Mastering Local SEO Keyword Research

Mike Dodgson
3 days ago
15 min read

At its heart, local SEO keyword research is about figuring out the exact words and phrases people type into Google when they need a service in their immediate area. It's the difference between a vague search like 'boiler repair' and a high-intent, location-specific one like 'emergency plumber in Sheffield'. The second one is pure gold because it comes from someone who's nearby and needs your help right now.

Why Local Keywords Are Your Secret Weapon

Chasing local search terms is a completely different game to general SEO. If you rank for "best coffee," you're competing with the entire world. But if you rank for "best flat white in Darlington," you're talking directly to someone just around the corner, probably with their wallet already out. This is the core of smart local marketing—turning digital searches into actual footfall and paying customers.

The intent behind these local searches is usually urgent and ready to convert. Just think about how you search when you need something close by. You naturally add location details without even thinking.

Geographic Modifiers: This could be a city, a postcode, or a distinct neighbourhood, like "solicitors in Jesmond, Newcastle."
Proximity Qualifiers: The classic "near me" or "nearby" searches are a massive signal of immediate need. Think "tyre fitting near me."
Service-in-Location: This is a powerful combination of a service and a place, creating a laser-focused query like "roof repairs Durham."

The Intent Behind Local Searches

Someone searching for a local service isn't just window shopping for information. They have a real problem that needs solving, and they need it solved soon. A person looking for an "emergency electrician in Sunderland" isn't writing a dissertation; they've got a problem and are actively looking for a local business to fix it. This makes them an incredibly high-value lead.

If you want to dig deeper into this, our article on why local SEO works really breaks down how this targeted approach can give your business a serious boost.

The real magic of local keyword research is that it connects you with customers at the exact moment they’re ready to buy. It cuts through the noise of national traffic and puts your business directly in front of a qualified, local audience.

The numbers back this up. An incredible 46% of all Google searches by UK users have local intent. That’s a huge chunk of search traffic you can’t afford to ignore. On top of that, "near me" searches have seen a staggering 500% increase over the last five years, which just shows how much we all rely on our phones to find what we need, where we are.

Getting your head around why these keywords matter is the first step. For a really comprehensive look at mastering your local presence, check out this ultimate guide to local SEO.

Building Your Initial Keyword List

Before you even think about fancy tools or spending a penny, the best keyword research starts with what you already know. You’re the expert on your business, so let's begin there.

Put yourself in your customer's shoes. What are the main services you offer? What problems do you solve? Grab a pen and paper (or open a spreadsheet) and simply list them out.

If you're a plumber in Leeds, your core services might be things like "boiler installation," "drain unblocking," or "bathroom fitting." This list doesn't need to be perfect, but it's the solid foundation for everything that follows.

Layering on the Local Modifiers

Now we get to the heart of local SEO. That core list of services is great, but it's too broad. We need to tell Google where you operate. This is done by adding local modifiers to your core terms, turning a generic phrase into a laser-focused query that brings in nearby customers.

Your goal here is to think of every possible way a local customer might describe their location. It's more than just the city name.

Here's how to break it down:

Cities and Towns: This is the obvious starting point. Think "boiler installation Leeds" or "drain unblocking Harrogate."
Distinct Neighbourhoods: In bigger cities, people search with more precision. A homeowner in Manchester isn't just searching for an "electrician Manchester"; they're more likely looking for an "electrician Didsbury."
Postcodes: Don't underestimate the power of postcodes. People often search for hyper-local services this way, like "plumber LS6."
Counties or Regions: If your service area is wider, using the county name can be a smart move, for instance, "roofing contractor North Yorkshire."

Get creative and think like a true local. Are there any unofficial names for areas? If everyone calls a certain estate "The Village," a term like "pizza delivery The Village" could be a goldmine that your competitors have completely missed.

The most effective local SEO goes way beyond just slapping a city name onto a service. It's about getting granular – thinking about postcodes, specific estates, and even the colloquial terms that only locals would use. This is how you really connect with the community.

Using Free Tools to Find Out What Customers Really Say

With your initial ideas in hand, it's time to see what people are actually typing into Google. Luckily, you don't need a paid subscription to get some powerful insights.

Start by typing one of your keyword ideas into the Google search bar and just wait. The autocomplete suggestions that pop up are a direct look into the minds of your customers. For example, if you start typing "emergency plumber in Newcastle," Google might suggest:

emergency plumber in Newcastle upon Tyne
emergency plumber in Newcastle 24 hour
emergency plumber in Newcastle no call out fee

These are incredibly valuable. They not only confirm your core keyword but also reveal crucial buying triggers—like "24 hour" service and "no call out fee"—that you absolutely should be adding to your list.

Digging into 'People Also Ask'

Another treasure trove hiding in plain sight is the 'People Also Ask' (PAA) section on the search results page. These are real questions that searchers have, directly related to your initial query.

