Should I just ignore local keywords?

[Marty S]

It occurred to me, while doing yet another frustrating local SEO/keyword research session (little or no data), that I should probably just ignore trying to find the local keywords and just use the same type of research and keyword strategy I would for any internet property.

My thinking is that if the web property has enough local information in it, and with using Google Maps, then Google will simply put 2 and 2 together and give the local site higher rankings for searches that are done near it - which is my bottom line goal anyway.

[Bill Farnham]

Hi Marty,

I agree with your premise. I get lots of searchers hitting my sites that can only be attributed to what they used to call LSI keywords.

In other words, Google somehow (we all know how ) puts 2+2 together to come up with a result showing your site in the serps due to the content on the pages.

I know some will argue it's the backlinks that play a more determining part in this, but in my case, those backlinks don't exist in many cases.

~Bill

[Marty S]

I hope we are talking about the same things here. I am referring to finding and using competitive keywords for local small businesses. It just often (like almost always) happens that there is just not enough data to figure what people are searching for in a targeted city area.

So the thought was that I would just use the keyword research that I would for a site that did not have a local target audience. In other words, I wouldn't concentrate on adding "Toronto" to my keywords - I would just let Google determine that the web content was for a local audience.

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by Marty S

My thinking is that if the web property has enough local information in it, and with using Google Maps, then Google will simply put 2 and 2 together and give the local site higher rankings for searches that are done near it - which is my bottom line goal anyway.

I give that a vote as well. Once in google maps, the trick is to get a higher
rating and be very relevant. I don't think backlinks matter, because as you
say, if you really do a "local" search, city, zip code, etc., that google map
thing gets in the way. Backlinks don't do anything for google map results.

I don't see how if you search for a common type of business, and city,
that google maps is not going to pop up. I thought I would try something
off the wall. I just did a search for: clown mycity state

Sure enough, 8 local business results in maps showed up. Only one of
those showed in the search results below. Do more people use the map
results, or scroll down? I wonder if google has any data on this.

Paul

[Marty S]

Originally Posted by jasontheman07

AHH, ok so basically it would almost be a waste of time and/or valuable keyword space to try and target localized versions of a keyphrase when they don't even get enough searches for google to have data collected on them?

I don't really know for sure. Its the lack of geo-data that is offered by Google that is just making me think of alternative strategies.

Originally Posted by paulgl

I give that a vote as well. Once in google maps, the trick is to get a higher
rating and be very relevant. I don't think backlinks matter, because as you
say, if you really do a "local" search, city, zip code, etc., that google map
thing gets in the way. Backlinks don't do anything for google map results.

I don't see how if you search for a common type of business, and city,
that google maps is not going to pop up. I thought I would try something
off the wall. I just did a search for: clown mycity state

Sure enough, 8 local business results in maps showed up. Only one of
those showed in the search results below. Do more people use the map
results, or scroll down? I wonder if google has any data on this.

Paul

I think Google has data on everything, but I am still wondering why they haven't added a geo keyword research tool.

[Bill Farnham]

Originally Posted by jasontheman07

So does that mean you could have a site that is not necesarily targeted to local SERPS, but a page on that site would be just because it has local keywords on it?

Jason,

In a word...yes. One of the things I do regulary is to check my stats to see what keywords brought what visitor to any of my sites. Many times I can see the correlation between what keywords were used, and what products were sold. Now, it helps that in one case I have a site that sells physical products and we actually get to interact with our customers. So matching keywords to visitors becomes a lot easier, and also a lot more definitive. While I appreciate all the 'theory', real world experience carries a lot more weight in my book.

Since I fired my webdesigner years ago, (too many spinning monkeys), I build all my own sites so I know exactly what is on all the pages. Over the years it has become evident to me that LSI keywords carry a lot of weight.

So a page that contains local keywords should indeed show up in searches that are geo-specific even if you have done nothing more than included some content that mentions the locality. This assumes (Danger Will Robinson!) that the other elements of the site are inline with what can be considered a 'real' website, at least in the eyes of searchers (healthy low bounce rate, as an example) and not just some spammy site designed to intercept traffic.

Originally Posted by Marty S

I hope we are talking about the same things here. I am referring to finding and using competitive keywords for local small businesses. It just often (like almost always) happens that there is just not enough data to figure what people are searching for in a targeted city area.

So the thought was that I would just use the keyword research that I would for a site that did not have a local target audience. In other words, I wouldn't concentrate on adding "Toronto" to my keywords - I would just let Google determine that the web content was for a local audience.

Marty,

In the absence of any content that would be considered 'local' in nature I think a given webpage would get lost in the crowd for competetive keywords without a lot of seo manipulation designed to game the serps. You can game the system, but if folks vote with their back button...you lose.

More to the point, if you let the content address a given locality I don't see why you wouldn't show in the serps if Google can put 2+2 together. And they can. As a broad example, if I type 'plumber' into Google I get results for the national chains as well as a link "Local business results for plumber near my town".

It appears from the results of clicking that link nobody has built a page specifically about plumbers in my area. (I live WAY out in the country.) The results are too geographically far away for me to contact anybody in those results. Hence...huge opportunity!

Now, I can build a webpage to determine if I can rank for that keyword and show up in the serps (I'm not going to bother at this point ) to prove if what I'm saying is correct, but I know from past experience this is entirely doable. I bet a real estate agent a few years ago I could rank for certain keywords in our locality and I still hold the #1 ranking for those keywords. I just built a site putting one of my investment properties on it, added lots of pages describing the property, and a lot of pictures.

No backlinks, no additional seo work of any kind. In fact, other RE sites scrape my site for their 'content'. But what is on that site is 'locality' keywords in the content. And plenty of content to hold a visitors' attention. Until they get to the 'price' page where I have it priced grossly over market because I'm not trying to sell it, I was trying to illustrate a point to one of the top RE agents where I live about ranking for local keywords.

Sorry for the rambling...

~Bill

[Marty S]

Understood Bill. Thanks.

I was actually thinking of still including the local content within the pages, I mean not JUST relying on Google maps, its just more to the point of what keywords I would be targeting for traffic.

For instance, instead of back-linking "criminal lawyer Toronto", just back-link "criminal lawyer" where my on page SEO and Google maps would take of the Toronto part, hence Google would rank me higher for searches in my area.

Just an hypothesis, that could make my life easier.