No Local Search Volume for keyword?

29 replies
Hello all,

I decided to target chiropractors in my area but when I entered chiropractors my city into googles keyword tool it came up with no results for local search volume. What does this mean? Should I continue to persue these clients? I looked in the local phone book and there is almost three pages for chiropractors so I know their spending money on advertising. I just don't want to get a client and not be able to deliver results due to low search volume, any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks
-Chris
#keyword #local #search #volume
  • Profile picture of the author marketingva
    Hi Chris,

    I had the same problem. I searched for symptoms like "back pain" or "stiff neck" and got some good results. I also searched for "auto accident" keywords and used those too.

    Bonnie
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    • Profile picture of the author mogulmap
      Hey Bonnie,

      Thanks a bunch! I didn't even think about that. How would I localize a keyword like "back pain" when doing my onpage SEO? Sorry if its an obvious question I just don't know how to tie in the city.

      Thanks
      -Chris
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    • Profile picture of the author ravenvalencia
      Originally Posted by marketingva View Post

      Hi Chris,

      I had the same problem. I searched for symptoms like "back pain" or "stiff neck" and got some good results. I also searched for "auto accident" keywords and used those too.

      Bonnie


      I am currently suffering from back pain and I don't know if this pain can be cured by a chiropractor. Can anyone help me?
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      • Profile picture of the author tonyscott
        Originally Posted by ravenvalencia View Post

        I am currently suffering from back pain and I don't know if this pain can be cured by a chiropractor. Can anyone help me?
        Maybe contact the site in your sig?

        Tony
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  • Profile picture of the author Pete Egeler
    One thing you might try, is just doing some searches and see what shows up. Try, "Back pain Your City", "Chiropractors Your City" , anything terms you can think of that a person might use.

    Take a look at the results, and see who "pops up" in the searches. That should give you a base to work with.

    Pete
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    • Profile picture of the author Defunct
      Google's keyword tool often says NO DATA for keywords that do definitely have data.

      Set up a small adwords account with your keywords, you can even put up a non related ad and after a week you will get an idea of the real search volume.

      Google suggest should also give you an idea of what people type in (more current keywords)
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      • Profile picture of the author WickedWally
        Originally Posted by Defunct View Post

        Set up a small adwords account with your keywords, you can even put up a non related ad and after a week you will get an idea of the real search volume.
        Genius...this is proof of how many clicks it gets, do an exact match, only one keyword and you're done.

        Thanks.

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    • Profile picture of the author jkstam3
      great tips...but what I think he's looking for is some kind of significant data to

      A.) base results of his services off of to determine whether or not his methods are working for the client

      and to

      B.) initially present to his client to get them on board (i.e. - Business owner, there are currently 1200 searches done a month for the term Atlanta, GA chiropractor...and you are not seeing any of this traffic b/c you are not on the first page of google.

      I mean who wants to answer the question from a potential client when asked how do I know there is a need for this by saying

      "well google says the data is not significant enough to present...but come on it's google...when somebody wants something, they don't turn to the yellow pages anymore"

      When we all know this is a good answer, it's always useful to be able to give business owners data.
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  • Profile picture of the author marketingva
    Hi Chris,

    Try combining the city name and the symptoms or services someone would use to find a chiropractor. Put the city name and county name in the main page title page and in the text.

    Bonnie
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  • Profile picture of the author Dr Dan
    Something I have learned with local marketing is to not rely on the keyword tool too heavy. I use the Google Insights tool instead. Tells you where people are searching from in your area for keywords. Doesn't give you a search count but tells you the hot spots and then you just add that term in your keyword.

    You also must remember that even 10 searches for a local term is way better than 100's of non local terms. When people search for local businesses its usually because they are ready to do business right now etc.

    Google Insights for Search
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    • Profile picture of the author mobetman
      Originally Posted by rockstarinlife View Post

      Something I have learned with local marketing is to not rely on the keyword tool too heavy. I use the Google Insights tool instead. Tells you where people are searching from in your area for keywords. Doesn't give you a search count but tells you the hot spots and then you just add that term in your keyword.

