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How to Conduct an Effective Local SEO Keyword Research?

As per a survey, 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine! Organic traffic gained through SEO is the lifeblood for any website. Generally, SEO helps a website gain quality traffic through many sources, but the traffic earned through the usage of keyword research is of prime importance.

Keywords are a set of words that the user types in the search panel of the search engine to look up for something on the web. Keywords can be of many types – short tail, long tail, product defining, customer defining, geo-targeting, etc. and are used as per the situation.

What is Keyword Research?

Keyword Research is the process of researching the most widely used key terms by people throughout the world to look up something on the internet. Based on the data, those key terms are shortlisted and strategically added to the content.

What happens next? Well, the next time someone searches up for that keyword on a search engine like Google, the name of your website appears in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERP). Local Keyword research is even more specific research that contains location-specific phrases that produce results in connotation to some specific location.

The advantages of local SEO keyword research are many, but to begin with, it helps people around your geographic location find out about your business, therefore increasing the profitability.

But, to yield the benefits of the most searched local keywords, you first need to understand how the entire research is done. So, let’s take a quick look into how one must conduct effective local SEO keyword research:

Step 1: Identify your keywords

Keyword search
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SEO depends on keywords. Keywords are the main thing that drives people to your site. Search Engine Optimization, as the name suggests, optimizes your search result based on keywords.

If you want to optimize your local SEO keyword research system, the first thing you need to do is shortlist the keywords according to your business needs. It depends on many factors – the product you are selling, the keyword which is most likely to be used for looking up for it, etc.

For example, if you are looking for a hosting company to host your website you might search on the keyword hosting. Or you can always to go Hosting Foundry where they have already done the search for you and can recommend hosting sites in different countries.

All in all, it can be said that selecting the right keyword for a local purpose depends mainly on your personal judgment. However, it is suggested to go for those keywords that are seen to be used the most in your area for products similar to yours.

Step 2: Extend your keywords with keyword modifiers

The second step is to extend your keywords. But, how can you do that? Keyword modifiers are your answer! SEO tools like Moz, Ahrefs and Kparser, etc., help you in doing so. If you are unsure which specific tool to go for, take a free trial before finally investing in it.  

Almost all of these tools have a ‘keyword difficulty’ index that allows you to make better decisions regarding keyword selection and optimization.

The keyword difficulty index helps you find out the most widely sought keyword and allows you to select those keywords that are not high on competition. This way, the keyword modifiers provide more ways for your business to be identified.

Step 3: Organize keywords based on search intent

research information
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Search Intent what? That is what we call the end user’s aim behind searching up for something on the web. Search Intent is basically of three types – Commercial, Informational, and Navigational. Arrange your keywords in order of these three types of intent.

Learn how it is done from an institution that specializes in SEO training like Hawk Academy by StudioHawk. For commercial intent, try investing efforts to rank your primary landing page. For informational purposes, you will like to engage your potential customers first and so on.

Step 4: Add your location

Hang on. We are almost done with the entire process. The last step to conduct local SEO keyword research is by adding your location. This is how you localize your chosen keywords to get more local results. The results may be country-specific, state-specific, or even city-specific – as you wish! That’s it!

Over to you…

Local SEO keyword research is a must. Especially for the business that is not all-encompassing or for the business that has just come to inception. Here, we cited the steps involved in conducting local SEO keyword research effectively and efficiently. Take a look at this article before conducting one for your website. 

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