Local SEO keywords: how to find them and where they go
Local SEO keywords are the searches that pair what you sell with where you sell it, such as “accountant Laval” or “plumber near me”. You find them by listing your services and the places you serve, then checking how customers phrase them. They belong in page titles, headings, your Google Business Profile and one page per real location.
This guide covers local keyword research step by step, where each keyword goes, how to handle English and French searches in Québec, and the shortcuts that Google’s own policies treat as spam. Every Google rule below links to Google’s own help or Search Central page.
What local SEO keywords are
A local keyword combines a service with a place, stated or implied. Three kinds matter:
| Kind | Example | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Explicit: service plus place | “physiotherapist Plateau-Mont-Royal”, “comptable Laval” | Use the place name on the page and in your profile, where it is true |
| Implicit: no place in the query | “physiotherapist”, “dentist open Saturday” | Make the service clear; Google supplies the place |
| “Near me” | “accountant near me” | Same as implicit: you cannot write your way into “near me”, but you can be clear about what and where |
The implicit and “near me” kinds work because of how Google ranks local results. Its help page on improving your local ranking names three factors: relevance (how well a Business Profile matches the search), distance (how far the business is from the searcher) and prominence (how well-known the business is). It adds that if a customer doesn’t share where they are, Google uses what it knows about their location.
Our reading: you cannot change your distance from a searcher, so the keyword work is about relevance. Say plainly what you do and where you do it, everywhere Google looks.
How to do local keyword research
Local keyword research takes an afternoon, not a tool subscription. Work through three steps.
1. List services and places
Start with two columns.
- Services: each thing a customer would hire you for, in their words, not your internal names. “Bookkeeping” and “tax return” are two searches, even if you sell them as one package.
- Places: the city, then the boroughs and neighbourhoods you actually serve, such as Rosemont, Saint-Laurent or Verdun in Montréal, and the suburbs by their own names (Laval, Longueuil, Brossard).
Pair each service with each place you really serve. That list is your candidate set. Only keep a place if you can serve customers there.
2. Check how customers phrase them
Google’s SEO starter guide tells you to think about the words a user might search for to find your content, and gives the example that some users search for “charcuterie” while others search for “cheese board”. Local searches vary the same way. To hear the real phrasing:
- Type each service into Google and note the suggestions as you type and the questions shown on the results page.
- Read your reviews and enquiry emails. Customers describe the service and the place in their own words.
- Ask your front desk or sales team which questions they hear most.
- Look at your competitors’ Business Profiles, to see which services they list. Note the words, not the claims.
3. Check volume, but don’t trust it alone
Google’s Keyword Planner help page says you start a plan in one of two ways, “Discover new keywords” or “Get search volume and forecasts”, and that the tool shows estimates of how many searches a keyword gets each month. It also says you must complete your account setup by entering your billing information to use its basic features, and that keywords with very low search volumes aren’t discoverable or forecastable.
That last point matters for local businesses. A precise query such as “physiotherapist Verdun” may be too small for Keyword Planner to report, and still bring the customers most likely to book. Our advice: use volume to choose between two phrasings of the same idea, not to drop a place you serve.
Where local keywords go
Once you have a list, give each service-and-place pair one home. In our experience, two pages competing for the same keyword do worse than one strong page.
Page titles and descriptions
The title is what searchers see first. Google’s starter guide says a good title is unique to the page, clear and concise, and accurately describes the contents of the page; a good meta description is short, unique to one page, and includes the most relevant points of the page. A title such as “Bookkeeping for small businesses in Laval | Firm name” does all of that. A title with five cities in it does not.
Headings and body text
Use the service and place in the main heading and in the text where they belong naturally: the areas you serve, directions, examples of local work you can show. Google’s guide warns that excessively repeating the same words over and over, even in variations, is tiring for users. Write for the customer, and the keyword appears on its own.
Your Google Business Profile
Treat the profile as carefully as the site. Google’s guidelines for representing your business set the rules:
- Name: it should reflect your business’s real-world name, and including unnecessary information in it isn’t permitted. The unnecessary information Google lists includes service or product information and location information: “Equinox SOHO” is acceptable, “Equinox near SOHO” is not. Adding a keyword or a city to the name to rank breaks that rule.
- Categories: use as few as possible to describe your core business, as specific as possible. Pick the category your customers would search for.
