Local keywords for small businesses.

Marty S · 09-03-2009, 09:18 AM

Are there any Warriors with experience in determining relevant keywords for small businesses that are searched locally? Or possibly within a city or geographical area significantly smaller than a state or province.

I am particularly interested to know online strategies that have worked.

salesnitro · 09-03-2009, 01:50 PM

One method is to use the deep search in twitter. It allows you to see what people are talking about and arguably searching for in a geo area. One thing that is different about it is that it is based on where they are physically....so, a person visiting Palm Beach FL from Seattle and twittering about food at a restaurant will show up as twittering from Palm Beach.

JL Melvin · 09-03-2009, 02:06 PM

You can do a standard local keyword search using Google's keyword tool or Wordtracker's free tool.

I usually do the broad view: plumber my city, pizza my city, etc.

The only problem with the tools is they don't capture all the data. When I launched my local business directory/portal I had no clue how much traffic would come from the search engine's.

I did my research, but it was very spotty and did not reveal a whole lot of potential.

However, after it was launched the traffic started coming from the SE's- as a matter of fact one of the first keywords that found my portal was: dry cleaner my town.

What I've found is - do some research - you never know what it will reveal.

After that, optimize the site for the product and/or service the business offers and use geo tags as well as city, state, phone #, etc.

Jeff

Wilter Quesada · 09-03-2009, 02:16 PM

hey JL Melvin could you give an example of geo tags? I am trying to help my mother on her business and this may be of allot of help thanks and Marty S sorry for hijacking your thread

David · 09-03-2009, 02:33 PM

I've found I can't predict who will benefit and who will not from the SEO I do for local business. Some get a huge increase in not only leads/ inquiries but money in the cash register that came directly from getting ranked.
curiously some industries seem to fare well just from being #1 in Google local search listings, others I can give them the top spot and that doesn't make their phone ring.

Surprising examples of Local Google Advertising results from my client list:

The traffic of their pics on flickr is consistently higher for those industries than my other clients as well.

Don't ask me why but being #1 for movers or moving company did little to make the client's phone ring (hard to beat city-data in that category)

kenj · 09-03-2009, 02:38 PM

I don't know about the US but here in the UK I have found that product + county works well for keywords.

e.g.

garden sheds berkshire
fish tanks surrey
usw......

More localised searches such as village or town are less fruitful for me. I believe this is due to the common sense of local searchers wanting to find a range of providers in their area.

jan roos · 09-03-2009, 04:55 PM

Remember when you are setting up Google maps for your clients, in the categories section put your keywords and it doesn't have to be geo specific as Google will automatically show them when someone in the area seraches for the keyword.

Put general keywords (researched with keyword tool ofcourse) in there like plumber, drain cleaning, leak detection etc.

As far as regular organic SEO I find that city name plus type of business works best. plumber LA or chinese restaurant san diego etc.

Cheers

Marty S · 09-03-2009, 05:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jan roos

Remember when you are setting up Google maps for your clients, in the categories section put your keywords and it doesn't have to be geo specific as Google will automatically show them when someone in the area seraches for the keyword.

Ok now things are getting interesting.

I also think this applies to WHERE the search is coming from, because I have read before that Google will give local preference to websites/businesses that are near that IP address. So if the search does not include the city, such as lawn maintenance, as opposed to Toronto lawn maintenance there will still be simialr results based on location, right?

Further, I wonder why Google does not provide search terms for geo areas using the mapping technology they provide in google adwords. Certainly they KNOW that data.

JNFerree · 09-18-2009, 04:56 PM

1st - I'd recommend you check out this Webinar (replay) before the Nitro Marketing guys pull it down.
2nd - You need to learn how to use a one of these keyword research tools so that you can quickly identify the right keywords for your local business client. I'd recommend you look into these KW tools:
- Micro Niche Finder
- Market Samuari

TimCastleman · 09-18-2009, 04:59 PM

I used this book to help my MMA gym get listed on google and actually be in the top 3 for every type of search.

I just followed it step by step. Best of all when I had questions I had the ability to contact her for help.

