Should I concentrate keyword ranking locally or nationally?
-
Hi all,
I have spent few last days reading here in community and watching Moz videos about keyword research. I used keywords planner tool.
Here is the question.
When I researched keywords I took into account search traffic nationwide UK rather then my local search volume.
My photography business operates more for local customers rather then nationwide. Does it mean that I need to concentrate on my local city/region search volume rather then nationwide.
After I have done Nationwide keyword research I realised that most of those keywords which are with really high search volumes are pretty much non existent in my local search results. I meant to the point that keyword search volume is under 10. Considering that I have small number of pages i could use them for, my guess is that it is no point to target those high search volume keywords as most likely those won't be my clients anyway.
I might be getting all this wrong, but wanted to ask here.
Thank you all,
Regards,
Armands
-
Hi Armands,
This might be a bit shocking, but I've never been a big fan of any free keyword research tool I've tried for Local SEO purposes, but then, keyword research hasn't been a daily task for me in a couple of years. It's really important for me to mention that it has been at least a couple of years since I've looked at whatever paid tools may be new, so I can't say whether their accuracy has improved, specifically for correctly representing local search volumes. When I was doing more of this, I simply used the old strategy that I remember first being recommended by Matt McGee of performing non-local keyword research and adding geomodifiers back into your list of findings, knowing that people search for most things that exist in most cities, regardless of what tools say. This may not sound sophisticated - and it isn't - but it has always made good horse sense to me. Do note, however, that Rand did an important Whiteboard Friday on this topic of how we can't do keyword research like it's 2010: https://moz.com/blog/cant-do-keyword-research-like-its-2010-whiteboard-friday
Where this gets a bit more complex is when you have geographic vocabulary differences (soda vs. pop, lawyer vs. attorney, stick horse vs. hobby horse), in which case, knowing the way your audience speaks is either going to be something you research in person, or something you approximate via Internet research of social media to see how people talk locally about the products you sell.
Now, that being said, there is one trick I'm totally fond of - the wildcard search Mary Bowling spoke of at a recent conference. I had never seen that before, and it's awesome:
And, remember to pay attention to the 'related searches' section at the bottom of most Google results. There are some really obvious clues there.
And, finally, I've always thought that Google's categories provided some of the most important keywords one should be optimizing for, when you are aiming to rank well in Google's local product.
So, while I want to be sure to note that I am not a local keyword research expert in any way, I think much of keyword research is actually just common sense, but with the understanding that some of it isn't common sense and findings can totally surprise us about the way people search.
Further Reading:
https://www.brightlocal.com/2014/07/22/effective-local-keyword-research/
http://www.localsearchforum.com/local-content/38255-keyword-research-blog-posts-local-content.html (see CodyBaird's comment)
-
Thanks Miriam,
What you would then recommend for keyword research?
Thank you for joining conversation.
Regards,
Armands
-
Hi Armands,
Great advice from EGOL. I will add a bit - I don't find the Keyword Planner to be very helpful for accurate local search volume research. Believe me - people are searching for photographers in your city, even if tools don't accurately reflect this. So, yes, you'll want to market yourself locally (website content, citations, reviews, etc.) but there is no reason that you can't simultaneously go for national coverage as well, if your business lends itself to that, as EGOL has described.
-
If you are writing content with the intent of appearing in the search engines for work opportunities in specific locations they you should focus on local. An example would be "product photography in London".
However, if you have the ability to produce content that is competitive enough to rank well nationally or globally for broad topics, that content can increase the strength of your site in local search. And, if you can generate significant traffic, that traffic can be monetized with adsense, product sales, direct ad sales, remote consulting, or jobs that you travel to complete.
I live in the United States and have a license to consult in the state where I live. However, I have written content that ranks for industry keywords in local communities across the United States. I run Google Adsense on those pages and local businesses (and many other types of businesses) use Google Adwords to place ads on my site. I make far more from those ads than I could possibly make from full time consulting.
