List every service you sell and every place you serve, then check how people nearby actually phrase those searches, using Google’s free tools with the location set to your city. Keep the terms that show a map pack and that a real customer would type, and give each group of terms one page on your site or one field on your Business Profile.
The part most guides skip is that the biggest local searches usually don’t contain a city name at all. In Denver, “dentist” on its own gets more than three times the searches of “dentist denver”, because Google already knows where the searcher is. So the job isn’t to stuff city names into pages. It’s to find the services, problems and neighborhoods people search for, and match them to the right page.
What you need before you start
- A list of what you sell, in your own words and in your customers’ words. Your invoices and the questions people ask on the phone are better sources than your website menu.
- The places you serve: your city, the neighborhoods or suburbs you get work from, and any nearby towns you’d drive to.
- A Google account. Keyword Planner sits inside Google Ads, and Google’s Keyword Planner help page says you have to finish account setup, including billing details, to use even its basic features. You don’t have to run an ad.
- Search Console and Business Profile access, if the business already has a site and a verified listing. Both hold searches you can’t get anywhere else. If you need access, ask the owner to add you to the Business Profile first.
- A spreadsheet with four columns: keyword, monthly searches, map pack (yes or no) and target page.
How to do local keyword research, step by step
The example is a made-up general dental practice in Denver’s Highland neighborhood. The search volumes in it are real Denver figures.
- Write your seed list. One row per service, written the plain way: “dentist”, “teeth whitening”, “dental implants”, “pediatric dentist”, “emergency dentist”. Add the problem phrasings too, such as “chipped tooth” or “tooth pain”, because people with an urgent problem search for the problem, not the treatment.
- Check local intent in a private window. Search each seed and look for a map pack, the block of three listings with a map. If it’s there, Google treats the search as local, and you’ll compete on your Business Profile as well as your site. Autocomplete is worth reading while you’re there: Google’s autocomplete help page says predictions reflect real searches and take into account where the query comes from, so they surface local phrasings like “open saturday” or “that takes medicaid”.
- Get volumes for your area, not the country. In Keyword Planner, set the location to your city or metro before you look at numbers. Google’s guide to Keyword Planner says the location filter gives “search volume data and trends based on a specified geographic location”. Keyword tools that use Google Ads data can go down to cities, counties, metro areas (DMAs) and some neighborhoods; the Denver list includes Denver Tech Center as its own location.
- Add the three local patterns to each seed. For every service, check the bare term, the term plus “near me” and the term plus your city. Then try your neighborhoods and nearby suburbs. In the Denver data, “dentist cherry creek” gets 170 searches a month and “dentist aurora co” gets 260, while “dentist highlands denver” gets 70. That tells the Highland practice its own neighborhood name is a small prize, and a suburb page is only worth it if they really get patients from there.
- Pull what already finds you. In your Business Profile’s performance view, the Searches section lists “the search terms people used to find your business”, according to Google’s performance help page. It updates at the start of each month and can take up to 5 days to appear. In Search Console, open the Performance report, group by Queries and add a country filter for the United States. These are the words that already work, and they often include services you forgot to list.
- Look at who ranks for the big terms. For your top five keywords, note which pages hold the top organic spots and which businesses sit in the map pack. If every result is a homepage, a homepage can rank. If every result is a dedicated service page, you need one too. For the deeper version of this step, see competitive keyword research.
- Cut, group and map. Delete anything a customer wouldn’t type, anything you don’t offer and anything with no map pack and no clear buying need. Then group terms that one page would answer, and give each group a single home.
Step 3 matters most. “Teeth whitening” gets about 165,000 searches a month across the US, which says nothing about Denver, where it’s 720 a month, plus 320 for “teeth whitening denver”. Decisions about which page to build should come from the local number. Google’s Keyword Planner metrics page also warns that forecasts for a small geographic area can be less reliable “simply because there is less data”, so treat a suburb showing 10 or 20 searches as “some” rather than an exact count.
