Local Keywords

[Jasonalanmagic]

Hello everyone.  Still loving MOZ.  Question: When I research a keyword phrase such as Entertainers it is returning a local search of 15,972.  I want to target three specific cities in my area ( Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Akron).  When I research the phrase Cleveland Entertainers I'm getting a local search result of 0.  Should I just assume that the search is still large enough to use?  Should I target Cleveland Entertainers still with feedback of 0?  Also is it a good idea to target the word entertainers with three separate pages to three separate cities?  I'm planning on making three separate blogs with new content on each.  This will not be duplicate content.

[Jasonalanmagic]

Another additional question too.  When researching a keyword, what is a high amount for a local search result?  Entertainers get's me a local result of 15,972.  Party Entertainers gets a result of 323.  When is the local search result number to low to care about?  20?  300?  3,000?  I know the number is relevant to how many people you would like to make contact with.  Just wondering if anyone has found a number to draw the line at?

[94501]

You're on the right track with your traffic assumption. If you can, I would suggest validating your traffic assumption with a little adwords effort. Yes, if you want to compete in more cities, you will have to come up with unique content geared to those individual cities. Of course, for this organic effort (as with any), you should also take a long look at what your competition is for those searches and make a smart judgement about your site's/page's ability to compete. Finally, I am often surprised by how much more can be gotten out of a page vs what a kw analysis tool will tell you. Often, but not always, it's a lot more because of all the related terms and your efforts around that. I hope that helps. Best...Darcy

[Jasonalanmagic]

Awesome thank you so much.  The budget I'm working with is small so I'm not sure if Adwords is in the picture right now.  We are ranking well for organic approach, but not necessarily the words I want to rank for.  Here is what I"m working on now.  I'm thinking about developing a page for Cleveland Entertainers (Local: 15,972).  This will be my main keyword focus for this page.  I'm also going to try to secondarily rank for Cleveland Party Entertainers (Local: 323) and Cleveland Party ( Local: 84,000).  I don't want to overdue each page with to many keywords, I think three is the right amount.  Also each phrase has a relation to each other, which will help tie the page together.  Does this seem like a right assumption.  Once I create this page for Cleveland I will do the same for Pittsburgh and Akron.

The way that I have been making these pages are also through blog post, not static pages.  I have created categories for each city ( Cleveland Pittsburgh, Akron).  When I write the post for these pages I use the appropriate category for the city.  I have heard that this is the way to go, blog post instead of static?  Any thoughts?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Jason,

We're so glad to have you here at Moz! Could you describe your business model? Are you running a local business with a physical address that makes face-to-face contact with your clients? Or, perhaps, a directory? The more information you can provide, the better answers you'll receive from the community. Again, welcome aboard!

[Jasonalanmagic]

Thanks for the response.  I am a professional Magician.  I perform mostly at corporate events, sales meetings, trade shows etc.  It's kind of an odd product seeing that I don't have a solid object I am selling.  Think of a comedian and and how they would promote themselves.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Jason,

The explanation of your business model is helpful in a number of ways. Interestingly, (and excitingly), Google+ Local actually has a category for magicians.

Go to Mike Blumenthal's category tool (http://blumenthals.com/Google_LBC_Categories) and type 'magician' into the search box. Here's what you'll see:

Category: Magician

Synonyms: magic, _magician_s, parties, party, magic, _magician_s, parties, party, magic, _magician_s, parties, party

As a Local SEO, I find this extremely interesting because it immediately clues us in to how Google categorizes and views your business, indicating that these are core terms that should be included in the development of your local business profiles and website optimization.

I am not sure from your description whether you are making specific efforts to promote your business via Local SEO. I would think you should be doing so, provided your business meets the following criteria:

1. Has a name or DBA

2. Has a dedicated street address (even if it's a home address that you hide when creating your local business listings)

3. Has a local area code phone number

4. Makes face-to-face contact with customers (like when you perform your magic act)

If you can say 'yes' to all four things, then you should be doing Local Search Marketing to promote your business to its fullest.

Unfortunately, whether you are researching terms like 'magician' or 'entertainer', keyword research tools can give, at best, a general picture of actual local traffic. Things like the Google Keyword Planner Tool and Google Insights can help to form this general picture, but you sort of have to make an assumption that people in major cities are, indeed, looking for magicians and entertainers.

As a local business, the core of your geographic optimization is going to be based on the city in which you are physically located. If your street address is in Cleveland, then this is what Google sees you as the most relevant answer for, when it comes to user queries. You can work to appear high in the LOCAL results (often called the 7-pack) for people searching for variations of the term 'magician cleveland' or for searches searching for 'magician' from a device located in Cleveland. Again, we are talking about LOCAL results here.

Now, many business models may be located in one city, but also travel to serve additional cities (think of plumbers). Because of Google's bias towards physical location in the city of search, these service area businesses are unlikely to appear in the Local results for these additional service cities. Instead, they have go after gaining visibility in the ORGANIC results for these additional service cities.

Currently, best practices for achieving this involve the creation of city landing pages. One page for each city where you serve. The content on each page must be unique and awesome. It should be optimized for what you do in the city where you do it. You can read a detailed explanation of this practice here:

The Nitty Gritty of City Landing Pages For Local Businesses

How well this practice works depends on how competitive your local market is, and how much work you may need to do to promote these pages. Gaining even a modest amount of visibility in the organic results for your additional service cities can make phones ring, so this will be an important area for you to investigate. Hope this helps!