ADDED: If you use Google's DoubleClick for Publishers ad server, you can control who sees your ads based upon their geographic location. If you don't want to show ads to visitors in your local service area, they can be blocked. At the same time, you can display Adsense ads to visitors from outside of your area or directly sell impresses to local businesses in other areas when visitors from those areas visit your site. Advertisers using Adwords can do the same from their side.
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
-
Bye Bye Keyword Difficulty Tool :(
So the Keyword Difficulty Tool will be retired from the end of this month. Is anyone else worried about this? - because I just don't trust the numbers coming back from Keyword Explorer. Never have. I've even raised this with Moz staff previously, when there was a huge difference between the score given by the keyword difficulty tool vs keyword explorer. From what I see in Domain and Page authority and in the SERPs then the score from keyword difficulty tool, was always more accurate, and thankfully have been able to use both tools, but from next month I feel somewhat uneasy about solely relying on the score from Keyword Explorer. Thoughts? and feel free to run your own tests on keywords and I'm sure you'll see what I mean.
Keyword Research | | GregDixson0 -
Local keywords still relevant?
Now with Google localizing search increasingly personalizing queriesquery results, is it still necessary to add geo-specific modifiers to keywords? [reworded for clarity]
Keyword Research | | SSFCU0 -
Keyword tracking- Local
Silly question about Local ranking monitors. If I have a local client in Pheonix, AZ and I want to track rankings for keywords. Is it best to monitor city+keyword or just keyword? I have ran tests with multiple clients and locations, and cannot ascertain the difference- as far as rankings go. I appreciate all input.
Keyword Research | | TammyWood1 -
Keyword Difficulty Report
Hi I am a seo beginner, please help me to know and usability of Keyword Difficulty Report. Actually, i see the difficulty percentage is 28 for a keyword and i have option to generate defficulty report. Bit confused how can i use this?
Keyword Research | | Webworld_Norway0 -
Best techniques For EMD Ranking in 2013
OK. I know some will say "same as any other SEO". But I am keen to get one of my sites ranking for it's EMD. Nothing I do seems to be working at all. As far as I can tell it's not even in the top 100. Because the site is managed for a business, it needs income. I've managed to increase it's ranks in some low terms.
Keyword Research | | StephenForde0 -
After 10th August ranking has changed
Good evening, I hava a questiong regardin the ranking after 10th August. I hava an online tire shop and the ranking has changed that means I was on the first position on search term "anvelope" and now I am on the 3 rd place. I have unique content, few duplicate content and still in front of my site there are sites with huge duplicate content and not so unique. Is it a coincidence that the position has changed on the 10 August or I was affected by Emanuel? How Emanuel update can affect an online tire shop? In other city's I am on the firs place. My site is www.anvelope.ro Thank's Florin
Keyword Research | | Vreaumobila0 -
How does Title keyword order, number and puctuation factor into rankings?
Hi, I am new at SEO and really trying to dive right in and do some thorough keyword research before I put my efforts into on-page optimization. In my research I have found a bunch of keywords that have low competition and decent search volume for my niche. I was thinking that I could be quite clever to combine a few of these phrases together in order to target them all. I realize that the first few positions for title tag placement hold extra value so I do not want to overdo it with my word choices and therefore not rank for my keywords. For example "pink girls room" has the highest (but not a ton) searches out of the keywords that I have found. "pink room decor" is also a decent and relevant keyword. So if my title is "Pink girls room decor" at the beginning of my title will I hurt myself instead of thinking that I am clever enough to get both keywords with one shot. Also, if I add more keywords in a natural way after this important beginning phrase, will it help me get more long tail search terms or will it just dilute my original keywords? Finally, how do search engines view punctuation? I have noticed that when I search for terms myself that Google appears to ignore punctuation.. Does that mean if I am strategic I can get more keyword terms in my title and still sound human by taking advantage of this? Thanks so much!
Keyword Research | | ColorfulConcepts0 -
How can i track keywords history
i need to keep a record for all keywords history , is there any way that we can track keywords history so we can compare each week with the previous weeks ?
Keyword Research | | omarfk0