SEO Straight Up: SEO Course For Newbies - Comprehensive SEO Guide

TheRichLife · 09-18-2009, 06:00 PM

Here's what I've done for a few friends who have local businesses:

I used the same key words I would if it were a national business. But, I made sure that the site had the names of the area I wanted it to rank for somewhere in the content, and the description tag.

For instance, If you want to rank for "plumber Dallas, TX". Optimize the site for plumber, and make sure the business address (assuming it's in Dallas) is on the site. If you want to rank for Dallas/Ft Worth put that in you content your description tag.

As long as you outrank the other plumbers in Dallas for the term "plumber", you'll be #1 if somebody searches for "Plumber Dallas, TX".

Steve Diamond · 09-18-2009, 06:44 PM

One trick that I've used to good effect is to enter a large city name along with my keyword into the Google keyword tool. Their data is more complete for the larger cities, so this seems to return more results and better information.

For example, if my client is a plumber in Podunk (no offense, anyone

) I'll enter plumber Houston or plumber Los Angeles rather than plumber Podunk. I figure that the actual search phrases tend to be about the same anywhere, but Google doesn't bother to report the lower volume ones in the smaller locations.

Steve

Marty S · 09-18-2009, 09:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JNFerree

1st - I'd recommend you check out this Webinar (replay) before the Nitro Marketing guys pull it down.
2nd - You need to learn how to use a one of these keyword research tools so that you can quickly identify the right keywords for your local business client. I'd recommend you look into these KW tools:
- Micro Niche Finder
- Market Samuari

These tools are great for international marketing, but most local keywords using these tools come up with ZERO data available.

marylandsearchengineoptim · 10-14-2010, 02:54 AM

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic.

ISMM Tom · 10-14-2010, 11:00 AM

Take a look on local business directories. There are all sorts of sites that businesses sign up to so that people like us see them!

henrywolf2010 · 10-17-2010, 04:06 AM

I use city+industry as subdomains and that's been the key to be able to rank.

Quentin · 10-18-2010, 08:05 AM

Well the keywords you use need to relate to the company you are promoting.

If you are doing work for a tyre company then you need to create content around tyre brands, vehicles etc.

For a resort then around the area, services they provide etc.

Pretty simple really.

Trouble is most people don't look at it this way so never get great results.

Quentin

jcwinter · 10-18-2010, 10:43 AM

As far as ranking for multiple keywords what would everyone recommend.

Ex. You have a plumber in dallas and want to rank for multiple keywords starting with most attainable with highest traffic first and working your way down.

So get that keyword domain if possible for a little extra from google to get the #1 term. then should the order be domain.com/keyword#1, domain.com/keyword#2, etc.?

Someone I believe mentioned putting the keyword terms in the subdomain? keyword#1.domain.com, keyword#2.domain.com, etc.?

If you are focusing your pricing model are you going to essentially make every page have the lead capture box with the goal of getting everything to a high conversion rate with a uniquely spun article to optimize for the corresponding keyword?

I have seen a few sites that are examples of this, take a look at this one as an example...

(wx3) (dot) allmysons (dot) com (slash) raleigh (slash) index (dot) aspx

(sorry, I am new and can't post links so you will have to replace the (dots) with '.')

On the right hand column of the page there is a connection to all of these keyword optimized sites. Is there a way to accomplish the benefit of this type of linking structure without the clutter of having that in the right hand column of every single page on a site?

A lot of questions but I figured this would be a good discussion starter and I need some feedback as I am trying to work through this!

Thanks!

bettyduncan · 10-26-2010, 04:09 AM

Sorry if there any gurus can tell me the meaning of the word "local" in phrase like Local Keyword?

I'm really confused about whether there are some differences between Local Keyword and General Keyword! I think you guys know what i am trying to ask!

rahulbatra · 10-26-2010, 04:20 AM

I think you can take help of Google ad-words for finding keywords and for promoting website locally you can do submissions to local web directories, article submissions, forum discussions.