      You also must remember that even 10 searches for a local term is way better than 100's of non local terms. When people search for local businesses its usually because they are ready to do business right now etc.

      Google Insights for Search

      Excellent point about Google search data. They often return NO DATA even though it is searched often.

      Haven't used your Google Insights method for local before. Thanks for the tip.

      I do a similar technique that PaulintheSticks mentioned.

      I have found that people often use the same keywords across markets. So for example, if people in a larger city like Atlanta use keywords like Atlanta Chiropractors it's likely that people in a smaller market like Savannah use Savannah Chiropractors as well.

      I test it by first looking to see if there are PPC advertisers in the industry. I walk away from that niche if there aren't any chiropractors doing paid ads - PPC, Online YellowPages, etc. in the area (industry wide - not just for my specific keywords).

      Second, check out the keywords they use for their paid campaigns and use them.

      Third, I throw up a quick landing page with Google Analytics to test traffic numbers and leads generated for my choosen keywords. It's important to look at the traffic and not just the generated leads. Because it's a test, I don't optimize the page as well as I could. I work on that after I know there's some traffic.

      If I get traffic and/or leads I'm happy with, I spruce up the page a little and rent it out to local businesses in that niche. If I don't get the traffic, move on to the next one.

      It may sound like a lot of work but it isn't. The research is easy to do in a smaller market and it super easy to rank for the keywords because remember Google claims there's not traffic. I usually rank in 24 - 48 hours with a short video and/or article and minimal bookmarking effort.

      Also remember, Google isn't the only traffic generator. With local small business marketing, you can get tons of traffic from local directories, review site, social networking sites, and classifieds like Craigslist. As an extra benefit, it will get your test landing page ranked as well.

      Just my opinion, but I think that's one reason why Google has lower numbers for local searches. People are using the same keywords as I mentioned earlier but just aren't doing the searches on Google. They're using local alternatives.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dr Dan
    I just created a 1 page ad for my client and used google insights to find a high searched kw and it was "best restaurant city"

    But when you search that term in keyword tool it doesnt show any results. But with the google insights it shows me that it is a highly searched term for my local area.

    The best part about this is that these terms have little to no competition so you can usually rank on the first page in 24-48 hours with no more than just bookmarking them to 20-30 sites.

    I created a quick video for my next event to show me ranking for one of these terms in less than 10 minutes!

    How cool is that!

    here is a example: http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=restaurant&geo=US-CA-807&cmpt=q

    This shows what areas are searching for restaurants in the bay area. It show the top searches, rising searches, and regional interests. This is a goldmine of information.
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    • Profile picture of the author TonyD
      @ rockstarinlife

      Yes, insights is a great tool for this research but have you noticed the great decline in searches for some of these local businesses since 2004. Makes you wonder where local search is heading don't it? I think search will become redundant as more and more people seek recommendations from facebook, twitter etc.

      I'm in the UK and we spell it like: restaurant

      You spell it like this restaraunt on your side?
      google.com/insights/search/#q=restaraunt&geo=US-CA-807&cmpt=q

      Look at this downward graph for electrician
      google.com/insights/search/#q=electrician&geo=US-CA-807&cmpt=q

      And this for chiropractor
      google.com/insights/search/#q=chiropractor&geo=US-CA-807&cmpt=q

      My second post so cannot display the full links.
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      • Profile picture of the author Dr Dan
        Originally Posted by TonyD View Post

        @ rockstarinlife

        Yes, insights is a great tool for this research but have you noticed the great decline in searches for some of these local businesses since 2004. Makes you wonder where local search is heading don't it? I think search will become redundant as more and more people seek recommendations from facebook, twitter etc.

        I'm in the UK and we spell it like: restaurant

        You spell it like this restaraunt on your side?
        google.com/insights/search/#q=restaraunt&geo=US-CA-807&cmpt=q
        I was half asleep so spelled it wrong lol. But at least I ranked for the correct spelling. I had to double check after I saw that.

        As far as the decline with google insights results. I wouldnt read too much into that since the tool is pretty new and who knows how they collected that data back then.
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  • Profile picture of the author redlegrich
    Google Insights is a great tool that few know about or use. It's really good for PPC, it focuses you on where the action is (and more importantly for your budget, where there is NO action).
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  • Profile picture of the author thelastmuse
    Great suggestion for using Google Insight. I should try that.

