Getting accurate local search volumes for local keywords is hard because pretty much every major SEO tool only shows country-wide and global volumes.
But here’s the thing: people worry far too much about search volumes with local SEO.
Nine times out of ten, even if the search volume for your services is super low, you’ll still want to create a page about it for your visitors.
For example, take a service like boiler installation.
Chances are that very few people are searching for this in a small town. But if it’s a service you offer, you should probably still create a page about it because it’s useful for visitors—including those who found you by Googling something broad like “plumber.”
Given that fact, you might ask: why bother checking search volumes at all?
The answer is simple: so you know which pages to prioritize in your local SEO efforts.
How do you find local search volumes?
It depends whether you want to check volumes for implicit or explicit keywords—a concept that Distilled’s Will Critchlow and Tom Anthony explain in this 2013 video:
Finding search volumes for implicit keywords
Implicit local keywords are the ones where the searcher is looking for a local result despite not mentioning their location in their search query.
Examples:
plumber
boiler replacement
radiator installation
This is undoubtedly how most people search for local businesses. After all, why bother typing “plumber in new york city” when you’ll get the same results by simply typing “plumber?”
But there’s a problem:
If you check search volumes for implicit keywords in Keywords Explorer (or any third-party keyword research tool), the estimates are for the entire country.
That’s not much use for local SEO because we need to know how many people are searching for these implicit keywords in the area we serve.
How can we find that information?
Google Keyword Planner is arguably the best tool for this.
Here’s the process:
Go to Google Keyword Planner
Choose the option to “Get search volume and forecasts”
Paste in your implicit keywords/services
Change the location to your service area
Now you see average monthly search volume ranges for implicit local keywords in your area.
The workload like this whatsapp number list allows both the vendor and the affiliate to focus on. Clicks are the number of clicks coming to your website’s URL from organic search results.
Finding search volumes for explicit keywords
Explicit local keywords are keywords where the searcher explicitly references their location.
Examples:
plumber in nottingham
boiler replacement nottingham
nottingham radiator installation
If you found that the implicit searches for some of your services didn’t have local intent, this is where you can add a location modifier to turn them into explicit searches.
For example, the implicit search “worcester boiler” didn’t have local intent—but the explicit search (“worcester boiler nottingham”) does:
With explicit keywords, you don’t need to rely on Google Keyword Planner because the query itself tells you the searcher’s location. So you can use a keyword research tool like Keywords Explorer to get more accurate search volume estimates for these keywords.