Local search is booming 80% of U.S. consumers search for local businesses weekly, and 32% do so daily. For home services companies (like plumbers, cleaners, or landscapers), capturing these searches is vital.
The challenge is to target low-competition local keywords and niche phrases that larger competitors overlook to achieve higher visibility. In this guide, we’ll explore how to Find Low-Competition Local Keywords, what makes a keyword “local,” and which tools and tactics can uncover high-value local terms.
Each section is backed by data, case studies, and practical tips.
Why Low-Competition Local Keywords Matter?
Choosing the right local keywords can make or break your SEO strategy. Low-competition local terms offer three key advantages for your business:
Easier to Rank, Faster Results
Targeting less competitive local keywords allows your website to climb search rankings with relative ease. Because fewer sites optimize for these specific phrases, SEO difficulty scores are usually low (often under 30 on a 100-point scale).
In practice, this means a small site can achieve visibility much sooner. One study found that long-tail pages (often including local phrases) can rank in just 2–4 months, whereas broad “head” terms may take over a year.
In other words, instead of battling nationwide companies for a generic keyword like “roof repair,” a new business can quickly rank for a precise term like “roof repair in Walnut Creek” and start drawing traffic.
The short time-to-rank for these niche terms translates into faster results and early wins for your SEO campaign.
More Targeted Traffic = Higher Conversion Rates
Low-competition local keywords tend to reflect highly specific needs, and visitors searching those terms are often ready to act. According to Google, 76% of people who search for something nearby on their smartphone visit a related business within a day, and 28% of those searches result in a purchase.
In other words, local intent searches drive real-world conversions. These keywords also outperform broad terms in general: studies show long-tail keywords convert at 2.5× the rate of short-tail terms.
Industry data further confirms that queries with local intent have 15–30% higher conversion rates than generic searches.
The traffic you get from a phrase like “emergency electrician near me tonight” isn’t casual browsing; it’s a homeowner in urgent need, which is exactly the kind of high-intent traffic that turns into calls, bookings, and sales.
Ideal for New or Smaller Websites
Low-competition local keywords level the playing field for new and small businesses. Big brands and directories might dominate broad terms (“plumber,” “HVAC repair”), but they often ignore very specific local queries.
In fact, 56% of businesses actively optimize for local long-tail keywords, a strategy that helps smaller companies compete with big brands. By focusing on “service + city” searches or neighborhood-specific phrases, a small website can avoid head-to-head competition with industry giants and rank where the giants aren’t paying attention.
The results can be dramatic. For example, a wedding photography company targeting long-tail local phrases saw a 3× increase in ranked keywords and a 32.98% jump in organic traffic, all in a market where generic terms were fiercely competitive.
For a home services startup, this approach is also cost-effective; SEO experts note that targeting long-tail keywords can be ~80% cheaper than trying to rank for broad head terms.
In sum, honing in on low-competition local keywords gives newer sites a fighting chance to attract customers without an astronomical budget.
How to Find Low-Competition Local Keywords?
Finding low-competition local keywords is one of the fastest ways to win in Local SEO, especially for service businesses.
You are not trying to beat giant national brands. You are trying to be the obvious answer in one specific place. Here is how to do that properly.
Start with Services, Not Keywords
Most people open a tool and start typing random phrases. That is backward. First, list every service the business offers in plain language. Think like a customer, not a marketer.
If you are working with a home service company, your base terms might be things like roof repair, water heater installation, drain cleaning, or emergency electrician.
These service terms become the roots. Local keywords grow when you attach real places and real problems to those roots.
Add Location Modifiers the Smart Way
Here is the thing. People do not only search for city names. They search neighborhoods, suburbs, and even nearby landmarks.
Instead of just a plumber in Chicago, look for:
- plumber in Lincoln Park
- emergency plumber near Wrigleyville
- water heater repair Naperville
Type your service into Google and watch Autocomplete. Then scroll to the bottom and check related searches. This shows you how real people phrase local intent without needing fancy software.