- Business description: use it to provide useful information on the services and products you offer. It should not focus on promotions, prices or sales, and no links of any type are allowed. This is where your service words and the areas you serve fit naturally.
- One profile per business location: don’t create more than one for the same location. A service-area business has one profile for its central location, with its service area set and its address hidden from customers.
The local ranking page adds two things you control: provide complete and detailed business info, and ask for reviews, because more reviews and positive ratings can help your local ranking. It also says there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking.
Local pages
A page per location helps when each location is real: a separate office, a different team, or a service area with its own projects to show. Give each page what only that place has, such as the address, the team, the hours, local examples and directions. If the only difference between two pages is the city name, see the section on what not to do.
Bilingual keywords in Québec
In Québec, many customers search in French, many in English, and some switch depending on the service. Treat them as two keyword lists, not one list and its translation.
- Research each language separately. The French search is often not the literal translation of the English one. Someone looking for an accountant may type “comptable”, “CPA” or “tenue de livres” depending on the service they need. Run step 2 above in each language.
- Check both spellings. When you look at suggestions in step 2, try each French phrase with and without accents (“référencement” and “referencement”). Write correct French on the page either way.
- Give each language its own URL. Google’s page on multilingual sites recommends different URLs for each language version rather than cookies or browser settings, a single language for the content and navigation on each page, and hreflang annotations to link the language versions. It also says Google uses the visible content of a page to determine its language.
- Keep the place names right in both. “Montréal” in French, “Montreal” or “Montréal” in English; borough names such as “Plateau-Mont-Royal” usually stay the same.
If you are planning a bilingual site from scratch, our guide to choosing a Montréal web design company covers what to ask about the French version.
What not to do
Google’s spam policies name the two shortcuts that local keyword work most often slides into.
- Keyword stuffing. Google describes it as filling a page with keywords or numbers to manipulate rankings, and its examples include blocks of text that list cities and regions a page is trying to rank for, and repeating the same words so often that it sounds unnatural. The “We serve Montréal, Laval, Longueuil, Brossard…” footer block is exactly that.
- Doorway pages. Google’s examples of doorway abuse include having multiple domain names or pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page, and creating substantially similar pages that are closer to search results than a clearly defined, browseable hierarchy. Twenty city pages with the same text and a swapped city name fit that description.
- Keywords in the business name. As above, the profile guidelines don’t permit unnecessary information in the name.
- More than one profile for one location. The guidelines allow one per location, not one per service or per keyword.
A one-page local keyword worksheet
Put the result of your research in one table. Each row is one service-and-place pair with one home.
| Service | Place | English phrase | French phrase | Page | Profile |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bookkeeping | Laval | bookkeeping Laval | tenue de livres Laval | /bookkeeping-laval/ | Description, services |
| Tax returns | Laval | tax return accountant Laval | comptable impôts Laval | /tax-returns/ | Services |
| Bookkeeping | Montréal (Saint-Laurent) | bookkeeper Saint-Laurent | tenue de livres Saint-Laurent | Home page, service area section | Service area |
The rows are an invented example for an imaginary firm. Review the worksheet every few months against your enquiries: the questions customers actually ask are the best keyword source you have.
If local search is the first channel you are opening, our guide to digital marketing for startups shows where it fits among the first steps. When you want the research, the pages and the profile handled together, our SEO service does that work in English and French.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between SEO and local SEO?
SEO is the work of helping search engines understand your site and people find it. Local SEO is the part aimed at searches with a place in them, stated or implied, and it adds your Google Business Profile, where Google ranks results by relevance, distance and prominence.
How do I find local keywords for my business?
List your services and the places you really serve, pair them, then check how customers phrase them: Google’s suggestions, your reviews and your enquiry emails. Use Keyword Planner to compare phrasings, not to drop small places.
Should I put the city in my Google Business Profile name?
No, unless it is part of your real-world business name. Google’s guidelines don’t permit unnecessary information in the name, and give “Equinox near SOHO” as an example of what not to do.
Should I write “near me” on my pages?
No. Google ranks local results by relevance, distance and prominence, and when a searcher doesn’t share where they are, it uses what it knows about their location. “Near me” describes the searcher, not your business: be clear about your service and the places you serve, and keep your profile complete.
How many local keywords should one page target?
One service-and-place pair per page, with its natural variations. If two pages target the same pair, merge them.