How can you find keywords with search traffic and lower competition for local digital marketing services?

To find keywords for local digital marketing services, start by defining your service area. Then compare local search volume, relevance to your services, and ranking difficulty, rather than simply choosing longer phrases. Businesses may search for specific services or problems rather than use “digital marketer,” but the original discussion only raises this possibility; it does not establish which terms have greater search demand. Here, we focus on the city of Southampton, as mentioned in that discussion. If your services also cover Hampshire, assess demand in each area separately rather than assuming demand is the same in both.

Start with the problems customers want to solve

On Warrior Forum, Gary Brenton said he had optimized for digital marketing terms containing Southampton and Hampshire but was seeing very few impressions in Search Console. He therefore wondered whether businesses might instead search for “website designers” or “how to get my website on google.” This is a personal observation and a question to investigate, not sufficient evidence that no one locally searches for digital marketing services.

Build an initial keyword list based on the services you actually offer, then use keyword research tools to find related terms:

• Service names: digital marketing, website design, search engine optimization.
• Specific problems: getting a website to appear in search results, improving website visibility.
• Location combinations: a service name plus Southampton; if you serve only particular neighborhoods, research neighborhood terms as well.

These are starting points for research, not verified popular keywords. If you do not offer website design, you should not make that term a primary target simply because it might attract traffic. Google autocomplete and related searches can provide additional candidates, but you still need to check whether people search for those terms and whether they match your services.

At Procrustes, our content services turn the questions that matter to customers into articles, with ongoing content planning, writing, and updates.

Assess both search demand and competition

awoo’s keyword research article recommends considering search volume, user intent, relevance to the website, and ranking difficulty together. In practice, you can record the target area, monthly search volume, ranking difficulty, and corresponding service for each candidate. Compare search volumes within the same geographic area; figures for a larger region cannot establish demand within a city.

Semrush’s tutorial recommends starting with relevant terms to find more candidates, then using keyword difficulty to filter for lower-competition terms. High search volume and low competition are an ideal combination, but the sources discussed here provide neither a keyword list backed by measured data for Southampton nor a minimum search volume threshold that applies to every business.

Do not sacrifice relevance to your services in pursuit of search volume. Long-tail keywords generally have lower search volume per keyword and more specific intent. When content meets those needs, it may convert better, but adding a location name or more words does not necessarily mean lower competition.

Then examine the search results to assess your opportunities

Beyond tool scores, you can also examine the websites on the first page of results for each candidate keyword. In a 2017 article, awoo recommended comparing competitors of a similar size and with similar page types. If many strong websites dominate the results, consider other keywords. This is advice on analyzing competition, not a current ranking rule. The article’s examples do not establish that a fixed number of ranking positions are available to compete for.

City-level service keywords suit businesses serving the whole city. Neighborhood keywords should reflect the actual service area and generally have more specific intent and lower competition. Initially, prioritize keywords with local demand that match your business and have manageable competition. Do not promise that a particular set of long-tail keywords will rank or bring in customers.