Noob question about keyword research

[satoridesign]

I have a client that does commercial building renovations. I looked at a lot of their competitors and did some googling to see what words people were using. Some terms such as commercial fit-outs, didn't really have any search volume. I did pick out some that had some volume, Google KW Tool said anywhere from 46 local searches for something like "commercial construction contractors" to 320 for "commercial construction companies".  However, no data really shows up for local specifics like "commercial construction companies philadelphia". I tried looking at competitors in the Moz site explorer, but not too many were doing much link building to look at anchor text.

Question 1) When it says "local monthly searches", is it defaulting to MY local area based on my google info? So if im in Philly area that local area is whats displaying?

Question 2) I tried to run the same keyword list I pulled from Adwords tool  through Moz KW tool, and it tells me some of the terms don't have ANY traffic! So know I am real confused as to whether the KW's i picked are good or crap! I attached image of the stuff.

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[EGOL]

Question 1) When it says "local monthly searches", is it defaulting to MY local area based on my google info? So if im in Philly area that local area is whats displaying?

Quoted from the google Help....  "Local Monthly Searches: The approximate 12-month average of the number of searches on Google for each keyword in the locations and devices that you selected. If you've selected multiple locations, a location that isn't a country, or if we don't have enough data, you'll see this noted with a dash (-)."

Look under the box where you type your queries into the KW tool.  Note the locations.

Question 2) I tried to run the same keyword list I pulled from Adwords tool  through Moz KW tool, and it tells me some of the terms don't have ANY traffic! So know I am real confused as to whether the KW's i picked are good or crap! I attached image of the stuff.

Most of the people that I know who need commercial construction are not searching google to find the right guy.  They already know him.   So it does not surprise me that search volume is really really low.

[satoridesign]

#1) Yes, I did have USA chosen as location. Wasn't sure if it drilled down to county or city though. I guess not.

#2) Funny thing is they even said that to me when I approached them about it the first time. They said "In our industry it's mostly word of mouth, not many people search for us online." , but then cam eback a month later and said we'd like to do some internet marketing/seo with you! I guess my emphasis should not be so much on the traffic from rankings, but more into the citations, articles, and building the right relationships on social networks right?

[EGOL]

When this type of work is done an architect or a civil engineer often draws up the plans, making sure everything is "to code".  Then separate contractors are brought in for carpentry, electrical, plumbing, control and finishing work.   A single job can be spread across four, five or six companies who specialize in a certain type of work.

If I was a contractor in this business I would want my website to showcase the best jobs that I have done.  Show examples of great office space, retail shops, restaurants, professional offices, etc.   My website would be designed to convince the visitor that I am the right person to do their project.  I might have professional photographers visit jobs that have been completed to produce a gallery of my work.   My website would be more about WOW! than SEO.

My goal would be to acquire more jobs, especially the higher end projects.

[DanaLookadoo]

Your other questions have been answered, but I'd suggest three other resources for terms:

1. Look at the impressions their site is getting in their Google Webmaster Tools account.
2. Use Bing's Keyword Research Tool - http://www.bing.com/toolbox/keywords - to get organic data and not just the paid search data from Google's AdWords tool.
3. Look at Google's Trends data - http://www.google.com/trends/ - and you'll see traffic and related keywords for those terms.

P.S. I have a client who is in a very high-end niche industry and get similar confusion from terms. BUT, they are getting impressions and traffic for terms the tools say have no traffic. The numbers are relative approximations, so keep that in mind.

[satoridesign]

Thanks, I was starting to think I was way off track! Lol. They do not have a webmaster account yet, I still have to set all that stuff up for them. I just got done building their site a few months ago so still a lot of preliminary set up to do. I have read so much info on how to do initial research for a client that I think my heads going to explode, so many different approaches and techniques..lol.

[DanaLookadoo]

Scott, admittedly you could spend hours! Keyword research can be extensive and time-consuming, so ensure you/they have a clear understanding of their target audience and local. And when you are researching keywords, take advantage of Google Keyword Tool's ability to insert the URLs of the competitors. If their competition is ranking in the SERPs, look at their keywords. One more tip... You can use SEM Rush, free version has minimum data, to see phrases for which the competition is ranking as well as which URLs.

Once you have a core set of terms that bring them value (money terms), evaluate their content to ensure they relevant content. Optimize from there.

I'd suggest getting webmaster tools accounts set up with Google and Bing ASAP.

You're on the right path!