Bronwyn and Keith · 10-26-2010, 06:20 AM

Hi All

Just picked up a $5 WSO from a pretty smart kid that gives a pretty good answer to the local markets and small business keyword targetting.

It's at [DIMESALE] UNLEASH THE POWER OF GOOGLE SEARCH: The Internet Marketers Guide to Google

Includes graphics for the challenged like us...LOL

Regards

Bronwyn and Keith

freudianslip27 · 10-26-2010, 09:23 AM

If you don't mind spending a few bucks, you could run ads via ppc on adwords. After a week check out your ad impressions. This gives you a great idea of what types of numbers are being produced per search. Everything else is just guessing.

It also helps to have a general sense of what people search for globally. Google's keyword tool can show you that. For example:

restaurant
restaurants
restaurants near
etc

jrod014 · 10-26-2010, 11:02 AM

try this

then use the results in the google keyword tool for search results

Free Local Keyword Tool, USE IT!!

09-03-2009, 09:18 AM	#1
Marty S Screencaster Yoda War Room Member Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Toronto Posts: 1,454 Blog Entries: 11 Thanks: 241 Thanked 317 Times in 213 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Local keywords for small businesses. Are there any Warriors with experience in determining relevant keywords for small businesses that are searched locally? Or possibly within a city or geographical area significantly smaller than a state or province. I am particularly interested to know online strategies that have worked.
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09-03-2009, 01:50 PM	#2
salesnitro Warrior Member Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Florida Posts: 7 Thanks: 0 Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts Social Networking	Re: Local keywords for small businesses. One method is to use the deep search in twitter. It allows you to see what people are talking about and arguably searching for in a geo area. One thing that is different about it is that it is based on where they are physically....so, a person visiting Palm Beach FL from Seattle and twittering about food at a restaurant will show up as twittering from Palm Beach.
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09-03-2009, 02:06 PM	#3
JL Melvin HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Mokena, IL Posts: 164 Thanks: 18 Thanked 25 Times in 9 Posts	Re: Local keywords for small businesses. You can do a standard local keyword search using Google's keyword tool or Wordtracker's free tool. I usually do the broad view: plumber my city, pizza my city, etc. The only problem with the tools is they don't capture all the data. When I launched my local business directory/portal I had no clue how much traffic would come from the search engine's. I did my research, but it was very spotty and did not reveal a whole lot of potential. However, after it was launched the traffic started coming from the SE's- as a matter of fact one of the first keywords that found my portal was: dry cleaner my town. What I've found is - do some research - you never know what it will reveal. After that, optimize the site for the product and/or service the business offers and use geo tags as well as city, state, phone #, etc. Jeff
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09-03-2009, 02:16 PM	#4
Wilter Quesada HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Miami, Florida Posts: 196 Thanks: 33 Thanked 38 Times in 35 Posts Social Networking	Re: Local keywords for small businesses. hey JL Melvin could you give an example of geo tags? I am trying to help my mother on her business and this may be of allot of help thanks and Marty S sorry for hijacking your thread
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09-03-2009, 02:33 PM	#5
David Advanced Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Frederick, Maryland, USA. Posts: 993 Blog Entries: 11 Thanks: 290 Thanked 18 Times in 18 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: Local keywords for small businesses. I've found I can't predict who will benefit and who will not from the SEO I do for local business. Some get a huge increase in not only leads/ inquiries but money in the cash register that came directly from getting ranked. curiously some industries seem to fare well just from being #1 in Google local search listings, others I can give them the top spot and that doesn't make their phone ring. Surprising examples of Local Google Advertising results from my client list: Auto Upholstery Frederick Maryland used restaurant equipment Maryland The traffic of their pics on flickr is consistently higher for those industries than my other clients as well. Don't ask me why but being #1 for movers or moving company did little to make the client's phone ring (hard to beat city-data in that category)
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09-03-2009, 02:38 PM	#6
