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!

Image Provided By Danny Sullivan

Running a site that is attractive, informative, and search engine optimized can be tricky. Many people follow the basic rules, like generating keyword rich content and filling in meta data, but forget the more complicated SEO coding. Here below are 3 to not forget!

1. Flash.

It makes your site dynamic, stand out, and “flashy.” But it also zaps some of the SEO value and opportunity from your site. Why?

Search engine spiders require content to scan in order to rank and categorize your site. Flash uses code that the search engine spiders cannot read or access. Therefore, the content contained within flash provides no SEO value since it will not be read. For this reason, inserting flash in your site is almost the SEO equivalent of leaving a big blank space where content should we. And what is big, blank space? Wasted.

Now, I’m not saying that you should never use flash. Just be choosey with it. Prime website real estate like your homepage should have the important pieces in text. If flash is used, be sure to put it in a place that won’t hurt your SEO. Remember, search engines read from the top left down to bottom right.

If you’re dead set on using dynamic content, try animated gif’s first. It won’t be as eye-popping, but at least you can make it SEO friendly with alt tags.

2. Embedding Text in Images.

Plain ol’ text can be boring sometimes. So you want to spruce it up with some pretty pictures, but you’re decided against flash. Still be careful about where your text is. Embedding important text in images can be dangerous. Like flash, search engines cannot read the content in your image. So if you have your navigation, company name, slogan, or any other important information in an image, the search engines cannot read it.

This is especially bad for navigation, since the text links used to connect pages are the basis of how Google crawls your site. Think of your main navigation as the map. Without that map, how does Google know here to go? Sitemaps can help in this case to guide the search engine, but why settle for a fix for such an unnecessary problem?

If the image contains major content about your site, the best thing to do in my opinion is to try designing around the problem. Talk with a web designer about your options. If the image in question does not contain critical content, make sure it’s image alt tag is present and accurate. You can also do other thing to SEO your images, but that’s another post.

3. Allowing Computers to Determine Your Permalink

Above I touched on the importance of links on your site. Links tell Google where you want it to go, but the text of those links are also important because it tells Google what page it is going to. All this is taken into account when Google scans and indexes your site.

The often forgotten about “link” though is the permalink in your address bar — the direct URL that if typed in will take you to the exact article or blog post you want. All too often people allow the text of this link to be determined by your computer. For blogs this may be the date (i.e. http:// theseoptimist.com/2009/October/26) or the file name  (i.e. http:// theseoptimist.com/337).

As you can see in both instances, no value is provided by these names. Depending on your blogging platform, there may be a quick and easy fix to this by installing a plug-in that allows you to set your permalink or pulls your permalink from the post title. If you are using a custom blogging platform, consult with your web developer. For web addresses replying on file names, simply rename files using keyword rich text. Problem solved.

Good luck!

~Andrea

Related Reading

SEO In Plain English (How Search Engines Work)