via their analytics.

Answer the Public

Answer the Public delve deeper into the zeitgeist using interrogatives (whom, what, when and where), as well as prepositions (for/of, with, etc.). It generates visually appealing results, which can be used to stimulate content generation for many weeks.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is another tool that you can use for free within the Google Suite. For this data to appear in the report, you must link Google Search Console and Google Analytics.

Ubersuggest

UberSuggest is one of the most powerful free keyword research tools. It provides information about the keyword (in terms of volume, competitive difficulty, and so on). It also provides ideas and suggestions for keywords related to the keyword.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console offers a better understanding of the areas to optimize and what to target. It shows what Google matches on your website to search queries along with demographic information.

SEMRush

SEMRush is one of the original keyword research tools and one of the best. It has a very loyal following among marketing professionals. It also provides competitor analysis, backink research and a number of advantageous local search features. It’s a pricey tool but you can use it for a month to gather all the keywords that you would need to generate content for a year.

Ahrefs

Arguably one of the best keyword tools available. It’s also a great tool for competitive analysis. It’s a very pricey tool and mostly used by SEO and marketing professionals. Though, Ahrefs has some pretty wonderful free tools that small business owners would benefit from exploring.

Enter your keyword and analyze your results by looking at the keyword volume of terms you are researching. Keywords with high search volumes (100+) and low keyword difficulty scores are the best. Although it is difficult to pinpoint a target keyword difficulty because of the context against competition, it is fairly simple to rank for keywords below 30.

Search intent is another important factor to consider when keyword research. Although many queries have high search volumes, they do not necessarily translate into business. The reason is that the intent behind the word might be for information rather that for commercial purposes.

4 Types of Search Intent

There are 4 types of keyword search intent.  These include:

• Informational:  This search intent signals the searcher’s intent to learn more about a topic.
• Commercial:  This search intent is basically the “buy now” intent. It signals the searcher’s intention to act like buying, subscribing, joining, etc.
• Transactional: This search intent lies somewhere between of commercial and informational intent. These queries represent both an interest to buy and to learn more about the topic. You’ll often find content related to transactional search intent that involves “How To” guides or “Best of” or “Top 10” lists.
• Navigational: These keywords contain a brand name and some additional element like directions to a local Starbucks. 

For local SEO, we primarily focus on informational and commercial search intent since they will make up the most likely content on a local business’ website.

Informational terms are focused on learning about a topic such as “water heater leaking” whereas the commercial terms are about hiring for the service such as “HVAC repair near me”.

A small business should develop content for their clients and prospective clients about their services that matches searcher’s intent in their location for their type of services.  It’s a good idea to develop content that has addresses both informational and commercial terms.

Which type of intent should you focus on?

Commercial Search Intent

You will want to conduct keyword research on your most commercially viable terms known as long-tail keywords. These are the final step in the sales funnel. These pages showcase your expertise and contain calls-to-action. These are examples of conversion keywords:

Seattle plumber for leaking bathtub
Seattle roofing company for roof replacement
Seattle contractor for remodel
Seattle business broker to sell my business
Seattle DUI lawyer for first time DUI
Seattle real estate agent to sell my condo

Informational Search Intent

These articles answer business questions and help clients to be aware of your options. These keywords are examples of information keywords:

What to do following a new water heater installation?
How do business brokers value small businesses for sale?
How much of a settlement can a bike accident lawyer get?

Step 1: Create a pool of your most commercially and informationally viable terms that are relevant to the services that you offer and problems that you solve.

Step 2: Evaluate the potential keyword opportunities using either a paid or free keyword research tool.

Step 3: Create a mix of informational and commercial content that is more valuable than the top competitor results for your key words.

Step 4: Enjoy evergreen results form all your hard work!

Periodically Re-Evaluate Your Local SEO Keywords Research

Local SEO keyword research should not be done once and forgotten. It is important to revisit your keywords. At the very least, consider updating at least once every six months.

You also want to review your Google Analytics to ascertain how well your content for your keywords is performing. Does it need to upgraded, revised, edited, elaborated? Continue using Google Analytics as your score-sheet for how well your content is ranking and continuously update to achieve maximally beneficial results.

While you might find many similarities to what you did in your initial research, you are likely to discover new keywords that could be of interest. You’ll want to leverage the results from your analytics  to determine where to double-down to further optimize, particularly for those keywords that yield conversions.