kenj Senior Warrior Member War Room Member Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Bracknell, Berkshire, UK Posts: 1,242 Blog Entries: 6 Thanks: 134 Thanked 234 Times in 171 Posts	Re: Local keywords for small businesses. I don't know about the US but here in the UK I have found that product + county works well for keywords. e.g. garden sheds berkshire fish tanks surrey usw...... More localised searches such as village or town are less fruitful for me. I believe this is due to the common sense of local searchers wanting to find a range of providers in their area.
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09-03-2009, 04:55 PM	#7
jan roos Senior Warrior Member War Room Member Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: USA. Posts: 2,172 Thanks: 473 Thanked 543 Times in 248 Posts Contact Info	Re: Local keywords for small businesses. Remember when you are setting up Google maps for your clients, in the categories section put your keywords and it doesn't have to be geo specific as Google will automatically show them when someone in the area seraches for the keyword. Put general keywords (researched with keyword tool ofcourse) in there like plumber, drain cleaning, leak detection etc. As far as regular organic SEO I find that city name plus type of business works best. plumber LA or chinese restaurant san diego etc. Cheers
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09-18-2009, 04:56 PM	#9
JNFerree Google Plusser War Room Member Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 345 Thanks: 69 Thanked 49 Times in 43 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: Local keywords for small businesses. 1st - I'd recommend you check out this Webinar (replay) before the Nitro Marketing guys pull it down. 2nd - You need to learn how to use a one of these keyword research tools so that you can quickly identify the right keywords for your local business client. I'd recommend you look into these KW tools: Micro Niche Finder Market Samuari
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09-18-2009, 04:59 PM	#10
TimCastleman Gunslinger War Room Member Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 1,649 Blog Entries: 34 Thanks: 155 Thanked 744 Times in 293 Posts	Re: Local keywords for small businesses. I used this book to help my MMA gym get listed on google and actually be in the top 3 for every type of search. I just followed it step by step. Best of all when I had questions I had the ability to contact her for help. SEO Straight Up: SEO Course For Newbies - Comprehensive SEO Guide
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09-18-2009, 06:00 PM	#11
TheRichLife HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Midwest Posts: 180 Thanks: 43 Thanked 38 Times in 28 Posts	Re: Local keywords for small businesses. Here's what I've done for a few friends who have local businesses: I used the same key words I would if it were a national business. But, I made sure that the site had the names of the area I wanted it to rank for somewhere in the content, and the description tag. For instance, If you want to rank for "plumber Dallas, TX". Optimize the site for plumber, and make sure the business address (assuming it's in Dallas) is on the site. If you want to rank for Dallas/Ft Worth put that in you content your description tag. As long as you outrank the other plumbers in Dallas for the term "plumber", you'll be #1 if somebody searches for "Plumber Dallas, TX".
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09-18-2009, 06:44 PM	#12
Steve Diamond Senior Warrior Member War Room Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Tucson, AZ, USA. Posts: 1,025 Thanks: 120 Thanked 158 Times in 115 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: Local keywords for small businesses. One trick that I've used to good effect is to enter a large city name along with my keyword into the Google keyword tool. Their data is more complete for the larger cities, so this seems to return more results and better information. For example, if my client is a plumber in Podunk (no offense, anyone ) I'll enter plumber Houston or plumber Los Angeles rather than plumber Podunk. I figure that the actual search phrases tend to be about the same anywhere, but Google doesn't bother to report the lower volume ones in the smaller locations. Steve
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10-14-2010, 02:54 AM	#14
marylandsearchengineoptim Warrior Member Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 1 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: Local keywords for small businesses. As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic.

10-14-2010, 11:00 AM	#15
ISMM Tom ISMM Social Media Manager Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 13 Thanks: 0 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	Re: Local keywords for small businesses. Take a look on local business directories. There are all sorts of sites that businesses sign up to so that people like us see them!
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10-17-2010, 04:06 AM	#16
henrywolf2010 Active Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 77 Thanks: 0 Thanked 10 Times in 6 Posts	Re: Local keywords for small businesses. I use city+industry as subdomains and that's been the key to be able to rank.

