How to Do Keyword Research for Nearby Cities You Want to Rank In

Ranking in a city where your business is not physically located requires a different approach than standard keyword research. You cannot rely on proximity signals alone, so your keyword strategy has to do more of the work. This guide walks through a practical, repeatable process for identifying which city-modifier keywords are worth targeting, how to assess demand in markets with limited data, and how to map those keywords to pages that can actually rank.

Step 1: Build a Seed List From Services and Geography

Start with what your business does, not with keyword tools. List every core service, product category, or specialty you offer. Then list every city you want to rank in, including nearby towns, suburbs, and districts that your target customers live or work in.

Combine these two lists into a simple grid:

Service Term	City Modifier	Combined Keyword
plumber	Abuja	plumber Abuja
emergency plumber	Abuja	emergency plumber Abuja
plumber	Garki	plumber Garki

This seed grid becomes the foundation for everything else. Every row is a potential page, a keyword cluster, or a local content angle. Build the grid before opening any keyword tool – it keeps the research grounded in what your business actually offers rather than what the tools suggest.

Include customer-language variants alongside your internal terminology. A clinic may offer "physiotherapy," but customers search for "back pain treatment" or "sports injury specialist." Pull these from review responses, intake forms, and any inquiry messages you receive.

Step 2: Add Geo-Modifiers Beyond the City Name

City names are the starting point, but searchers use many types of location signals. Expand each city entry with the modifiers your target customers actually use.

Neighborhood and district modifiers: "accountant Lekki," "restaurant Victoria Island," "lawyer Sandton"

Landmark and area modifiers: "hotel near Murtala Mohammed Airport," "clinic near Westgate Mall"

Urgency and proximity modifiers: "emergency electrician near me," "open now pharmacy Lagos"

Problem-based terms: "burst pipe repair Abuja," "tax filing help Nairobi," "blocked drain Cape Town"

In many African cities, neighborhood names carry as much or more search intent than the city name itself. Someone in Lagos searching for a dentist is far more likely to type "dentist Ikeja" than "dentist Lagos." Build geo-modifier sets that reflect how people in each city actually navigate and describe their surroundings, not how your business internally categorizes locations.

For markets in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and the Philippines, ZIP codes and postcodes can also function as effective modifiers, particularly for service-area businesses where searchers include them in queries.

Step 3: Validate Demand Using Free and Paid Tools

Once you have a seed list, validate which keywords have real search demand. The challenge with nearby-city targeting is that volume data is often thin, especially for African and smaller regional markets where keyword tools underreport local search activity.

Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is free and remains a reliable baseline. Enter your seed keywords and filter by country or region. For markets where monthly search volume shows as "0–10," that does not always mean no demand – it can mean the tool's panel data is too thin to measure. Use Keyword Planner to identify which terms Google recognizes as related, not just to confirm volume numbers.

Google Search Console

If the business has an existing website with any traffic, Google Search Console is the highest-value source available. Filter queries by keyword, then look for city-modified terms already driving impressions – even with low clicks. These are keywords the site is already partially relevant for, meaning city pages targeting those terms have a realistic path to ranking. Local rank tracking tools can extend this visibility across multiple cities simultaneously, showing where rankings exist and where gaps remain.

Google Trends

Google Trends is particularly useful for comparing relative interest between cities when raw volume data is unreliable. Search a service term and switch to the regional view to see which cities show the strongest interest. For businesses deciding which nearby cities to prioritize, this comparison view makes a practical tiebreaker.

Paid Tools for Deeper Validation

Tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, and SE Ranking provide keyword difficulty scores and SERP analysis alongside volume data. For local keyword research, keyword difficulty matters less than local SERP composition but difficulty scores help identify terms dominated by national directories, which are harder to displace on a location page alone.

In markets with limited volume data, treat any tool's numbers as directional signals, not precise counts. A term showing 10–30 monthly searches in a mid-sized African city can still represent meaningful commercial intent if the service has high transaction value.

