A good rule of thumb for competition and local searches when selecting keywords

[EricVallee34]

I'm doing keyword research in the Google Keyword Tool and was looking and spending a lot of time looking at keyword competition and local searches. I'm trying to determine what is a good rule of thumb for what level of competition and local searches people have used when selecting the keywords they will optimize for.  I've currently been trying to find ones that have less than 50% (moderate) competition and less than 1,000 monthly searches.

Also, which do you put more weight on the competition or the number of searches.

[AaronSchinke]

I try not to take that into account when choosing keywords to optimize for organic. The competition may correlate to organic efforts but you can't let that dictate your optimization. You have to optimize for what your audience/clients are searching for. IMO.

[EGOL]

Don't fear competition because where there is competition there is also (usually) a lot of search volume and a lot of money changing hands.  Instead attack with long, diverse copy to pull in the long tail queries.

[flowsimple]

I would use more than the above two factors for selecting keywords. I think of the various research tools and metrics I pull from them as varying sieves to filter and boil down a list.

I'll start with hundreds, if not thousands of words and then narrow my list by adjusting the thresholds for each factor until I get a nice list. Along with monthly searches and competition, I'd immediately add the total number of search results for that keyword. For example maybe you start with a threshold of less than 5,000 monthly, 80% competition and less than 600K total results. And if you still have too many keywords you adjust your thresholds and tweak according to what makes sense for your market/audience and goals.

And go deeper and add more factor, like estimated CPC, SEO Moz difficulty score, or # of competitors and factors you can pull from other keyword research tools.

[EricVallee34]

Hi Pashmina,

For the total results, do you put each term into Google individually to find this result, or is there a tool where you can run multiple keywords at a time?

Eric

[BlinkWeb]

It depends how strong your citations are. If your new or ave a weak listing I'd pay more attention to competition?

[BlinkWeb]

Oh and a strong listing you would be more focused on number of searches if you feel it's realistic you could rank for it.

[BlinkWeb]

Oh and a strong listing you would be more focused on number of searches if you feel it's realistic you could rank for it.

[EricVallee34]

Hi Roger,

What is a citation?  What constitutes a strong or a weak constitute citation?

[BlinkWeb]

Citations are the "link" equivalent for local search. If you go to your places page, there is a section that says "more about this place" That is info google has scraped from other local sources that mention your businesses. They may or may not contain a link.

Looking at your citations and your competitors is a good area to work on improving your listing in Google Places.

Heres an image of a citation section.

zXRor.png

[EricVallee34]

That helps.  thanks.

[BlinkWeb]

Eric,

Let me add that the keyword difficulty tool doesn't necessaraly apply to local search. A LOT of other stuff is looked at as far as local SEO.

You should check out David Mihm's bolg. It is one of the BEST resources available in local search.

http://www.davidmihm.com/blog/

[BlinkWeb]

I don't know if you saw this. Its very good timing that Rand wrote a blog post about this very subject!

Check it out, as always its a worthwhile read.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-places-citations-5-tactics-to-earn-links-for-your-local-business