To find local keywords, the best place to go is usually the query report from within Adwords. But what do you do if you either don’t have an Adwords account, don’t have enough data to pull from, or don’t have money to run an Adwords test? Keep reading to find out how to find local keywords for SEO without a PPC account.

Basic Local Research

The first thing I do when doing research for a local client with no PPC account is to try to find local, geo-modified keywords to work from. These become my jumping off point. For this research, I use two things: a reverse rank checker and a keyword density checker. I use both in the same way that I outlined in my previous post, but this time I look specifically for local terms. I then add found keywords to an Excel spreadsheet, my master list.

After using these tools, I will go to Google Trends and Google Insights to see if I can find geo trends for terms. There are a lot of filtering options so I tend to stick around and play for a while to see what I can find. Again, any findings go on the master list.

I then run my master list through the Google Keyword Suggestion Tool. Any words with volume are added, exported, copied and pasted back to the master. From here, the words go to Aaron Wall’s Keyword Tool. The same thing happens with volume words: export, copy, paste.

What To Do If Results Are Thin

At this point if my results for geo-modified keywords are still thin, I simply start researching national, broad terms, following the same keyword research method as outlined before. Once I have my complete master list, I write down the counties, cities, states, and regions my client serves. I use a local keyword generator to help me decide on cities. What the local generator does is generate keywords based on the zip and radius you enter. Quite helpful.

With the highest volume keywords and my city list, I go to a keyword list generator tool to come up with keyword combos, placing the core terms in box 1 and geo modifiers in box 2. I then run these combos though the Google Keyword Suggestion, and any words with volume then go through Aaron Wall’s tool. Export. Copy. Paste.

By now your list should be shaping up. If the list is still thin, I’d go to Google’s Related Search or Wonder Wheel for ideas. Screen shots below. Click to enlarge.

How To Get To Google Related Search and Wonder Wheel

Google Related Search and Wonder Wheel Links

I don’t use Related Search and Wonder Wheel often, because many of these words have no volume to them. Still, if you’re dry on words, you must leave no stone unturned.

Once you’ve got your final list, choose your keywords by measuring their competitiveness. After that, you’re home free!!

P.S. Reading my previous post will make doing local research make more sense and much easier. Read it here.

What is your local keyword research method?

Initial Keyword Research

The first thing I do is check my client’s Adwords account by running a query report, sorting, and copying the best words (i.e. volume, conversions, etc.) into an Excel spreadsheet. (I know, irony that this is first since I just badmouthed PPC.)

Once I’m done with Adwords, I use a reverse rank checker and a keyword density checker. Using the reverse rank and keyword density checker, I enter my client’s domain and their competitors’ domains to see what keywords they rank and are targeted for. I will also pull any words the competitors bid on in Adwords (a list also provided by the rank checker). I add all new keywords to Excel, “the master list.”

Then I run each keyword through Google’s Keyword Suggestion Tool, adding keywords with volume, and then exporting and copying the list to my current running master list.

Based on the current master, I run each keyword through Aaron Wall’s Keyword Tool. You can use Wordtracker or Keyword Discovery, but I use this tool because it’s free. I then export the results and copy relevant words over to the master. (The only criteria I really worry about copying is Wordtracker, Google, and Total Daily Volume.) I keep doing this until I have stats on all my keywords.

I then run the highest volume words through Google Sets, an Google Labs tool that will predict other words from the ones you enter. This is a good place to find keywords that are related, but that normal keyword suggestion tools miss or won’t give you. The ones I find through Google Sets then go through the Google Suggestion Tool, and the Aaron Wall tool if it has volume. As usual export, copy, paste.

I do some final tweaks to my list, like using the “CountIf” formula to find duplicates, sorting by keyword volume, and heavy pruning of irrelevant keywords that might have snuck in.  Sort and organize as you like. This is just what I do.

Determining Competition

At this point, I have my keyword list. I also know search volume. Now I need to know how competitive the keywords are to determine which are worth targeting.

There are two methods I use to measure competition, one paid and one free.

Paid (Easy Way!)
The first is SEOMoz’s Keyword Difficulty Tool. This is the tool I personally use. It’s quite complete, giving you a firm difficulty score that makes decision making and comparing words easy. However, the tool is only available with Pro Membership, which comes with a $79/mo price tag. Sounds hefty, but you get so much with Pro that it’s worth it. If you’re an SEO or firm, I highly recommend this option. It will save you time and money in the end.

Free (Manual)
BUT, if you don’t mind taking extra time in your research, you can do it yourself manually. A word of caution though… doing it manually requires many repeat Google searches back-to-back. Doing many searches back-to-back will get you temporarily blocked from the SERPs. It isn’t harmful in any way and it isn’t a penalty. It’s just Google’s way of protecting itself from automated requests. So if you have many keywords, be sure to spread them out over the course of a few hours or days.