A search for "commercial electrician Durham" might throw up questions like:

How much does a commercial electrician charge per hour in the UK?
What is the difference between a domestic and commercial electrician?
Do I need a certified electrician for commercial property?

These are basically a content cheat sheet. They’re perfect for inspiring blog posts or building out a detailed FAQ section on your service pages, letting you create content that speaks directly to your customers' biggest questions and concerns.

Fire up Google Maps. Search for your own services and see who pops up. Pay attention to the terms your competitors use in their business names and descriptions. This simple check gives you a quick snapshot of the local competition and can often reveal a few keywords you hadn't even thought of.

Finding Your Golden Keywords with SEO Tools

Brainstorming is a fantastic starting point, but SEO software is where the real magic happens. This is how you find the high-value keywords your competitors are completely overlooking. It’s time to move from educated guesses to data-backed decisions using tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, or even more budget-friendly options like Ubersuggest.

These platforms are packed with information, but it's easy for local businesses to get bogged down by metrics that just don't matter to them. The trick is to view everything through a local lens. A keyword with a low national search volume might look useless at first glance, but for a local business, it could be pure gold.

For example, the term ‘artisan coffee shop Camden’ might only get 50 searches a month nationally. Sounds tiny, right? But think about it – every single one of those searches is from someone in or near Camden who wants exactly what you sell. That's 50 highly qualified leads a month, which is far more valuable than 1,000 generic searches for ‘best coffee’.

This whole process is about refining broad ideas into hyper-local, high-intent keywords that attract the right kind of customer.

Dialling in Your Keyword Research Tool

Your first move inside any SEO tool should be to combine one of your core services with your main location. Let's imagine you're a joiner based in Durham. You’d start by plugging something like ‘joinery services Durham’ into the keyword explorer.

The tool will spit back a long list of related keyword ideas. This is where the real work begins. Don't just skim the top results; your goal is to sift through this list and find the hidden opportunities. Most good tools have powerful filtering options.

Include Filters: Add words like ‘near me’, specific postcodes (e.g., DH1), or even neighbourhood names to really zero in on your service area.
Question Filters: Look for keywords containing ‘how’, ‘what’, ‘when’, or ‘where’. These are brilliant for finding blog post ideas that answer genuine customer questions.
Keyword Difficulty (KD): This score tells you, on a scale, how tough it will be to rank for a keyword. For local SEO, targeting low KD terms is a brilliant way to get some quick wins.

A low search volume paired with a low keyword difficulty is often the sweet spot for local businesses. These keywords signal a very specific need from a local audience and usually have far less competition, giving you a much better shot at hitting Google's first page.

Filtering Your Way to High-Intent Keywords

Once you have a big list of potential keywords, export it all into a spreadsheet. This is where you can roll up your sleeves and do some deeper analysis to find the absolute best terms to focus on.

Let's say our Durham joiner ends up with an export of 2,000 keyword ideas. That's far too many to be useful on its own. It's time to filter it down.

First, I always add a new column called "Intent". I go through the list and categorise each keyword. Is the person looking to buy something right now (transactional), or are they just looking for information (informational)?

Transactional Intent: Think phrases like ‘bespoke staircase fitters Durham’ or ‘emergency door repair DH1’. These people need a joiner, and fast.
Informational Intent: These are more like ‘how to fix a squeaky floorboard’ or ‘best wood for outdoor decking UK’. Great for content, but not an immediate sale.

Next, sort the entire list by Keyword Difficulty, from lowest to highest. Now, look at the keywords sitting at the top. You should have a great selection of low-competition terms. By cross-referencing these with your "Intent" column, you can pinpoint your top priorities: the keywords that are both transactional and have a low KD.

Our joiner might find a term like ‘custom media wall builder Framwellgate Moor’. It only has a search volume of 10 per month and a KD of 2. This is a perfect example of a hidden gem. It’s a specific, high-value service, requested in a distinct local neighbourhood. It’s the kind of keyword their bigger, city-wide competitors have almost certainly ignored. This is the precision that really sets a powerful local keyword strategy apart.

Analysing Competitors to Find Opportunities

There’s absolutely no need to reinvent the wheel. Your most successful local competitors are already ranking for keywords that attract paying customers. Think of it as a ready-made blueprint for your own strategy.

By digging into what they’re doing online, you can uncover proven search terms and content ideas that give you a massive head start. It’s less about spying and more about smart reverse engineering. The goal is to figure out the exact phrases driving traffic to their websites and Google Business Profiles, find the gaps in their strategy, and pinpoint where you can do better.

Simply put, it’s a shortcut to understanding what already works in your local market.

Identifying Your True Local Rivals

You need to identify who you're really up against online. Your actual digital competitors might not be who you think. The shop across the street could be your biggest real-world rival, but a completely different business might be cleaning up in the local search results.