Now bring in tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, or SEMrush.
You are not just looking at search volume. You are judging how hard it will be to rank.
Look for keywords that have:
- Low to moderate search volume
- Clear local intent
- Lower keyword difficulty scores
A term with 90 searches a month and weak competitors is often more valuable than one with 1,000 searches dominated by directories and national sites.
Check the SERP Like a Detective
Tools give clues. The search results give the truth.
Search your keyword in an incognito window. Now study page one.
If you see small local businesses, weak content, or outdated pages, that is an opportunity. If you see massive brands, government sites, or huge directories fully optimized, competition is higher than the tool suggests.
Also, look at the Google Business Profiles in the map pack. If some listings have few reviews or poorly optimized profiles, that keyword space is softer.
Find Long-Tail Local Variations
Low competition often hides in longer phrases.
Instead of just furnace repair Dallas, try:
- Same-day furnace repair in Dallas
- affordable furnace repair in Plano
- 24 hour furnace technician near me
Use filters in Google Trends to compare interest across nearby cities or suburbs. You may discover smaller areas with steady demand and far less SEO competition.
Prioritize Buyer Intent
Not all local keywords are equal. Someone searching for what a plumber costs is researching. Someone searching emergency plumber near me is ready to hire.
Focus first on keywords that signal urgency or action:
- near me
- same day
- emergency
- repair
- installation
These convert faster and usually face less content competition because many businesses still chase broad vanity terms.
Build Pages Around Clusters, Not Single Keywords
Do not create one page per tiny variation. Group similar keywords into one strong local service page.
For example, one page can target:
- AC repair Phoenix
- air conditioner repair in Phoenix
- emergency AC repair Phoenix
This builds authority and avoids thin content while still capturing multiple low-competition variations.
What this really means is simple. Think like a local customer, validate with tools, confirm with the SERP, and focus on intent.
Do that consistently, and low-competition local keywords stop being lucky finds and start becoming a repeatable system.
Understanding What Makes a Keyword “Local”
Not every search query is considered local. To find local keywords effectively, you must recognize what signals local intent to search engines. Generally, a keyword is “local” if it is tied to a specific place or region, or if it implies the searcher wants geographically relevant results.
Location-Specific Terms vs. Broad Terms
A location-specific keyword explicitly mentions a place – for example, “air conditioning repair Phoenix, AZ.” A broad keyword like “air conditioning repair” might not specify a location at all.
The distinction is critical. When a search includes a city, neighborhood, or ZIP code, Google knows to return localized results. (In fact, Google’s algorithms have become adept at detecting local intent: around 46% of all Google searches have local intent.)
With a broad term, by contrast, the results might be national or mixed unless Google infers local intent from context.
Always consider whether your keyword clearly targets a location. “Electrician” is generic; “licensed electrician in Boston” or “electrician near me” is local and will trigger Google to show local businesses and area-specific content.
One of the most common and effective formats for local keywords is the “[service] + [city/town]” structure. For instance: “roof cleaning Miami,” “24/7 plumber Dallas,” or “wedding photographer in Napa Valley.”
Including the city or region name directly in your keyword instantly localizes it. Don’t overlook variations – users might search by city, neighborhood, or use informal area names (e.g., “SoHo cafes” in NYC).
Additionally, consider the popularity of “near me” searches as a proxy for local intent. People often type queries like “dentist near me” instead of naming a city, trusting Google to use their device location. This behavior is pervasive – in the U.S.
There are over 5.9 million keywords related to “near me,” and roughly 800 million monthly searches containing “near me”. In short, pairing a service with a location (or a phrase like “near me”) captures users who are searching for a provider in a specific area, which tends to be less competitive than broad nationwide terms.
Google’s Local Search Algorithm Basics
Google uses a slightly different algorithm for local search results, and understanding it can guide your keyword strategy. According to Google itself, local rankings are primarily determined by relevance, distance, and prominence.
