When you’re trying to figure out how to do keyword research for your small business website, the basis of your research will always be this:
“What keywords do my customers search for when they are looking for my products and services?”
The search terms you come up with will become the keywords you want your website to target. To get started, you’ll want to start with your city location and combine it with your primary product or service. For our company, our service is providing SEO to small businesses so our primary keywords are SEO Minneapolis and Minneapolis SEO.
When you put your list together, be sure to include the plural of each term as well. For example, if you are a chiropractor business in the city of Minneapolis, then a pretty good list to get started with would be:
Minneapolis Chiropractor
Minneapolis Chiropractors
Chiropractor Minneapolis
Chiropractors Minneapolis
The next step is to take your state and combine it with your product or service. You’ll also want to include the state abbreviations in these terms. You would have a list like this:
Minnesota Chiropractor
Minnesota Chiropractors
Chiropractor Minnesota
Chiropractors Minnesota
MN Chiropractor
MN Chiropractors
Chiropractor MN
Chiropractors MN
Now what you’ll want to do is put together a list that combines the city, state, and product and service. Your list would look like this:
Minneapolis MN Chiropractor
Minneapolis MN Chiropractors
Chiropractor Minneapolis MN
Chiropractors Minneapolis MN
Minneapolis Minnesota Chiropractor
Minneapolis Minnesota Chiropractors
Chiropractor Minneapolis Minnesota
Chiropractors Minneapolis Minnesota
We now have a master list of local keywords for your primary product or service. The master list is this:
Minneapolis Chiropractor
Minneapolis Chiropractors
Chiropractor Minneapolis
Chiropractors Minneapolis
Minnesota Chiropractor
Minnesota Chiropractors
Chiropractor Minnesota
Chiropractors Minnesota
MN Chiropractor
MN Chiropractors
Chiropractor MN
Chiropractors MN
Minneapolis MN Chiropractor
Minneapolis MN Chiropractors
Chiropractor Minneapolis MN
Chiropractors Minneapolis MN
Minneapolis Minnesota Chiropractor
Minneapolis Minnesota Chiropractors
Chiropractor Minneapolis Minnesota
Chiropractors Minneapolis Minnesota
Once you have your master list, you’ll go to the Google keyword tool and enter your keyword. The Google keyword tool is the definitive keyword tool on the Internet and has the added bonus of being free! After we enter our keywords we get these results:
The “local monthly searches” is the column you want to pay attention to. As you can see from the results, “chiropractor Minneapolis” and “Minneapolis chiropractor” get the most searches with 390 and 260 searches respectively. You’ll also notice that the plural versions of those keywords are the 3rd and 4th most searched terms with “chiropractor mn” rounding out the top 5.
You’ll notice some of the keywords don’t have any results. What that means is that the searches for those terms are so few that Google doesn’t even count them. That doesn’t mean you should disregard them, however, as they are still getting searched for. You just shouldn’t target them as your primary keywords.
Instead, if you are a chiropractor in Minneapolis, the home page of your website should target these primary keywords:
Chiropractor Minneapolis
Minneapolis Chiropractor
Minneapolis Chiropractors
Chiropractors Minneapolis
Chiropractor MN
If you want to target other nearby cities and suburbs, then you’ll follow the same process but just substitute “Minneapolis” with the city or suburb you want to target.
Once you have your primary keyword list, then you are ready for the next step – website optimization. Now the fun begins!
