How do I find local searches for my service in each town?

Open Keyword research on the Keywords page and choose the Local: a service in a place tab. Type what you do (for example "emergency plumber") and the places you serve, separated by commas (for example "Leeds, Bradford, Harrogate"), then press Research. UtilitySEO builds the ways people search for that service in each place and keeps the ones Google reports searches for.

#Run a local search

1. Open Analytics, then Keywords, and press Keyword research.
2. Choose Local: a service in a place.
3. In the first box, type your service: What you do, e.g. emergency plumber. You can enter several, separated by commas.
4. In Places you serve, type your towns or cities, separated by commas.
5. Set Searches in to your country, so search volumes can be shown.
6. Press Research.

It tries the usual ways people search for a local service, such as "plumber leeds", "plumber in leeds", "best plumber leeds" and "plumber near me", and lists those with searches, with monthly volume, difficulty and your current position where you have one.

#What to do with the results

• Filter to Local to see only place searches, or Gaps: not ranking to see the towns where you do not show up yet.
• + Track follows a search week by week. See track keywords.
• A town with real searches and no page of yours ranking (New page) is a sign you need a page for that place. Make each page genuinely about that town, such as jobs done there, areas covered and local details, rather than the same text with the name swapped.
• Export CSV downloads the list.

#Search volumes

Volumes come from Google's Keyword Planner and need Google Ads connected for the project, with a country chosen. Small towns often show the lowest band, 0-10 a month, which still means real people. See search volume.

#Questions people ask

#Why did some of my towns return nothing?

Google reports no searches for those combinations, usually because the place is small. People there may search for the nearest larger town, or for "near me".

#Does local research use AI uses?

No. Keyword research, local included, is free on every plan.

#How is this different from the Ideas tab?

Ideas expands any starting words into the real searches around them. Local builds place-based searches for a service. See keyword research.