Relevance is how well your content or business matches the search query; incorporating location-specific keywords (like city names or service areas) on your site greatly boosts this relevance signal.
Distance is how close your business or the results are to the searcher’s location (or the location term used in the query), something largely outside your control except by specifying the areas you serve.
Prominence relates to how well-known or authoritative your business is (reviews, links, etc.). From a keywords perspective, your main influence is on relevance: including the city, neighborhood, or region in your keywords and content helps Google understand that you’re a relevant result for searches in that locale.
For example, a page titled “Pool Repair Services in <u>Scottsdale</u>” clearly tells Google to consider it for Scottsdale-related pool repair queries. Also note that local searches often display a Map Pack (the top 3 Google Maps results) above the regular results.
Being relevant enough to appear there can be a game-changer – 42% of searchers click on a result in the local 3-pack.
In summary, a “local” keyword usually contains a geographic modifier or context, and optimizing for those terms aligns your site with Google’s local ranking factors by emphasizing relevance to the user’s location.
Identifying great local keywords doesn’t have to be guesswork. There are several tools and methods, many of them free, that can reveal hidden, low-competition keywords specific to your area or industry.
Below, we explore the best options, from Google’s own features to specialized SEO platforms and creative offline sources.
A quick and effective way to generate local keyword ideas is to use Google’s Autocomplete suggestions. Start typing your service or product into the Google search bar and see how it finishes your query.
Google will immediately suggest completions based on popular searches. For example, typing “Italian restaurant <u>Chicago</u>” might autocomplete to “Italian restaurant Chicago downtown” or “Italian restaurant Chicago West Loop,” indicating those are frequent searches.
This is essentially free market research from Google’s immense data. As one expert notes, Google’s own search box is a fantastic starting point: it autocompletes your phrase with a list of suggested searches based on other users’ behavior.
Be sure to experiment with different word orders and partial phrases (e.g, try typing “Chicago Italian res…”). Also, scroll to the bottom of the results page to check “Searches related to” – Google often lists 8 or so related queries there, which can include valuable long-tail variations.
These suggestions and related searches give you insight into actual phrases people are using, including long local descriptors (“best authentic Italian restaurant in downtown Chicago”).
Because they come straight from user queries, they often highlight low-competition long-tails that you might not find by brainstorming alone. Document these ideas for further research.
Google Keyword Planner (with Location Targeting)
Google Keyword Planner, part of Google Ads, is a powerful tool for finding keyword data, and it can be tailored to local research.
By setting a specific location in Keyword Planner, you can discover search terms and see approximate search volumes for your target region (whether a country, state, city, or radius).
Although designed for advertisers, SEOs use it extensively for insights. In fact, Google Keyword Planner is considered a go-to resource not just for PPC but also “a powerful asset for local SEO,” capable of revealing the search habits of your local audience.
To use it, select your region (e.g., your city or service area) and enter a broad service term. The tool will return a list of related keywords along with metrics like monthly search volume and competition level. You might be surprised by the breadth of local queries it uncovers.
For example, using Keyword Planner for an auto repair shop in Albuquerque yielded 1,458 keyword suggestions related to “auto repair” when filtered to that city.
That list included specific terms (from “brake replacement Albuquerque” to “best car mechanic 87110”) that a small business could target. Many of those terms likely have low competition.
Google’s data helps you prioritize you can spot which local phrases have meaningful search volume and are worth optimizing for.
In short, Keyword Planner with geo-targeting gives empirical backing to your local keyword strategy, ensuring you focus on terms that real local users are searching.
Ubersuggest, Ahrefs, SEMrush — with Filters
Beyond Google’s own tools, several SEO platforms offer robust keyword research features with filtering options ideal for local SEO. Tools like Ubersuggest, Ahrefs, and SEMrush have extensive keyword databases and allow you to refine results by location and difficulty.
For instance, you can set Ahrefs to show keyword ideas for “landscaping” in New Jersey, or use SEMrush’s filters to display only keywords with “low” competition or a difficulty score under a certain threshold.