Step 4: Check the SERP Before Committing to a Keyword

Search each target keyword from the city you want to rank in, or use a tool with location emulation. What appears on the results page tells you more about the ranking challenge than any volume figure can.

Look for three things:

1. What page types dominate? If the top results are Google Maps listings, directories, and business profiles, proximity and Google Business Profile strength are primary ranking factors. If the results are service pages and guides, on-page content and backlinks matter more.

1. Are local businesses ranking, or national aggregators? A results page dominated by Yelp, Tripadvisor, or national directories signals a harder path for a standalone location page. A results page with local business websites ranking in positions 1–5 means direct competition is achievable.

1. Does a Local Pack appear? When a map pack appears above organic results for a keyword, Google considers that query to have strong proximity intent. Ranking organically below the pack is still valuable, but the map pack itself requires Google Business Profile signals, not just page-level optimization.

This SERP audit prevents you from investing in pages targeting keywords where the ranking mechanism is different from what your strategy addresses. Rank in surrounding cities and towns by choosing keywords whose SERP composition matches the signals you can actually build – content, citations, or profile completeness.

Step 5: Assess Competition and Set Volume Thresholds

Not every keyword needs high search volume to be worth targeting. For local service businesses, a keyword with 20–50 monthly searches in a target city can outperform a 5,000-search national term in actual leads, because the intent is more specific and the competition is lower.

Use this framework to set realistic thresholds:

Market Size	Minimum Monthly Searches	Target Keyword Difficulty
Major metro (Lagos, Nairobi, Johannesburg, London)	30–100	Under 30
Mid-size city (Abuja, Accra, Cape Town, Brisbane)	10–50	Under 20
Smaller town or suburb	0–20	Under 15

For African markets specifically, apply extra caution to tool-reported volumes. Google's panel data for cities like Kigali, Lusaka, or Kumasi is often incomplete. A keyword showing zero monthly searches in a tool may still generate consistent traffic if a well-structured page exists for it – because there is no competition at all. Target these terms alongside higher-confidence volume data, not instead of it.

Prioritize keywords by commercial intent over raw volume. "Emergency plumber Sandton" with 30 searches per month converts at a much higher rate than "plumbing tips Johannesburg" with 500, because the searcher intent is transactional rather than informational.

Step 6: Map Keywords to Dedicated Location Pages

The most common mistake in city keyword targeting is placing every nearby-city keyword on a single page. A page optimized for "accountant Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, and Kano" will rank strongly for none of those terms. Search engines need a clear, primary geographic signal on each page.

The correct approach is one dedicated page per city, built around a focused keyword cluster for that location.

What Each Location Page Should Target

Each city page should have:

• One primary keyword: "accountant Abuja"
• Three to five supporting keywords from the same city: "tax accountant Abuja," "small business accountant Abuja," "accounting firm FCT"
• Neighborhood or district variants where relevant: "accountant Wuse," "accountant Garki"

Do not mix city modifiers across pages. "Accountant Lagos and Abuja" on the same page sends a diluted geographic signal to both search engines and AI systems reading the content.

Avoiding Thin and Duplicate Location Pages

Location pages fail when they contain identical content with only the city name swapped. Search engines identify this pattern quickly, and it produces rankings for none of the targeted cities.

Each page needs at least one genuinely local element: a reference to a neighborhood, a local landmark, a locally relevant use case, a real customer outcome in that city, or information specific to how the service operates in that market. Location pages built for multiple cities perform best when they carry enough unique content to justify their existence as standalone pages.

Businesses working with Destinali can structure their local visibility across cities by building out location-specific profiles that carry consistent, structured business data – a practical starting point before investing in full city landing pages.

Step 7: Track Rankings by City, Not by Average Position

National average position data obscures local performance. A page may rank in position 2 in one city and position 40 in another while the tool reports an average position of 12. Without city-level tracking, you have no reliable feedback loop.