    To the thread starter: for location-based keywords, try the following:

    "Your City + Keyword" example: San Francisco Chiropractor, San Francisco Chiropractic

    If your city is small, you may want to target larger cities near your area as long as your client's target clients are willing to drive 30 minutes to an hour. I see that's not really a problem since I'd personally drive 1 hour to see a dentist or a chiropractor.

    Regarding "Back Pain + City", it's a bit questionable whether target Chiropractic clients would actually search for that key phrase. IMO a more targeted keyword would be "City + Spine treatment" "City + back pain treatment" "City + Alternative Medicine" although you may want to check the local search volume for these terms. No local search volume means not enough potential clients, ergo a waste of SEO campaign funds.
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  • Profile picture of the author imageworx
    Thanks for that!... Thats handy. I was wondering how that volume was bieng tracked.
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    • Profile picture of the author thelastmuse
      Originally Posted by imageworx View Post

      Thanks for that!... Thats handy. I was wondering how that volume was bieng tracked.

      Search for "Google Keyword Tool" on Google Search. It tells you the local and global search volumes per keyword.
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  • Profile picture of the author PaulintheSticks
    Hi Chris,

    What is the population of the town/city you are targeting?

    I'm in the same boat and am still not sure about this approach for smaller towns/cities.

    One thing you can do is to find a larger city nearby with similar demographics, check out the search volume for "chiropractors larger city" and extrapolate the numbers based on population. Check that the # of chiro's somewhat correlates with the population. If the population is twice as much, there should be twice as many chiro's. If not make an adjustment in probable search volume.

    Go to your prospect with: Dear prospect, Google doesn't tell us search volume for small towns but there are x searches in (larger city) with x population and same demographics, so we know there will be approx x searches in your town.

    I tried the adwords test approach but Google kept refusing my ad because the landing page wasn't relevant to the ad, etc. So I decided to just go ahead and put up real quick SEO'd wordpress landing page with a contact form and phone number and a "why you should choose us" article.

    If like me, you can do that and get it ranking quickly you can test first. Once you start getting phone calls, you can go to your prospect with the leads. I'm also running google analytics to find out what kind of traffic the site is getting. If you don't get any calls or traffic, try another niche. If that doesn't work, I would think about targeting a larger market/city.

    My $.02

    Would love to share notes as it sounds like we're doing the same thing.

    Good luck.
    Paul
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  • Profile picture of the author Dr Dan
    Not sure what city you are targeting but I just checked Atlanta and San Francisco area and both have top searches for "back pain lower"

    back pain lower atlanta withour quotes has 28,900,000 competing sites, but has 0 competing sites when you throw quotes on it "back pain lower atlanta"

    Which means you can rank first page in less than 24 hours! I did one today in under 3 minutes for a realtor today.

    Use the insight tool.
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  • Profile picture of the author TonyD
    Pretty New? Google Insights was released 6th August 2008

    I've been using it since then to uncover a few nuggets but Rockstar i can't seem to understand why you want to rank for these terms when they get hardly any searches.

    back pain lower atlanta - doesn't receive any searches at all. When you check it on insights:

    2004 - present
    United States > Georgia > Atlanta

    It just shows that the people of Atlanta, Lawrenceville, Alpharetta and Athens are searching for the term - back pain lower - not with atlanta on the end.

    Rising searches at breakout (5000%) increase are:
    abdominal pain
    back exercises
    back pain exercises
    back pain relief
    hip pain
    kidney infection
    kidney stones
    left side pain
    low back pain
    lower abdominal pain

    But all of the above get 0 searches with atlanta on the end.

    Why would you want to rank first page on google for a keyword with zero searches?

    Am i missing something with your methods?
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    • Profile picture of the author PaulintheSticks
      Originally Posted by TonyD View Post

      But all of the above get 0 searches with atlanta on the end.

      Why would you want to rank first page on google for a keyword with zero searches?