To find out who they are, just start searching for your most important services. For a roofer in Newcastle, that means popping terms like these into Google:

"roof repairs Newcastle"
"new flat roof NE6"
"emergency roofer near me" (while you're physically in your service area)

Jot down the top three to five businesses that consistently show up in both the Google Map Pack and the standard organic results. These are your primary targets. Their constant visibility is a dead giveaway that they’re doing something right with their local SEO keyword research.

Deconstructing Their Online Strategy

Once you have your list of top competitors, it’s time to play detective and figure out what makes them tick. The key is to look at their digital footprint with a critical eye, hunting for the specific keywords they’re targeting.

Kick things off with their Google Business Profile (GBP), which is often a local business’s most powerful asset. Look closely at the language they use in their business name, check their primary and secondary categories, and read the descriptions in their listed services. Are they mentioning specific neighbourhoods or postcodes? Do they highlight particular features like “24/7 service”?

Next, head over to their website. Check their homepage, service pages, and any location-specific pages they’ve built. Pay close attention to:

Page Titles and Headings (H1s, H2s): These are massive signals to Google. A competitor might have a page titled “Gutter Cleaning Services in Gateshead,” making their keyword target painfully obvious.
Body Content: Read through their service descriptions. Note the specific phrases they use repeatedly. Do they mention being “family-run,” having “certified technicians,” or offering “free quotes”? These are all potential keywords.
Blog Posts: If they have a blog, scan the titles. A post like “5 Signs You Need a New Boiler in Durham” reveals the exact informational keywords they’re using to catch customers earlier in their journey.

A manual review of a competitor’s website often lays their entire keyword map out in plain sight. Their site structure and page titles are a direct window into the local search terms they value most.

Using SEO Tools for a Deeper Look

Manual analysis is a brilliant starting point, but SEO tools give you an x-ray view of a competitor's strategy. Using a tool like Ahrefs or Semrush, you can plug in a competitor's website address and get a list of the keywords they actually rank for. This is where you find the real gold.

Filter their keyword list to see which terms bring them the most traffic. Look for “keyword gaps”—these are valuable terms they rank for that you don’t. This instantly gives you a proven list of keywords to add to your own strategy.

You might discover your competitor ranks highly for “Victorian terrace roof repairs in Heaton,” a very specific long-tail keyword you hadn't considered but which attracts a high-value customer. For a complete walkthrough, our guide on how to conduct competitor analysis for UK businesses offers a detailed framework. This method saves you a ton of time and effort by finding proven terms that already lead to conversions.

Putting Your Local Keywords to Work

You've done the hard graft and now you're sitting on a solid list of local keywords. That's a fantastic start, but the real work begins now. It's time to put those keywords into action, weaving them strategically into your online presence so both Google and your potential customers can find you.

This isn't about clumsy keyword stuffing. It's about naturally signalling your local relevance. The two most important places to get this right are the assets you have complete control over: your website and your Google Business Profile.

Apply Changes to Your Google Business Profile First

Think of your Google Business Profile (GBP) as your digital front door. For many local searchers, it's the very first impression they'll have of your business, so it needs to be spot-on.

Here’s how to integrate your keywords effectively:

Business Name: Be careful here, but if it feels natural, you can add a core service and location. A business called "Smith's Roofing" could become "Smith's Roofing Newcastle" to add immediate context.
Services List: This is your chance to be exhaustive. Don't just list "Boiler Repair." Use all your research to add specific variations like "Emergency boiler repair Gateshead" and "Annual boiler servicing NE10."
Google Posts: Treat these like mini-updates or a blog. When you share news or special offers, be specific. Instead of a generic post, try something like, "This week we completed a full garden landscaping project for a lovely family in Jesmond."

Weave Keywords Into Your Website

Your website is where you can really flesh things out and provide the detail that converts a searcher into a customer. Your keyword research should be the blueprint for your site's structure and content.

Every main service you offer in a specific area needs its own dedicated page. If you're a plumber in Darlington, you should have a page laser-focused on "Boiler Installation Darlington" and another on "Blocked Drains Bishop Auckland."

On each of these pages, make sure your target keywords appear in the most important places:

The page title (what you see in the browser tab)
The main H1 heading
Subheadings (H2s and H3s)
Naturally within the body copy and image alt text

Once you've identified your local keywords, applying potent content marketing techniques is the next step to effectively integrate them into your online presence. For a deeper look into building out your digital strategy, you can explore these detailed guides: https://www.digital-sprout.co.uk/post/effective-local-seo-strategies-for-business-growth-in-2025.

Don't sleep on your blog. Writing helpful articles that answer local questions—like "how to choose a builder in Sunderland"—is a brilliant way to capture people who are still in the research phase and establish your local authority.

Build Social Proof and Local Signals

Your job isn't done once your own properties are updated. Your keywords need to show up in other places, especially in customer reviews and local business directories.