Set up location-specific rank tracking for each target city. Monitor:

• Primary and supporting keywords per city
• Local Pack appearance for map-triggering keywords
• Ranking shifts after publishing or updating location pages

Tracking at the city level reveals which cities are close to ranking (positions 8–20, worth targeting with content improvements) versus which require more foundational work (domain authority, citations, profile completeness) before page-level optimization will move the needle.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I Need Separate Pages for Each Nearby City I Want to Rank In?

Yes, in almost every case. A dedicated page per city gives search engines a clear geographic signal and allows you to build unique, location-specific content that serves the actual searcher. A single page trying to rank for multiple cities sends a diluted signal and typically ranks well for none of them. The exception is very small adjacent suburbs with minimal search volume, where a combined neighborhood section within a city page may be sufficient.

How Do I Find Keywords for Cities Where Tools Show No Search Volume?

Use Google Search Console to identify terms already generating impressions from those cities. Use Google Trends to compare relative interest across locations even when absolute volume is unmeasurable. Search the target keyword directly and examine whether any local competitors appear – if they do, a market exists. For African and smaller regional markets, low or zero volume in tools does not indicate absence of demand; it often indicates absence of competition, which is an opportunity.

What Is a Realistic Volume Threshold for City Keywords Worth Targeting?

For major metros like Lagos, Nairobi, or Johannesburg, look for at least 30–100 monthly searches with keyword difficulty under 30. For mid-size cities, 10–50 searches with difficulty under 20 is workable. For smaller towns, even terms showing near-zero volume can be worth targeting if the service has high transaction value, because no competition means even a basic page can rank quickly.

Should I Target "Near Me" Keywords in My Page Content?

No. "Near me" keywords are resolved by the searcher's physical location and Google's understanding of proximity, not by the words on your page. Placing "near me" in headings or body copy does not help a page rank for those queries. "Near me" optimization belongs in Google Business Profile – in the business category, service descriptions, and attributes – not in website content.

How Many Keywords Should Each City Page Target?

Focus each city page on one primary keyword and three to five tightly related supporting terms from the same location. Including neighborhood or district variants of the city is useful. Avoid adding unrelated services or other cities to the same page. A focused, well-structured page targeting a tight keyword cluster consistently outperforms pages trying to capture broad or multiple-location search demand.

How Long Until a City Page Starts Ranking?

For genuinely low-competition local keywords in smaller or mid-size markets, a well-structured page can appear in search results within four to eight weeks of being indexed. Competitive markets with established local businesses may take three to six months and require additional trust signals – citations, backlinks, and a complete business profile – before organic rankings move. Tracking city-level keyword positions from the day of publication creates a baseline for measuring progress.

What Is the Difference Between a Geo-Modified and an Implicit Local Keyword?

A geo-modified keyword includes an explicit location signal, such as "plumber Accra" or "hotel near Nairobi CBD." An implicit local keyword has no location in the search text but still triggers local results because proximity is relevant to the query – for example, "emergency dentist" or "coffee shop open now." Both types matter for nearby-city targeting. Geo-modified terms guide your location page content; implicit terms guide your Google Business Profile categories and service descriptions.

What to Do Now

1. Build your service-and-city seed grid before opening any keyword tool.
2. Add geo-modifiers that reflect how customers in each city actually search – neighborhoods, landmarks, and urgency terms.
3. Validate demand using Google Search Console, Google Keyword Planner, and Google Trends, treating low tool volume in African and smaller markets as an opportunity signal rather than a disqualifier.
4. Audit the SERP for each target keyword to confirm the ranking mechanism matches your strategy.
5. Create one dedicated location page per target city, each built around a focused keyword cluster with genuinely local content.
6. Track rankings at the city level from day one so you have real performance data to act on.

Businesses that want more customers across multiple cities can create a free business listing on Destinali and build a structured local presence across the cities that matter most to their growth.