      Am i missing something with your methods?
      I've heard from a number of ppl that say even though keyphrases show zero searches, they get leads. Not a lot of leads but enough to make clients happy. Which obviously means that google's numbers aren't accurate. Sure does seem a bit risky though I agree.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dr Dan
      Originally Posted by TonyD View Post

      Pretty New? Google Insights was released 6th August 2008

      I've been using it since then to uncover a few nuggets but Rockstar i can't seem to understand why you want to rank for these terms when they get hardly any searches.

      back pain lower atlanta - doesn't receive any searches at all. When you check it on insights:

      Why would you want to rank first page on google for a keyword with zero searches?

      Am i missing something with your methods?
      You need to remember that Google doesnt give the same search results for everyone. It all depends on your settings and geographical area you are searching from. So putting Atlanta in the tool doesnt give you accurate results.

      If im logged into my Google account here in Pleasanton and search for "restaurant" without quotes, it shows me results mainly in my area and around 10-20 miles away from me. Thats without putting the city name in the search.

      This is a Goldmine since very little people know about these tactics. Do you really thinks people dont search for the term "best restaurant in city" or "best place to eat in city name" just because google keyword tool comes back with no results. For my city it only says that people search "restaurant city name" and similar.

      Also local business is different. 92% of all searches turn into a sale eventually. Also the lifetime value of a customer is higher to local businesses. a restaurant owner might make $15-$50 per visit. But the customer might be a lifelong customer that comes in a few times a month and refers other to the restaurant.

      Create a coupon for the client and that way you can track the results.

      I plan on making a product on this once I get time since this is an awesome strategy me and 2 warriors got going. We have a seminar we are doing for Realtors on the 18th teaching this strategy.
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  • Profile picture of the author Cathy Duncan
    I don't think that there is no local search volume for keywords. You can try them differently and in case, if you guys are willing to get your site ranked up in less time, you should better go for the keywords having low search volume, because they're more rapidly to progress.
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    • Profile picture of the author Defunct
      Also remember, why is the Google keyword tool showing keywords with no data?

      I've reverse engineered the tool from my own and clients Adwords accounts into the Google Keyword tool and the tool often misses important keywords.

      One search term is one of my clients highest clicks and converting keyword and it's nowhere to been seen in the old or new keyword tool.

      This is why in AdWords you need broad match to extract the real keywords people use.

      And this is also why there will be major gaps related to good search terms vs competition because so many people rely on the Google Keyword Tool for research.

      I used to ignore keywords with no data in my AdWords account set ups, I no longer do that.
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  • Profile picture of the author Creativegirl
    Market Samurai can fill in the blanks that the free tools don't provide. I'm working with a chiro in a small town right now. It's misleading in these areas that don't have much search volume. Typically the highest industry terms will work fine. In my case I was surprised to see "chiropractic" had more search volume than "chiropractor" - partly that is due to a local doc named City Chiropractic. So, we simply piggy back on their traffic. Google doesn't show any data but Market Samurai shows 1 daily search. We just keep looking for actual volume for related terms and now have nearly 1,000 search volume.

    You don't always need to talk about actual search volume, it still makes sense to target the doc and sell them on top placement.
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  • Profile picture of the author digitalrev2k
    sometimes , keyword {your city} doesn't trigger places results .
    try : ketword in {your city} . or : keyword in {your city} {state}
    if there is no result yet . go to maps.google.com and have look if there is any business listing for these keywords.
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    • Profile picture of the author Creativegirl
      Originally Posted by digitalrev2k View Post

      sometimes , keyword {your city} doesn't trigger places results .
      try : ketword in {your city} . or : keyword in {your city} {state}
      if there is no result yet . go to maps.google.com and have look if there is any business listing for these keywords.
      Thank you for posting this. I've been wondering why I don't always see the GP on certain searches. Very helpful.
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  • Google keyword tool does not show results for many of the keywords that are definitely bringing traffic (I've tested that).

    Here's something to try - if you're looking for "dentist charlotte", type in "dentist c" or "dentist ch" - you will see that Google will suggest "dentist Charlotte'" in the drop down list - so there are enough searches even though it might not show up in Keyword tool. (I haven't checked for Charlotte - I just used it as example). I've tried this even with small towns and it works.
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