Gently encourage your happy customers to leave detailed reviews. Their own words often contain the very service and location keywords you're targeting, providing powerful, authentic signals to Google.

The number and quality of these reviews really matter. Businesses in Leeds pull in an average of 912 Google reviews each—the highest in the UK. Compare that to London, where the average is just 427. Data consistently shows that a complete Google Business Profile, paired with strong on-page local keyword optimisation, are the biggest drivers for getting into that coveted Local Pack. Seeing your business name and services mentioned consistently across multiple platforms cements your local relevance in the eyes of search engines.

Adapting Your Strategy for Voice Search

The way people find local businesses isn't what it used to be. We've moved beyond just typing a few words into Google. Now, people are talking to their phones and smart speakers, asking full questions to find what they need. This change has a massive impact on your local SEO keyword research, because how we speak is very different from how we type.

Think about it. A typed search might be "plumber Sunderland." A voice search, on the other hand, sounds much more human: "Hey Google, where can I find a reliable plumber in Sunderland who's open now?" These queries are longer, more conversational, and absolutely brimming with intent.

Getting to Grips with Conversational Queries

Voice searches are, by their very nature, conversational. People don't talk like robots; they ask questions just as they would to a friend. This means your keyword strategy needs to evolve beyond the simple "service + location" formula.

You have to get inside your customer's head and think about the actual questions they're asking. Someone hunting for a good place to eat won't just say "Italian food Newcastle." They’re far more likely to ask:

"What's the best Italian restaurant in Newcastle city centre?"
"Find a family-friendly pizza place near the Theatre Royal."
"Which Italian restaurants in Newcastle have outdoor seating?"

These are classic long-tail, question-based keywords. A great place to start digging for these is Google’s own 'People Also Ask' section. Or even better, just listen to the questions your customers ask you over the phone every day.

How to Weave Voice Keywords into Your Website

Once you have a solid list of these conversational phrases, the next step is to work them naturally into your website. By far the most effective way to do this is with a well-structured FAQ section on your key service and location pages.

Creating a dedicated question-and-answer area lets you target these spoken queries head-on. For instance, a plumber's page could have a clear heading like "Frequently Asked Questions About Our Sunderland Services," followed by direct answers to things like, "Do you offer a 24-hour emergency call-out service?" This structure signals to search engines that your page contains the perfect answer for a user's spoken question. To dive deeper, check out our voice search SEO tips for UK businesses.

Voice search isn’t some separate, mystical art. It’s simply an extension of great local SEO. When you focus on answering the specific, conversational questions your customers are asking, you’re naturally preparing for how people search today.

The trend is undeniable. A huge percentage of UK consumers now use voice search to find local business information, and many do it daily. These searches are almost always longer and use natural language, with a big chunk of users visiting a business they've found this way. You can explore more about local SEO trends on DigitalSilk.com. This shift makes targeting long-tail and question-based keywords non-negotiable for modern local SEO.

Your Local SEO Questions Answered

How often should I actually be reviewing my keywords?

You don't need to obsess over your keyword list daily, but letting it go stale is a mistake. I'd recommend a deep look at least once a year. Think of it as an annual health check for your local SEO strategy.

A quick quarterly check-in is also a good habit. This helps you catch new search trends as they emerge, especially if you're in a fast-moving industry or new competitors have just set up shop down the road. Keep a close eye on your Google Business Profile insights, too—it’s a goldmine for seeing the exact terms people are using to find you right now.

What's the real difference between a 'local' and an 'organic' keyword?

The biggest difference boils down to search intent. A local keyword almost always has a geographic component. Think ‘plumber in Manchester’ or ‘best coffee near me’. The person searching is looking for a service or product in a specific, physical location.

An organic keyword is generally broader and more informational. Something like ‘how to fix a leaky tap’ doesn't scream "I need a plumber now!" It suggests someone is in the research phase, not necessarily ready to buy.

The way I see it, the core difference is proximity and urgency. Local searches are often transactional and time-sensitive. Organic searches, on the other hand, are often driven by curiosity, catching people at an earlier stage in their journey.

Can I rank in a city where I don't have a physical address?

Honestly, it’s tough. Ranking in a city where you don't have a physical base is a massive uphill battle in local SEO. Google’s local search results heavily favour businesses with a genuine, verifiable address in that area, which is confirmed through your Google Business Profile.

You can, of course, create location-specific pages on your website to target nearby towns and suburbs. This can work for standard organic search results. But cracking into the all-important Map Pack without a physical presence there? That’s highly unlikely. Proximity to the searcher is still one of the most powerful ranking factors Google uses.

Ready to turn those local searches into real-world customers? At Digital Sprout, we provide specialist Local SEO Services for businesses in the North East and across the UK, building strategies that deliver real, measurable growth.