10-18-2010, 08:05 AM	#17
Quentin DIY Internet Marketing War Room Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Brisbane Posts: 4,918 Blog Entries: 10 Thanks: 7 Thanked 990 Times in 449 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: Local keywords for small businesses. Well the keywords you use need to relate to the company you are promoting. If you are doing work for a tyre company then you need to create content around tyre brands, vehicles etc. For a resort then around the area, services they provide etc. Pretty simple really. Trouble is most people don't look at it this way so never get great results. Quentin
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10-18-2010, 10:43 AM	#18
jcwinter Warrior Member Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Wake Forest, NC Posts: 24 Thanks: 1 Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts Social Networking	Re: Local keywords for small businesses. As far as ranking for multiple keywords what would everyone recommend. Ex. You have a plumber in dallas and want to rank for multiple keywords starting with most attainable with highest traffic first and working your way down. So get that keyword domain if possible for a little extra from google to get the #1 term. then should the order be domain.com/keyword#1, domain.com/keyword#2, etc.? Someone I believe mentioned putting the keyword terms in the subdomain? keyword#1.domain.com, keyword#2.domain.com, etc.? If you are focusing your pricing model are you going to essentially make every page have the lead capture box with the goal of getting everything to a high conversion rate with a uniquely spun article to optimize for the corresponding keyword? I have seen a few sites that are examples of this, take a look at this one as an example... (wx3) (dot) allmysons (dot) com (slash) raleigh (slash) index (dot) aspx (sorry, I am new and can't post links so you will have to replace the (dots) with '.') On the right hand column of the page there is a connection to all of these keyword optimized sites. Is there a way to accomplish the benefit of this type of linking structure without the clutter of having that in the right hand column of every single page on a site? A lot of questions but I figured this would be a good discussion starter and I need some feedback as I am trying to work through this! Thanks!

10-26-2010, 04:09 AM	#19
bettyduncan HyperActive Warrior Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 137 Thanks: 2 Thanked 8 Times in 5 Posts	Re: Local keywords for small businesses. Sorry if there any gurus can tell me the meaning of the word "local" in phrase like Local Keyword? I'm really confused about whether there are some differences between Local Keyword and General Keyword! I think you guys know what i am trying to ask!

10-26-2010, 04:20 AM	#20
rahulbatra HyperActive Warrior Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 167 Thanks: 0 Thanked 4 Times in 4 Posts	Re: Local keywords for small businesses. I think you can take help of Google ad-words for finding keywords and for promoting website locally you can do submissions to local web directories, article submissions, forum discussions.
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10-26-2010, 06:20 AM	#21
Bronwyn and Keith Ethical Warriors War Room Member Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Gold Coast, Australia Posts: 2,423 Thanks: 449 Thanked 385 Times in 328 Posts Social Networking	Re: Local keywords for small businesses. Hi All Just picked up a $5 WSO from a pretty smart kid that gives a pretty good answer to the local markets and small business keyword targetting. It's at [DIMESALE] UNLEASH THE POWER OF GOOGLE SEARCH: The Internet Marketers Guide to Google Includes graphics for the challenged like us...LOL Regards Bronwyn and Keith
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10-26-2010, 09:23 AM	#22
freudianslip27 Senior Warrior Member War Room Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 1,315 Thanks: 26 Thanked 176 Times in 116 Posts	Re: Local keywords for small businesses. If you don't mind spending a few bucks, you could run ads via ppc on adwords. After a week check out your ad impressions. This gives you a great idea of what types of numbers are being produced per search. Everything else is just guessing. It also helps to have a general sense of what people search for globally. Google's keyword tool can show you that. For example: restaurant restaurants restaurants near etc
	Offline Marketers: Dominate the Local Business Directories with Never Seen Before Techniques I reveal the secrets of dominating the local business directories in my detailed videos and accompanying book.

10-26-2010, 11:02 AM	#23
jrod014 RankHighSolutions.com War Room Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Los Angeles , USA. Posts: 876 Blog Entries: 1 Thanks: 51 Thanked 237 Times in 79 Posts Social Networking	Re: Local keywords for small businesses. try this then use the results in the google keyword tool for search results Free Local Keyword Tool, USE IT!!
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