To do this manually, you need to find out how many pages are optimized for your keywords. I say “optimized” because (usually) pages that are optimized are harder to compete with than pages that are just there through circumstance.

To test the SEO strength, use the following search operators:

1. [allintitle:"kw"]

2. [intitle:"kw" and inanchor:"kw"]

Plug your keyword in for “kw.” So, if my word was red shoes, the operator would look like this:

[allintitle:"red shoes"]

Enter the above operators one at a time into the Google search bar and get your results.

Add columns to your keyword master list and record the number of results from your search operator search. You can get this number from the upper right side of the SERP page. The lower the number, the better. Low numbers mean that there are not many optimized pages, so it will be easier to rank.

Now, take note of the page rank of your competition. (On-page data provided by the SEO Quake browser plug-in helps a ton!) Do a normal search with your word. Write down and average the top 10 results’ page rank to get an average overall page rank. Record the averaged number on your keyword master list as well.

Note: Going into the competitive analysis portion of my keyword research, my keyword list is usually quite long. Because of this, I tend to work my way down the list, determining competition for the highest volume first. Rarely will I pull competitive stats for all my keywords. I simply stop when I feel I have found enough words of good volume and low to acceptable competition.

Choosing the “Right” Keywords

To me, the “right” keywords are words that are relevant (obviously), have healthy volume, and are low to moderately competitive. These are the keywords that you can get rankings for the fastest and where your efforts will yield the most results.

I tend to stay away from the high volume, moderate to highly competitive words. Instead, I find keywords that are less competitive with equal total volume to the highly competitive word. If I target these keywords, I will rank quicker and better than had I targeted the high volume alone, and I will not have traded any volume. Makes sense to me.

To make your choice, peruse your list. Find words that have good volume with low optimization and page rank competition. These are the words that are “right” to target. Done!

This may seem like a lot, but the extra time spent here will make all the difference. Who wants to spend hours optimizing for words your site will never rank for? Who want to promise a client rankings for a word and not deliver? Or who wants to do work ranking a client on a word that has no value or search traffic? Not me. My time is valuable and I value my clients. Do the extra work in the beginning — it will pay off in the end!

First, optimizing for search engines in concerned with the natural search results when you do a web search. If you look at the results page of your search, you’ll see sponsored listings across the top and right side. Then to the left you’ll see you’re natural search results. SEO is aimed at getting your website there, on the left.

Why?

Because it’s free and establishes you as an authority on whatever word was searched for. After all, out of the whole web, the search engine delivered the ten links before you as the best.  Additionally, studies have been done and surfers are much more likely to click on a natural result on a search engine result page (SERP) than a sponsored (paid) listing.

So how do I get a natural listing? To get on the left side you must give the search engines what they like in order to make them like you. This involves two main parts: on-site stuff and off-site stuff. Let’s start with on-site.

On-Site Stuff

Search engines like sites that operate in a certain way. They like them being correctly coded. They like certain data to be present in the code and relevant to the site. They like the content of the site to be new, fresh, and in close relation to the topic of the site. They like the internal linking structure (pages linking to other pages of the site) to make sense. Basically, they like a nice, tight, organized, clean, honest package tied with a nice little bow and placed at their doorstep to easily unwrap and play with. Making this super-package is hard though because what a search engine likes to see and what a real person surfing the web like you and me likes to see and use isn’t always the same. So this balance must be struck.

Additionally, search engines guard exactly what they want to see out of your site for fear of manipulation by SEO’ers. So this muddies the waters even more. But I digress… When it comes to appeasing the search engine gods, we can only work with what we know: the site should have clean, pretty code and smart, well-written content. These are the main necessities of good on-site SEO to keep search engines happy with you.

Off-Site Stuff

The second piece of the puzzle involves off-site stuff, more commonly known as inbound links. Inbound links are those things that take you from one site to another. So, if I put a link to Search Engine Guide here, this is an outbound link for me and an inbound like to Search Engine Guide. (You’re welcome, Search Engine Guide.)

Google likes to see a lot of inbound links to your site. It means that other sites are seeing enough value in your site to send their visitors to you for whatever reason. Additionally, search engines like it better when these links are from sites that are similar in topic to your site. Because a site knows it’s own topic. If it knows it’s own topic, it must be able to accurately judge the value your site brings to the topic. And if after all this that site still links to you… well then, you must be good!

But, to go even one more level, reputable sites that already have a strong, trusted presence, like The New York Times or CNN, give you even more value because Google trusts them the most. Google sees getting a link from one of its trusted sites like a pat on the back from the boss–you must’ve done something right to deserve it.

So, basically that’s the “what” and “why” of SEO in simple terms. Having a well-written site, well-written code, and lots of inbound links will make you shine in the search engine’s eyes. If you’ve done these three things (code, content, and links) better than you competition, you’ll be listed first. And that’s what we all really want now, isn’t it?

Now, doing this all right is another story…

~Andrea