Step 3: Keyword Research
Before creating services or pages, you need to define the keyword pattern your entire campaign will be built on. For local service businesses, this is usually a service + suburb keyword.
Step 3.1: Start with your core service
Begin with the exact service you sell, written the way a real customer would type it into Google. Avoid internal or technical terms and focus on simple, common language.
Examples:
Plumber
Emergency plumber
Blocked drain plumber
If a customer wouldn’t naturally search it, don’t use it as your primary keyword.
Step 3.2: Validate search intent and volume
Before locking in a keyword, you need to confirm two things:
People are actually searching for it
The search intent matches a service booking
Use keyword tools such as:
https://searchvolume.io/
https://www.wordstream.com/keywords
https://seranking.com/keyword-search-volume-checker.html
Check the monthly search volume and compare similar terms. You want the highest searched variation that still clearly represents your service.
If the results show service businesses, ads, and booking-focused pages, the intent is correct.
Step 3.3: Check keyword variations
Next, review close variations of your core service keyword. These are often plural or slightly different wording but can have very different search volumes.
Examples:
Plumbing
Plumbers
Compare these against your main keyword. In many cases, singular service terms convert better for local SEO because they signal intent to hire, not research.
In this example, “Plumber {{suburb}}” has the highest monthly search volume and the clearest buyer intent, making it the best keyword to use for your service pages.
Lock in your keyword and move forward
Once you’ve selected your primary keyword, you’re ready to create your service inside Suburb Stack and start generating suburb-based pages at scale.
By choosing the right keyword upfront, every page you generate is built on real search demand, strong local intent, and higher conversion potential.