This is a quick way to single out the easy-to-rank local terms. These tools often quantify how competitive a keyword is. (Ahrefs’ “Keyword Difficulty” metric, for example, scores from 0 to 100 based on the strength of current top-ranking pages.)
Most long-tail local phrases show up with very low difficulty scores – commonly under 30/100 in such tools, meaning few strong sites are targeting them. By sorting or filtering your keyword list by low difficulty, you can compile a target list of “low-hanging fruit” local keywords.
Another tip is to input a competitor’s domain – perhaps a similar business in a nearby town – into these tools; you might discover keyword gaps or terms they rank for locally that you haven’t considered.
Keep in mind that third-party tools’ search volume estimates are often national; however, if you’ve narrowed the database to your country or region, you’ll at least see relative popularity.
Using these advanced tools in combination with filters (location, volume, difficulty, etc.) can fast-track your research and ensure you don’t miss valuable local queries that aren’t obvious at first glance.
Google Trends (Local Area Filter)
Google Trends is invaluable for understanding the popularity and seasonality of search terms, and it has specific features for local insights. With Trends, you can enter a keyword and then filter the results by country, state, or even metro area to see how interest varies by location.
This helps you determine, for example, whether people in your city use a different term for a service than elsewhere (“trash removal” vs. “junk hauling”), or to identify emerging local search trends.
You can also compare two terms to see which is searched for more in your region. One powerful use is examining seasonal patterns in your area – e.g., do searches for “heating repair” spike in November in your northern city?
Google Trends will show the interest over time. It also provides a “Regional interest” map and related queries, which are rising in popularity.
An illustrative insight: over the past decade, “near me” queries skyrocketed nationwide – hitting a peak interest score of 100 in mid-2021 and still around 60 as of late 2023.
That sustained high interest indicates people continue to look for nearby solutions more than ever.
By filtering to your city or state, you might find, for instance, that “solar installers” searches are trending up locally, or that residents search for “24-hour plumber near [Local Landmark]” frequently. Leverage these insights by creating content or pages that address those rising queries.
In sum, Google Trends (with the location filter applied) lets you tap into the zeitgeist of local search demand – so you focus on keywords that are not only low-competition, but also timely and relevant for your community.
Local Facebook Groups & Forums
Sometimes the best keyword insights come from listening to how real locals talk about their needs. Community forums, Facebook groups, and sites like Reddit can be gold mines for discovering the language and questions your potential customers use.
For example, a neighborhood Facebook group might have posts like, “Does anyone know a good lawn care service in [Town Name]?” or “Looking for an affordable roof leak repair, any recommendations?”
These posts reveal the exact phrasing people use when seeking services. SEO experts suggest tuning into local social media discussions to pick up on natural language and regional terminology.
By scanning these conversations, you may spot niche phrases (perhaps locals mention a colloquial area name or slang for a service) that you can incorporate as keywords.
You’ll also get ideas for long-tail content – e.g., if many people ask “what’s the price for XYZ in our town,” you could write a blog post addressing that question.
To systematically use this approach, join local community groups (on Facebook, Nextdoor, etc.) related to your industry or city. Use the group’s search function to look up keywords like “recommend” or the service you offer, and see what questions or referrals come up.
Likewise, check platforms like Quora or Reddit for city-specific threads (e.g., a subreddit for your city).
The goal isn’t to spam these forums, but to quietly gather intel. The language you find is authentic voice-of-customer, often containing long-tail keywords that don’t show up in formal keyword tools.
Incorporating these terms and answering these common questions on your site will not only improve SEO for those queries but also make your content resonate more with local readers.
Conclusion
Low-competition local keywords are the unsung heroes of successful local SEO campaigns. By focusing on specific, intent-driven phrases, even a small home services business can rapidly gain search visibility and outmaneuver larger competitors. The benefits are clear: faster rankings, more qualified traffic, and higher conversion potential – all achieved without the uphill battle of competing on generic terms.
