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Which Keywords Should You Target City by City?
Google already tells you which words your customers typed to find each of your locations. The metric is called Searches, it sits in the Performance tab of every verified profile, and it can be downloaded for several profiles at once.
A local keyword is a search that pairs a service with a place, for example “hardware store open Sunday” typed by someone in Saint-Jerome. When a company runs several locations, the temptation is to settle on one keyword list for the whole business. The searches themselves are not the same from one city to the next.
Why keywords change from one location to the next
Customers do not use the same word everywhere for the same kind of business. Hardware store, renovation centre and building supply store often describe the same thing, and the share of each one shifts by region. A location whose profile does not carry the word used in its region stays absent from the searches of that region.
A keyword list settled for the whole company therefore describes an average, and that average matches the market of no single location. Rather than guessing the vocabulary of each city, you can read the one your customers actually used.
Read: Local SEO for multi-location brands: what really matters
Where do you see the words your customers actually typed?
In the Performance tab of the profile, under the Searches metric, which Google defines as “the search terms people used to find your business”. You do not have to guess the vocabulary of each city, since Google reports it location by location.
Three conditions and one limit to know before relying on it.
- The profile must be verified. An unverified profile returns no performance data.
- The Searches metric is updated at the beginning of each month, and updates can take up to five days to appear. The metric is therefore read once a month, at the same pace as your other profile comparisons.
- For several profiles at once, the download runs through the business profile manager: select the profiles you want, then Actions and Insights.
The limit comes from Google itself: search queries appear whenever your profile shows up for a given search, and you cannot manage those queries directly. You read what customers typed, you do not choose the list.
Monthly update and five-day delay: Google Business Profile Help, performance page, consulted 16 October 2026.
Read: How to Measure Google Business Profile Results
How do you choose the keywords for one location?
- Download the searches for all your profiles into a single spreadsheet, through the business profile manager.
- Sort the terms by location rather than for the company as a whole.
- Spot the terms that stand out in one city and not in the others. Those are the ones carrying the information.
- Check that the matching service does appear on that location’s profile, in its primary category as well as in its description.
- Repeat the exercise the following month, since the metric updates at the beginning of each month.
A location whose searches match no service listed on its profile is the first one to fix. The customer looked for something the profile does not mention.
Where do you enter a location’s vocabulary?
The terms found in the Performance tab belong in four places on the profile.
- The primary category. Google asks you to choose as few categories as possible and to describe the main activity, so this one has to name the location’s trade with the word its customers use.
- The business description, where terms specific to the local market belong in sentences rather than in a list.
- The services listed, which name precisely what this location offers and the others may not.
- The attributes, which answer searches carrying a practical constraint, parking or accessibility for example.
These four fields are filled in profile by profile. That is exactly what the search report lets you do: give each location the vocabulary of its own market rather than the one used at head office.
Read: Who Fills In Your Google Business Profile Attributes?
One place stays off limits, the name. Google’s guidelines ask you to represent the business as it is visible to the public on your signage, your stationery and your branding. A name padded with a city or a service exposes the profile to an edit by Google or to a suspension.