Free tools that do most of the work
You can finish everything above without paying for a tool:
- Google Search, in a private window: local intent, autocomplete and who ranks.
- Keyword Planner: local volumes and new keyword ideas. Google’s keyword ideas help page says adding a website next to your seed keyword “can provide more relevant keyword ideas”, and a competitor’s site works too.
- Business Profile performance: searches that triggered your listing, monthly.
- Search Console: queries that brought impressions and clicks to your site. Google’s About Search Console data page notes that the tables show at most 1,000 rows and that some data is withheld to protect privacy, so the list is a sample, not everything.
- Google Trends: which areas search a term most. Its map help page explains that a region left blank doesn’t mean no one searches there, only that it’s less popular than elsewhere.
Paid tools such as Semrush, Ahrefs or KWFinder save time when you manage many locations or clients, because they show volumes and difficulty for a city in one screen. For one business in one city, the free route finds the terms that matter; a paid tool mostly saves you the spreadsheet work.
How to map keywords to pages
The goal of the mapping is one page per search intent, so your own pages don’t compete with each other.
Rules that keep the map simple:
- Near me and city versions of the same service go on the same page. Google’s Keyword Planner already counts “a keyword and its close variants” together, which is why “dentist denver” and “denver dentist” both show 1,600. You don’t need a page for each word order, and you never need a page called “near me”.
- Your main service goes on the homepage for a one-location business, along with the city and neighborhood.
- Each service with its own searches gets its own page. Pediatric dentistry has 720 searches a month in Denver; it deserves a page. A service with no measurable searches can sit as a section on a broader page.
- A location page needs a real reason to exist, such as patients you actually serve there or a second office. Swapping the city name on a copied page gives Google nothing new.
- Some keywords belong on the Business Profile, not the site. Google’s categories help page says “the categories you select affect your local ranking on Google”, and its local ranking page defines relevance as “how well a Business Profile matches what someone is searching for”. Pick it with the keyword list beside you, using how to choose Business Profile categories. Google’s services help page also lets you add suggested and custom services, which is where smaller terms like “dental implants” can live.
What can go wrong
- Researching with national numbers. A keyword with a big US volume can be close to zero in your city. Always set the location first.
- Trusting a zero. A blank volume doesn’t prove nobody searches it. In the Denver pull, “emergency dentist denver” came back with no volume, yet it’s the first autocomplete suggestion for “emergency dentist” in Denver and the search shows a map pack. If it fits a service you offer and the search shows a map pack, keep it.
- Writing for the keyword instead of the patient. Repeating “dentist denver” ten times doesn’t change relevance. A page that lists the actual services, prices where you can share them, insurance accepted and hours does.
- Putting keywords in the business name. Google’s Business Profile guidelines say the name should match your real-world name and that adding unnecessary information “could result in the suspension of your Business Profile”. If that happens, see how to appeal a suspension.
- Never coming back. Your Business Profile searches change month to month. Check them alongside the rest of your local SEO report and add a row to the sheet when a new phrase appears.
FAQ
Can I do local keyword research for free?
Yes. Google Search, Keyword Planner, your Business Profile performance view, Search Console and Google Trends cover every step. Keyword Planner needs a Google Ads account with billing details entered, but you don’t have to run ads.
Should I target "near me" keywords on my website?
Target the service, not the phrase. Google works out “near me” from the searcher’s location, so a clear service page and an accurate Business Profile with your address or service area do the work. Writing “near me” into headings adds nothing for a reader.
How many keywords does a local business need?
Usually fewer than you’d think: one group for your main service and one for each service with its own searches. A single-location business often ends up with 5 to 15 groups, each tied to one page or one part of the Business Profile.
Map every keyword to one page before you write a word
Once each group has a home, the writing gets easier: you know what each page is for, and you won’t build two pages for the same search. Start with the homepage and your biggest service, then use your first week of local SEO to make sure the Business Profile matches what the keyword sheet says people want.
