Tips for mining local keyword research? Extracting the micro niches can be tough!

[flnz400]

Anyone have any tips or recommendations for tools outside of the usual for uncovering local keyword searches?

Would Micro Niche Finder work well for this? Something else??

Adwords tool and SEO book leaves MUCH to be desired when focusing on city specific searches, though they are there.

Thanks!

[Andy Crofford]

I don't know of any tools specifically for geo keyword terms. I use the Google Keyword tool to find basic keywords / phrases then add my geo modifier to them. That is the best way I have found so far.

[dru-man]

Here's a good information source about local seo factors: Local Search Ranking Factors | Google & Yahoo Local SEO Best Practices. I picked it up from the rent-a-site thread, and I haven't really had a chance to look it over in depth, but it looks pretty valuable. It's not exactly what you're asking for, but it gives a much better understanding of how local seo works. Have a look.

[stma]

microtargetniches.com should do what you need.

Edit - opps - I thought you were trying to rank for local terms. MTN only helps you build the sites.

[flnz400]

Thanks guys.... yeah, not trying to rank (that's the easy part ).

Just seeing if anyone has any tips for mining better obscure little niches.

I'm sure there's a tool or method I have missed that makes more sense... any more ideas guys?

Thanks for your help!

[Austin Delaney]

Google Insights for Search

I use this to collect keywords and then run them with variations of the locality thru Google keywords with the 'Don't show ideas for new keywords.' filter

[dru-man]

First off--I am in not really knowleadgable about this--so take this response as purely speculative. Feel free to chime in here--I am very interested in seeing everyone's thinking on this.

One thing I've been thinking about lately is a micro niche I'm currently ranking for. I posted about this in the seo forum, and I've come to the conclusion that since it is such specific micro niche, I don't have to worry so much about keyword research because I am pretty much gauranteed to rank #1 anytime someone looks up this "subject" in Google. In many cases, this is already true without effort. So in my opinion, when using the google keyword tool, there is no need for more specific than a broad search when identifying demand--exact is unecessary because it will be easy to claim any keywords in this market. This is a not-so-educated guess on my part, and may have more to do with what I don't know. :-)

So how can we analyze this from the other direction rather than already knowing what that micro-niche might be? I suppose you would want to find a subject so defined and local at the same time there is no problem dominating.

Even as I'm writing this, I went to the keyword tool at google and googled the name of my city, using only the broad query. I picked out a term that might have some marketing potential and has under a 1000 "broad" searches per month--"job in my city." Very small. Exactly 1000 broad searches. This could actually be profitable where I am at for the reason that the only jobs legally allowed to foreigners here are english-teaching jobs, the locals don't usually search on the internet for work (especially in English), and many people are desperate to fund staying here. There could be ways to monetize this--a recruiting service or website for teaching schools, set it up and sell or rent to a teaching school, a paid advertising site, etc. These are just off the top of the head...

With a little playing around with the term, here's what I get--all broad queries:
My city job 1000
My city jobs 1000
job in my city 390
jobs in my city 390
jobs in my city country 46
my city university jobs 16
my city work 210
my city employment 76

And because I have some suspicions about what this micro niche is all about:
teaching in my city 210
my city teaching 390
teaching English in my city 73
my city teacher 260

Now, to be sure, if I switch to exact the numbers will be pretty sad and many of these terms are obviously displaying shared data, but it seems safe to conclude there is some interest in this tiny niche. And I've heard it said that often local keyword strings that don't even register results at all bring in traffic somehow. Looking at the results in google with these search terms I'm not seeing one result in the top ten I couldn't beat, and putting the results in quotes, some terms don't even register one competitor.

So, have I really located a micro niche? A micro-micro niche? Perhaps not the most profitable one in the world, but worthy of speculation...Maybe someone could fill us in on whether this method is viable or not. I'm pretty green on seo, but this just seems to make sense to me. Feel free to set me straight, folks.

One more thing that crosses my mind is that since these tiny niches are often so elusive, it may pay in these cases to use the googe keyword tool and the wordtracker tool--check both and see if either registers data. Afterall, they're both getting info somewhere, right? I took one term I found in wordtracker and plugged it in to the google tool and got a result none of my other google tool queries had given me.

Just food for thought here--hope this isn't all too common sense for you guys.

[Michael Franklin]

Hey flnz400,

I've used the Google Wonder Wheel to narrow down many niches into micro niches. I then take these keywords and plug them into Google's Keyword Tool to discover some great phrases to work with.....Try it and see!

[Michael Mayo]

Have you tried this Free Tool to do local searches?

http://www.5minutesite.com/local_keywords.php

Hope they Help,
Have a Great Day!
Michael

[michaelpowers]

Originally Posted by austind72

Google Insights for Search

I use this to collect keywords and then run them with variations of the locality thru Google keywords with the 'Don't show ideas for new keywords.' filter

This is a pretty cool tool. I just tested it out and it seems to work very well. I normally use Google Trends but this is very helpful for locating keywords in certain areas. Thanks!